Susan Barnett
Susan Barnett was born in Rochester, New York, on April 21, 1945, into a family whose roots traced back to Russia. Her mother, Molly Commissar Barnett, was born in Rochester in 1918, and her maternal grandfather had left Minsk in 1917 amid the pogroms. Her father, Albert Barnett, began as a writer who hitchhiked across the country before training as a stockbroker at a regional brokerage firm, where he became very successful. Susan grew up with two sisters, an older sister and a younger sister named Robin, in a household that placed enormous value on education and self-improvement.
The family first lived in her grandfather's four-family house in the city, near a kosher fish market whose smell of smoked fish left Susan with a lifelong aversion to it. In 1952 her parents achieved their goal of moving the family to Brighton, considered the best school district, where Susan attended Brighton schools and worked on the yearbook and newspaper. She recalled walking to temple, learning Hebrew, and celebrating holidays with chicken soup, matzo balls, and hamantaschen. Her family belonged to conservative congregation Temple Beth El after moving to Brighton, and her grandfather had been deeply involved with the Morris Street shul.
After graduating from Syracuse University in 1967, Susan became a social worker for Monroe County. She married Alan Greenberg, and the couple relocated to Long Island for his work, where their only child, Daniel, was born. Later returning to Rochester and settling again in Brighton, she built a substantial career in financial services, working for a mortgage and securities firm and then for Merrill Lynch, and eventually serving as executive director for upstate New York for State of Israel Bonds. She described her quiet, bright father as her role model and named her son and grandchildren as the things she is most proud of.
Full Transcript
Hey my name is Daniel Greenberg is Friday a 18th 2014 and I'm here to ask questions for an oral history from my mother she's in Barnet let's see where and when were you born I was born in Rochester New York in April April 21st 1945 we born in the hospital or sure I was born in the hospital they had hospitals then I don't know which hospital I'm thinking Highland Hospital do you know how your family happened to settle in Rochester in the first place my mother's father came from Russia in he left in 1917 he left Russia Minsk he was um Sam commissar and his
mother and his wife Dora default Aveiro Dora come aside they came from Russia I don't know how they settled in Rochester but there we were and that's how I happened to be there my mother was born in 1918 in Rochester she was born in Rochester do you know about what your father your father's from Minsk also they were from Russia I think about many many generations my sister Robin was trying to trace when they came over but it's like way back even in the Civil War there were Barnett's I don't know if they were ever in it or yeah my father's name was Barnet they
don't know if they were our Burnett's but no origin of my father who was Elbert Barnet he didn't used to have little names but when he got older he decided he wanted to have my name so first two chosen initial and then they chose another initial he gave a name to this person ischl that's kind of distressing uh-huh my father Albert Barnett became Albert our Barnett and then he thought he wanted her because he thought regis would be a good middle name it was a big reader and then he added me our period be very period barnett so that was interesting my mother was Molly
Commissar Molly Barnett and I've read now that I've looked back a little bit that her name used to be Molly lol oh why Estelle Barnett and she changed her name to Molly mo l l ey he in high school because she wanted to be not like all the other valleys and she changed her middle name to Molly Ellen Marnell so or commissar in high school so I know that was interesting that we all kind of have this singular wanted to make ourselves more unusual compared to our peers in high school on that way too so what did your parents do for a living my father
started out he did writing he was a writer and he hitchhiked across the country when he was young and wrote articles and then he fell in love with my mother and I'm not sure you want me to of course you didn't want to be in the war I guess that would be the second world war so he took a course at Cornell and fell in love with Cornell and worked somewhere I'm not I don't remember where I don't remember a whole lot sorry but then he had a job working for George V B where I'm Bryton company two initials again George deep period BP refine
frightened company a local it was a regional brokerage firm and he was executive a stockbroker and he did very well there so that was a pivotal point in family food they trained him to become a stockbroker they trained him whatever training was in the old days when they had people walking around erasing the prices of the investments of writing the prices up with shock and weight as well he because there no goal of my parents was to movements we lived at that time when we were little in my Sade's house which was a four family he owned a but he bought real estate my saving
was lucky I don't know what he did to make money to buy houses and apartments but he put bought real estate in his home he lived downstairs on the left and we loved lived upstairs on the right in an apartment of course no air-conditioning and my father's big goal was to have enough money to move us out of the city of Rochester into Brighton which was the best school district because as with many Jews education was really important what do you remember about the neighborhood you mentioned that you first lived in an apartment it was that in downtown or we lived in the city but
not downtown we would take a bus to go actually through downtown or go downtown to see a movie when we were little we would take a bus to go to the movies they had movie theaters downtown and we would take the bus to Main and Clinton get off go to mr. peanut and we have a few or my mother would give us a little bit of money we would go buy pistachios pistachios and then we break the pistachio go to the movie theater always the same thing go to the movie theater eat the pistachios get our fingers read in our faces read and risk our front teeth cracking them open that never happened I did it not that no it is not them and what what did your mother work at all my mother wanted to go to college but she was my baby I can't remember it was a long time ago she was the last child
of my grandparent and she was the girl like my buddy wanted to grow and so they finally had a girl it was level cell that was uncle yo he's been there was uncle I can't remember I full name they live out west beside your father's side ya know my mother your mother side - oops Ivan uh-huh what do you remember about your fiance D memories always foggy my grandparents were kind of like they used to have the country corn flake a couple in ads in TV they were my grandfather was a stern guy not skinny like the country corn flake dad you should look that
up google it Daniel a country corn point now there was a country I think over the Kellogg's product and see they would have a man and a woman the man would be thin I think he was holding some kind of a pitchfork or something just or maybe a rape and the woman had it like a fun I bet when I looked at them or when I saw at the Country Club like I thought of my buddy innovating they were very stern they had a tough childhood they were Jews in Russia who were being exterminated in the pogroms in 1917 and so they so they would
giggle a happy people they came to America they learned English best they could and like my Bubbe my Sadie was very serious my bubby was the one who was the most demonstrative although not so demonstrative and the big thing she hits the money we would walk that we chose Avenue and get a jelly doughnut that was a big thing so we would call you when to get the jelly doughnut that's what I remember they were and we were going downstairs and they would be sued and just nice things like that and behind their house my childhood behind their house they had it was just a
house in the city and there were all these nasty weeds growing and the kind you would pick and then you would pull down little seeds why didn't know I was receding weeds and then also I remember in my childhood that my daily house was very old they didn't have really floors they had like dirt these are old houses they know it in the basement so this is what ever ever whether it's true or not but this is what I remember uh-huh so there were little rooms and they would store things down there yeah that's what I remember and I said you're canning and like my
book in your camo and then going to it what was market with my Bubbe on Saturday morning we'd go to public market I Bobby show hot to the butcher and they she would pick out a chicken they would cut off their head on the chicken and then over the gas stove she would pull the pin feathers pull out my feathers and then we would make that chicken soup and I loved it but what about your your other grandparents what did you call them Bobby Barnett oh do you call them both Bobby Bobby and Bobby my my mother's parents were above his lady and my father's
parents were Bobby Barnett and Sadie Barnett which ones were you just talking about baby my mother's parents are closer to your mother what about your father's parents can you tell me about the Barnett's they didn't look so far away they were also serious people I can't picture I can't picture my father's relatives very much because for some reason they live very close we you see them very much it was kind of like I guess my mother because I'm comfortable I don't know but we never really we didn't have a big family but it wasn't very close so we would go see them but like all
events if it was a holiday or something it would be with my bubbie and Zayde me my mother's family and my but my Sadie was a big deal at the temple across the street the Morris Street show the Morris Street show land Moore Street in my savings house and everything they were all destroyed in the whole streets client in the riots in the 60s race fry is mystic see really Wow so do you remember what your what's yours ad Burnett did for a living I know I guess I just think that what he did is I think he was I think everybody was a tailor
when they came over but I don't remember him doing tailor thing I just remember like sitting on the front porch and maybe taking us you know we would go to Temple across the street and we're in Hebrew haha there in the outer space and then there was another temple we went to and during the riots somebody threw his boat guy in the head during the riots on his way back from sure was there I think we had already moved to New York then my husband what about so tell me about your your sisters when you were young growing up what are your memories oh oh
probably enjoys and spending time with them I really have years younger than my big sister you know they're both bigger than I am I'm the little one in the family I'm three and a half years younger and I am seven years older than my baby sister Robin and they're both taller and they're both dark and they both have wavy hair or curly hair if it was shorter and they're both more serious than I am and I know that I don't have many memories I mean Robin was born and I was 3 years old but I do remember asking my father if he didn't like me
why do they have to have another really yeah what was your relationship like thank you with with your mother and your father relationship for communicate you want to come up here this is my granddaughter this is F Gail what's C I got a grand she's my older granddaughter say hi say hi right here right there by the camera say hi so what was your relationship with your parents my parents my mother was um I discovered after she passed away and I looked at all these old photograph books she was a very beautiful young woman and my father had dark hair and maybe dark hair or
curly dark hair she I think she always wore it kind of short she was very beautiful I never knew that she was my mother and she was never she was my mother and she worked hard oh I forgot to answer for awhile she was a bookkeeper when we were and we lived on Warren Street she was a bookkeeper for a while for a man I think it was he was either a businessman or an accountant I'm not sure whether or maybe for both of these people I think the name was prophets Roman the accountant mr. Provost yeah and I think he's he was around for a while and who I think he became I think he was a client of my father's when my father was a stockbroker I respected my parents I think it was more a feeling of here and my father was out working so when he was home my mother when he wasn't known my mother would say if I was if I hate being badly she'd say oh I was crazy manly I'm gonna tell your father and he's gonna strap you that's what they called it a strip and there was always this belt hanging up will you discipline
that way I think I was really disciplined that way but I think once my older sister was always trying to touch she wasn't my best friend and so she would have like anything I would do she'll be back she'll be back honey in just a minute okay you want to sit on my lap with SAFTA I'm stuff that I'm not buddy is a V or Buffy I'm softer to my grandchild my grandchildren are we talking about we're talking about your your sisters I'm in a relationship okay my big sister no he's trying to get me in trouble so she would like tell on me and
one day I remember it was a Saturday or something and we had TV a black-and-white TV and there must have been in the we moved from my Xavi's house to Brighton in 1952 so it had to be like around 1950 1951 so I remember once my older sister I think I for some reason somehow some way okay I'm principal baby Howland something like that and my sister fern told my mother my older sister did and my mother when she's a mom I have a runny nose today my mother when she came up ran and heard this and took me in this bathroom it was one
little bathroom very old house and the two bedrooms in the back I'll tell you about that and she took me into the bathroom and took her a virus soap and wash my mouth out with soap and then I think lunch was I don't know but I know what it was but I never ate that food again another trauma in my child oh the younger sister she did she was a little wrong but she didn't know rabbit she didn't really know what was going on so the two of them were kind of like sounds paranoid but gang up on me so they would like try to
get me in trouble or giggle you know tickle me until I get golden my mother would always say someone's gonna be crying soon someone's nobody crying because everybody was giggling then you know pretty soon that's gonna happen we lived my parents lived in the front room that was their bedroom in the front room and then you'd walk through their room to get onto the front porch you would enter into the living room into this apartment then there was the kitchen and the two bedrooms there was a bathroom off the kitchen and the two bedrooms mine and my older sisters and we were in the backyard
our bedrooms and behind us on Joseph Avenue was a kosher fish market and Bernie orit's who just passed away it was it could have been Orestes then it could have been or it's this fish market and on Thursdays he would start smoking the fish for Friday making smoked fish and making locks and it used to be real hot well it still gets hot in the world but we didn't have air conditioning of course and up on the second floor the smell of a smoked fish would come in was that from down the street no was from behind us or our backyard back down Joseph Avenue
which was a commercial street just like Clinton Avenue is not Morris tree Morris Street was our Street which was off Joseph Avenue and Joseph Avenue is where they had Cohen's a delicatessen upstairs was my parents wedding in 1939 in Cohen's Ellicott Essen they had but behind was this fish market and also Gulf I think it was gol F gulfs was kind of like a place I know I don't know what we used to buy there but we'd go in if we ever had a nickel we buy a popsicle usually a purple a blueberry popsicle I think they were blue they were blue pop signals and
that was the big deal to get a popsicle but anyway on Thursdays Bernie horas would smoke the fish make smoked fish that awful smell especially in the heat would come into our bedrooms to this day I could be one of the few Jews in the world are there few anything's who doesn't eat smoked fish or lacks I don't even like smoked damn it I don't like smoked cheese I just don't because of my childhood with a fish market okay it was this the house that got destroyed in the riots yes the whole streets gone Wow and that's the one that Bobby mzv also lived that's
where they owned yes okay and they want lots of houses or I don't know but they had some real estate where they had income we we live closer to number nine school which was unclear I'm Joseph Avenue right and our house was near the corner of Joseph and Monroe and Moore Street but the better school because we were in the city and it was an immigrant neighborhood where immigrants came in and the neighborhood was always changing depending who the new immigrants were it was mostly Jewish at that time and we moved somehow our parents are able to get us to attend number 20 school number
20 school night we had to walk to the other end of our street Moore Street and then cross go down Clinton Avenue I think to Oakland Street in it was a better school it wasn't some many people who might you know it was with more people who maybe wanted to get an education and didn't act out that much and I remember near my little school we were a little we were only there I think second grade and then maybe early on in second grade we moved to Brighton but up until then there was like a little penny candy place we go to right across from
that school this is what I remember and there was somebody who asked me over to have dinner at their house a friend but they weren't Jewish and we had a kosher house and my parents made the big thing about you know they won't have kosher meat anyway they made me hamburgers for dinner it didn't taste like my mother's hamburgers and I remember going in to use their phone to ask my mother to come get me because I was all upset about nine kosher meat so did you eat it no I left probably never friends with these people again but not everybody in the neighborhood was
Jewish obviously that was Morris where they're mostly Jews and Morris many Jewish people different immigrants but mostly yeah a lot of Jewish people lots of weeds in the backyards and metal fences and front porches and other other things you remember that you did for fun when you were when you were a kid you are mentioning the movies and such that movies might have been after we moved to brighten the my father was a big bridge player and when he he would play in bridge tournaments the contract bridge duplicate bridge the card game and he was very good at that he doesn't do much he just
did whatever he did well so he was becoming a life master and our trips which is a great a good position when you're a bridge player to be a life master they call it you get 300 master points and it's I'm not a member of the a CBL the American Contract Bridge League because I don't think I wouldn't live long enough to get those master points but I did I do play bridge now probably not so well but well enough I think and I enjoy playing it's good for the brain and I kind of emulated my parents playing my father was always a better player
than my mother but my father would go to these bridge tournaments and our trips are holidays our vacations would be going to a bridge tournament staying in a room house and like fine memories when we were little aren't the most wonderful times we were going to a bridge tournament staying in a rooming house in the Adirondack Mountains like I'm second a girl late I think it was and if we were real good we could buy a hot dog a cherry pop and I'm not sure if we got french fries but then Oh a popsicle hot dogs cherry pop and a popsicle and I always wanted
to get by lunch like almost immediately when I got there because it was such a big thing to look forward to when we had no money so this was very exciting what do you remember about school you mentioned you moved too bright and all the school like no scary movie I don't remember much except that hamburger incident non-kosher meat about and walk it out walking to school back in Morris Street walking to school there were so many chestnut trees and I would always walk on these chestnuts I still think of them when I walk over chestnuts now but there are many fewer chestnut trees and
we used to collect the chestnuts and try to bring home once that were kind of open that little pods for the chestnuts inside mara Street here in Brighton school was tougher and it was presented to me as such a this is the best school and its number one school and is the best school and you wanted the best best best and so I was a little bit intimidated I remember something in school it's really kind of stupid but I hope you take this as cute for little girls when I'm gone I remember one question on a math test was how many inches in a foot
and I wanted to get the answer right so I kind of didn't do a good thing I lifted up my desk in those days the desks used to lift up I don't know what they do now and you could like set them down where there'd be a little incline I pulled out a ruler and I measured my foot to see how many inches so even with doing this not right and actually taking out a ruler to see how many inches and a foot I measured my foot instead of a 1 foot so there's a cute story from safta also I remember it was important to
be accepted a lot I didn't realize that Brighton was like one of these click places I didn't know what that meant so when I came in I tried to be friendly with people I was invited to parties and it was really important to be accepted that at Brighton so I studied and it wasn't easy for me my sister's it was easier for them to do well at school and I didn't realize until maybe recently that I have like a learning disability I don't know what it is something about it isn't really dyslexia but it's something where I'd twist things around which probably prevented me from
doing well at math I can handle things big-picture I can I could I can do a lot of things and I can I'm very sad had successful careers but in school this learning disability of whatever sort I've never really been able to explain it clearly to get an answer but I've been able to compensate for it my whole life until recently it's been kind of an expensive learning disability thinking that I'm choosing the right answer and then after I hit that little computer enter send then I realized oh my gosh I can't change this for another year and I like cut myself out of enrolling
in a dental plan at a place I worked things like that it's like my brain twists it around so I did well but not as well as my sisters who were very bright so everybody went to Cornell I was a Syracuse alum and Cornell on weekends for parties at Cornell fine thing do you remember activities and interests that you had in high school going high school I was on the yearbook my father was a big writer and I was proud when my son went to high school and especially when he was at Harley and learned how to write um uh yet some very good teachers
and Harley I I wrote some what I always emulated my father the man with wavy blond hair and I really kind of take after his family more than my mother's family I think did you have any other interests of activities and I was in your book your what I was under yearbook I don't know if it's the committee but I was one of the people I think I was some kind of editor or something on the yearbook I think I was on the newspaper that did you want inside I wrote the trapezoid yeah the trapezoid which our school was Brighton I went to Brighton Elementary
there was no primary school when I was there but I was there in second grade anyway and then Brighton High School before all the add-ons and we were women Elmwood and Monroe and if you looked at the streets they formed a trapezoid so I always on the trapezoid so what about what made you pick Syracuse I I don't know I guess my parents kind of led us to think about schools in the Northeast and I went to Cornell I kind of wasn't even really keen on going to Cornell maybe if I tried a little harder at the my sister was such a beep if she
was so successful at Cornell I like the fourth day she was there she met this guy who became her husband they're still married oh my god and it's 19 no it's 2014 and oh she's still married to Peter met him the father Joyce your wife's my older sister and I thought holy cow how am I going to duplicate that so actually following in her footsteps to the same school and everything I thought I would be I don't know whether I ever voiced this to my parents but I kind of thought I would be held up to the same example so it was just too difficult
to following choices footsteps they weren't always stellar but the ones that would matter they wouldn't compare me to the bad things Joyce did I had my own unique bad things that I was known for to my family like what okay yeah bad things we you troublemaker at all I think kind of I think as many people do I think I made I joked around because I think when were when were little or when were older or when were even over yet we try to get attention from people so I would be like the person who would make jokes I still make jokes but it's it's
more part of my personality and I've kind of proven to my even my own amazement I've done things that if you were told me way back when I was in elementary school or high school this is what you're gonna do with your life and this is what you will have done and succeeded at or or by the time you're Toby Cocker I really be 69 years old I would say no I could never do that you know she said this is what your jobs you will do this is the places you'll travel I would never believe that I could do that so what did you
study in college that's hurt I thought it was important well I like to Syracuse I got there and I know people really told me what you're doing you go to college sauce and everybody was going to register and someone said you really need to do this so I don't know where I missed the part about what happens what you're accepted but there I wanted regice for classes I don't know general liberal arts classes and then it got to be time to declare a major and in those days women were either teachers nurses or social workers have got to be new to be a social worker
and it was in the early 60s so I graduated no mid-sixties I graduated Syracuse 67 and I thought I'd be a social worker I wasn't keen on blood still not teachers I didn't have the patience I think my mother was impatient I know she was an impatient person and my father was quiet why didn't he was always there but he wasn't a noisy person he's another thing about my father the first year he was in George TV by bright he won a prize which was a year membership at a country club and then he he kept his business growing and maintained that membership at Midvale
Country Club which was mostly Italian then they took in Jewish people when they needed money then when the Jews needed money as things went on they brought in more Italian people so it was a Jewish Italian club my father was a champion golfer there too and also very successful playing jin-hee in my parents went there and dance they love ballroom dancing at the Country Club the thing about the countess had taught us it kind of finished us off and it was a place that taught us how to behave with nice people and taught us about things like you know it's important to our parents to
teach me my sister of choice my younger sister Ivan to go to ballroom dancing school so we could dance it like the bar mitzvahs the my name is the table mitzvahs the sweet 16 parties were over and then in life Jenna had dance to know what Forks to use to kind of finish us off to know about things which I kind of realized now that I'm late a lot of people didn't have those advantages and all these really helped all of us know how to act or what to do but you asked me something about why did I choose to be a social worker I
chose to be a social worker oh yes all right my parents weren't very my father my mother who was with us most of the time was not a patient person so having children and being a teacher although both my sisters have careers in education initially was not something that I would that I really wanted to do I didn't have that patience and I thought I wanted to help people so I'll be a social worker and I think now in retrospect that trying to help people maybe it was way dabbing people don't like me if I help them maybe that was kind of my backdoor if
I help them they're gonna like me you know I don't care who you are or where you are but that's kind of what I look back now and think and unfortunately I learned early on that people when I was a social worker it just became it just the first year I was there at Monroe County it became it was called the welfare department and then they moved to the new building and called the Department for the Department of Social Services and that year is when the people who we were trying to help started to take over a building because they were entitled to have winter
coats every other year but I wasn't I didn't have enough money to buy a winter coat tough for me I wasn't on social services so this kind of colored my political views I could be the only Jewish Republican Rochester so they had more than you did they were entitled then I'm working for a living and I'm not entitled and then he started calling my house at Thanksgiving time I was one of the newbies at the social services so I only was a lot of max number of Turkey baskets where you you can drop off to people's houses for Thanksgiving or Christmas Alaska where the turkey
can cut I only had such a a small amount so you didn't have enough for them for all your clothes no no no so I started to feel bad about this they were calling my house at that point my husband job in New York he was working for Merrill Lynch I was still at home being a social worker living by myself in an apartment in Rochester in Rochester and so he was training hoping to come back to her he would he was training in New York hoping to come back to Rochester and have a job here but it never happened we are gonna put the
job in New York but that's later on and so here my mother and I ran down to Park edge which was a grocery store bought some chickens and turkeys and Watson Kenseth and tried to put together tricky baskets and then we would drop them off for more people and then more people wanted and everybody was entitled you spent your own money on this yes so how long did you stay with Social Services uh-uh-uh Ellen my husband found out that he wouldn't be working in Rochester he would come home every other weekend to be with me his new wife in he used to work for JC
Penney and company and then he got a job working for Merrill Lynch in the back office so he was starting to work in Garden City we had to relocate so we got an apartment in Garden City so I turned in notice at Social Services when I went to New York I tried to get a job in social services what they had were some openings at like parole office where I need to carry a gun or something and so I went to this a little bit and like some training and decide what did we want to do man I don't remember what I did on Long
Island in the beginning and then I became pregnant shortly after I got there and I had my one and only child Daniel my son so you kind of skipped the part of how you met your husband Alan Greenberg I didn't hear you ask me how did I meet you on a blind date I think I met him on a blind date we still in college or yeah on a blind date in college and thought it was kind of a creep so I did go out with him big Davey took me by his father and a pharmacy and around the quite grew by there was my
father's pharmacy Greenberg's pharmacy and you know isn't a bad person but and then there was in college and I was coming up to the end of college my fourth year and somebody at the Country Club maybe I'll Country Club said I have this wonderful nephew and he's tall and he's dark and he's handsome and he just graduated college a couple years ago and he's got a good job you want to go out with him so somebody fixed me up with him again and it was at work and he didn't know it was gonna be him a second time I thought I'd give him another diamond
I thought I'd give him another try I'm always giving people another try giving people being nice to people maybe because other tribes weren't that easy in my house to get so and he seemed like a nice guy and he was thoughtful he sent me cards and he was thinking about me and stuff he is funny used and when he first pulled up my parents lived on clover Street pulled up in his convertible I think it was that it Chevy or something and he was wearing a sport jacket with a pocket scarf my mother said but then it was he worked at JC Penney in those
days and you pull out the pocket scarf and it was like 90% paper that you get from the dry cleaner and then at the top would be like that like an inch and a half of fabric no but you would yeah that was the thing that they were then so but I guess it was dapper and it was funny you go to his parents house and they were all nice people but you'd ring the doorbell and it would ring hava nagila which always creeped me out a little bit we didn't come from that kind of they were there doorbell was Hava Nagila yeah I was
like I yeah it probably still is in Susie's house if you ring the doorbell is probably no gala hi and so they are always very warm and loving but I don't know I think they thought we were from Brighton and they were from around to quite people had two roads when they left the city did you well they either went to around to quite in our case Brighton one see if she could move to Brighton you were really worried you were really lucky and that was the better area that was always our perception and that's where that's where I've been when I came back to
Rochester with my little family Daniel and his and my husband Alan we bought a house in Brighton and I'm still in brain tell me about your your Jewish affiliations like when you were when you were young did your family belong to a senator a lot of designer guys right oh my Sadie was the Shama should I don't know what that means but that was a big deal at the Moore Street show and then wasn't the baby Street show there was another show not far we used because we always walked a tempo walk to Temple for the holidays and for the big holidays not for daily
minion which would be the Morris tree which was right across the street from my zaydis house but the and where we learned Hebrew but the other show I wish I could remember them that was the big show maybe the Ryan Street run our H ine Rhine Street show I think I have something conservative or oh they were all worth it is that what conservative came I think after World War Two there everybody begins see your grandparents were we're Orthodox yeah what about your parents were they my my parents were the next there was no conservative I think after world war two became reform and then
I think the backlash from reform because people didn't want to be known as Jews so much in America especially the German ones because the Jews were almost annihilated in World War two that was the horror of World War two dominating Jews racial you might say so so do you think that reform was created because of that yeah but especially right on German Jews in America didn't want to be thought of as those Orthodox Jews with the keepo - all the time walking around and being so visibly in the tallit and don't remember I think my Sadie had tallied all the time and he was praying
but he was not with the pay is full yeah I think he was mostly home I don't remember he was in the hot seat it was no hot seat but then and then so from the reform the backlash to the conservative my family was conservative so we would drive to Temple I still have a kosher house I still don't eat pork although I think I'm college for some reason there was a big deal to have bacon but that was short-lived and I wouldn't eat pork or shellfish I don't eat shellfish did you have a Bar Mitzvah sure it was worth a tart sir no temple
beth-el which was concerned that when we moved to Brighton that was the temple to shine that was the conservative temple and then they had bat mitzvahs in Friday night how did your family celebrate Jewish holidays oh you're growing out like we do now then we walked a temple or in Brighton we drove to Temple go buy a new outfit for a temple in school usually apply a dress for me something big that will last a couple years shoes were always big my mother went to school to a night school to learn how to sew made me coats that had big hems that would last for
years hems in the arms hems in the bottom part that would last you know a lot because we didn't have much until we could have money but how do we celebrate holidays do you know was Oh holidays were great with chicken soup with matzo balls and and whatever you do on all the holidays we had that and and my mother would make hamantaschen and my mother would make or might save you would for my Bubbe would and tail off my mother would make and she has all these old recipes that I guess now we're online and we've sent them on to Leah all these old-fashioned
recipes it was it was a lot of fun the holidays were a lot of fun they thought the fasting I remember I couldn't right now remember once I was talking to a friend the phone and I realized you shouldn't even be on the phone on Yom Kippur we were studying because the next day there was a test at school Brighton was a Jewish area so always even now there was no schools closed on Yom Kippur and Rosh Hashanah you know Brighton school district because there are so many Jews in the area did you family have any special participation at the in the Jewish community mentioned
your Sadie did I like your parents were they involved this year no father I don't think was a men's club he was not a big his family they have their in the Jewish cemetery on Lake Avenue Robin knows the name of the cemeteries and the Barnett's have a very big area there they have a big area in that Jewish cemetery the commissar and my mother's family had much well they don't have an area but for a while there was like a metal railing this whole area that was reserved for the Barnett's and these big headstones they're very everybody was very stern and serious this is
how I remember the people in the and when they were little about my parents them so my father was not especially observant I mean he always it he was kosher you wouldn't need shellfish or anything I don't remember my parents ever doing anything like that gosh I can't remember my first pizza I got all these things that that were kind of a strange first time they're not strange anymore my mother and I remember we're doing anything hey they had parties I'm Brooklyn driving backyard for their bridge playing friends and stuff for their club friends where they make my mother always forgot the jello mold in
the refrigerator she always made each other always forgot that but people who bring food and then after everybody left we find the jello mold in the refrigerator it's kind of a tradition we didn't do it on purpose so that growing up too dear family have much interaction with the Gentile community or just Gentile no it's funny it's it's interaction I think the fact that my members were my family was members in a Jewish Italian Country Club so they were exposed my father was an account executive not and I think they the Jewish community I don't know about everywhere but in Rochester is kind of odd
sometimes they're talking to you and sometimes not so we there was never any doubt we were always members of temples always had you know we would have a bat mitzvah we would always go to college these were given there was never any question education was a big thing for us my parents were never been my mother probably more so because her mother was very Orthodox I don't think my father's family was they were Jewish but they were not especially observant did you attend Sunday school he was oh oh yeah yeah did you come about as fact do you remember anything about it at all I
remember then I had Cantor Rosenbaum and that Cantor Rosenbaum he coached me on my fat mitzvah did I hear him I think you did too and I remember when I lost my father that was the first person I lost my family and I remember in the minion I saw him one day and I thanked him and I said you taught me every prayer that I would need to know from when you go to the minion there are certain prayers like their meat and stuff and there was one prayer II didn't do you actually - now that they do the ASHRAE Hajek you may know and
I wish that I could say them I guess now they teach you that when you become a bar miss for about Mitzvah these are some of the things they teach us so that when you put a temple you can just say them just like some of the other prayers that you learned you can just say wrote okay so about you told me about your work as a social worker tell about the other I know deco plants was that the next thing that you did Oh as a job I'm not talking that duh but you can come and keep me company let's see in New York
became distant about with Merrill Lynch and so then we used to find something to do and I started working for this home party planned several plans and Alan got a job with them where he was traveling and I I was working like doing party play just to bring in money we needed money and we had a house by then we lived in an apartment in Port Washington and it became evident with Merrill Lynch are gonna be staying for a while in New York so we bought a house in plain to you and Daniel was born in flames you know Daniel was born in Port Washington
when we lived there he was born actually in Great Neck so ralston purina ended up they were opening up centers all over the country and they were opening up in Rochester and so they moved us back to Rochester they paid for a move and we ran the facility in Rochester then Ellen went traveling I stayed in Rochester ran things then they closed then I went and got a job working anymore how were tailoring company which was secondary market mortgage broker investment banker I didn't know what to do he just said here's a book read these papers these are your clients start talking and I was
the oldest one of his people and the only woman and I was successful there till he went bankrupt and then I had many licenses from Howard Taylor because we were selling securities too so I applied for a job reluctantly at a wire service firm the best in Rochester being Merrill Lynch and they accepted me which was odd because they didn't accept many women at all nor many men either but women were even fewer by number and more difficult to get hired and I worked at Merrill Lynch for a while things got a little wild there into the after the savings and loan crisis in the
early 90s that's when Howard what our tailor went bankrupt I started from 90 to 89 to 296 9 I think it was 89 to 96 it was the 82 was the banking crisis mmm 80 1996 I was working for Merrill Lynch and then I had an opportunity to work for State of Israel somebody my friends the rat boy says recommend that I get a job they recommended me for State of Israel pods and I was the executive director for upstate New York for State of Israel mines by then I had gotten a divorce from my first husband and I was living on my own my
son was already out of the home at Syracuse University in the 90s actually we'll talk more again but let me just ask you some wrap-up questions who are your role models I guess my father was always my biggest he was always quiet and always bright and always respected me have this great dry sense of humor and I just it didn't matter my mother it was hard to ever please her my father was the person who really mattered to me and for my father to be upset and to want to strap me which I don't think he ever did but for him to be upset with
me so he would be my role model no I'd always want him to be proud of me give any other role model sir I can't think of my what are you most proud of my son of my grandchildren and is there anything my grandchildren are the world I never thought I would have grandchildren they're so grateful that Daniel found this wonderful girl Leah and that they have this wonderful family that's the thing that I'm most grateful for okay and we'll talk again some other time to thank you for this interview sure it wasn't so hard was it oh wow we've been talking for a while
yeah I don't know how to stop this but Laster how to do that okay all right thank you yeah was that so bad was it no maybe she'll treat you to a planet well yeah I'm sure we can find one here yes oh we can do it again just push that that's sign button well you