..inte: Royal D. Marks ..intr: Geoffrey E. Gonsher ..da: 1984 ..ca: ..ftxt: An Interview with Royal D. Marks September 12, 1984 Transcriptionist: Carol Ruttan Interviewer: Geoffrey E. Gonsher Arizona Jewish Historical Society Log For Royal D. Marks Interview Pages 1-2 Earliest memories of Arizona; home at 10th Avenue and Adams Harold Marks 3 Father encouraged to move to Miami Arnette Ellis Marks or Globe, Arizona in 1906; came to Freeda Marks Phoenix from Chicago 4 Building of house at 33 West Willetta 5 Adams School; McKinley School; Monroe Harry Rosenzweig School; Kenilworth School Stan Gray Kenny Flickenger Funk family 6 Jewish Sunday School; 1917 Rosenzweig Eli Gorodezky Friedman 6 First rabbi in Phoenix Rabbi Glicknets 7 Services held in Knights of Pythias Hall in Donofrio Building and in old Melczer Building 7-8 Bar Mitzvahed at home Dr. Reese Couch Roy Christy Harry Roberts Luhrs' boys 8-9 Members of the Arizona Club Charlie/Abe Korrick 9 Discipline at home 9 Rosh Hashonah services at home George Mince Korrick Family Diamond family 10 No anti-Semitism in early Phoenix Members of Phoenix Country Club Parents both active in politics 11-13 Father an attorney; involved in Indian's rights - Walapai/Santa Fe case 13-14 Graduate Phoenix Union High School; attended Phoenix Junior College 14-15 Received appointment to Annapolis; Senator Ashurst came back to Phoenix in 1927 Newton Rosenzweig Harry Rosenzweig 15 Worked on City of Phoenix water department Senator Jackson Dean McClu 16-17 Admitted to University of Southern California; Rufus B. Von graduated 1932 Kleinschmidt 18-19 Began work with Union Oil Company at Desert Center, California; then Redlands, California; then Burbank 19-20 Brother killed in plane crash Harold Marks Harry Rosenzweig Dick Fennemore Lucille Marks Buddy Marks Harold Marks, Jr. 21 Came back to Phoenix in 1936 to Cecille Marks to study law with father Marion Marks 21-22 Effect of Depression on Phoenix 22-23 Father attorney for YMCA; president of Volunteer Firemen's Association; active in Masonic fraternity; founder of Silver Trowel Lodge; active in Morris Goldwater Republican politics; honored by the Phoenix Ca\Chamber of Commerce 24 Arizona democratic until 1950's of 1960's Roger Levine Tom Campbell G.W.P. Hunt 25-26 Mother was Republican national committeewoman; in the President Coolidge legislature; founder of Phoenix President Hoover Council of Jewish Women 26 Helped start the Young Veterans Charlie Garland Republican Club; secretary of Republican State Central Committee From 1946 to 1952 27 Activities growing up in Phoenix; Lewis family Willetta Street Gang; Goldwater Gang Fannin family Rosenzweigs 28 Helped found Sertoma in 1948; was on international board of directors 28 Helped establish first youth Karen Stalcup employment service 29 Became international president of Sertoma International in 1958 29 Activity in University of Southern California activities; on alumni board Royal Marks Interview This is Geoffrey Gonsher from the Arizona Jewish Historical Society. It's September 12, 1984 and today I'm going to be interviewing Mr. Royal Marks. GONSHER: Good afternoon, Mr. Marks. How are you today? MARKS: Good afternoon, Mr. Gonsher. I'm fine. GONSHER: Good. As you know, we are interviewing members of the Jewish community who have been in this community for a number of years and you are my first interview. Why don't we start the questioning off just with some general discussion. Perhaps you can share with us some of your very earliest memories of being in Arizona. MARKS: Well, I can well remember -- I don't remember the home in which I was born but I remember our second home was at 10th Avenue and Adams. We had a nice home there in that corner. That was just a block from the Phoenix Library, still in existence on West Washington. We were at 10th Avenue and Adams. One of the experiences I well remember as a youngster is we in the summertime used to sit out on the porch. We had a great big dog. It was part St. Bernard and it was a huge dog. In fact, he used to stand guard over me when the folks would go somewhere and he'd stay right there with me. We were visiting around, sitting outside and thought we heard a ruckus in the back. I think I must have been about five or six years old. First thing we knew the dog started barking and that would shake this whole house. It was a frame house. We saw this Indian woman running around the corner with the basket; they always carried the basket on their head on which they carried the pots they'd go around trying to sell the different pottery. They carried this basket. Here comes this Indian woman running with the basket on her head just as hard as she could run. Evidently, she'd been in the back trying to get in the back to steal something. But the dog scared her off. I remember that so vividly as though it happened yesterday. GONSHER: Do you remember your dog's name? MARKS: Bruno. When the folks used to take us down to the old LaMar Theater there was a theater about what is now 1st Street and Adams there used to be a theater in there. They used to take us to the show, carry us in when I was a baby. My brother was five years older than I was. His name was Harold marks. He was born in Chicago when dad first came out here. Harold was an infant and of course I was born here. GONSHER: What year was that? MARKS: January 15, 1909. At that time it was 21st Avenue and Jackson. I went down to see some time ago if the house was still there. There are some homes over on Madison but Jackson is all a steel yard in there now. That used to be one of the best sections in town that is behind the old capitol, the capitol building was there of course. I don't remember living in that place. The first home I remember was at loth Avenue and Adams. GONSHER: When did your parents come to Arizona? MARKS: First dad came to Arizona in 1906. He came out to look the situation over. He wanted to move the family out and I well remember dad telling the story that he went to discuss locating here in the state and the banker that he got acquainted with said, "Barney, you ought to go up to Miami and Globe where the activity is." Phoenix at that time probably had five to seven thousand people. He said, "You ought to go up to Miami and Globe, Arizona where the activity is" -- big towns, mining. So dad went up, the story goes, that he told me and the family, and he came back very disgusted. He said he couldn't bring his family out from Chicago to such a community where it was mostly whorehouses and saloons. GONSHER: Was Phoenix much different in those days? MARKS: Yes, Yes. Phoenix didn't have that same activity that mining towns had or the same desires of the male population. GONSHER: You mentioned your father's name is Barney. What was his full name? MARKS: Arnette Ellis Marks. GONSHER: And your mother's name? MARKS: Freeda Marks, Freeda Lewis was her maiden name. Dad was born in Wyve, that's W-y-v-e. Russia. So was my mother. They came over with family. My grandfather moved dad's family to Glascow, Scotland. From there they emigrated to Chicago. Mother's father and mother were named John and Leah Lewis. They emigrated to Detroit where mother and dad had met and the families were good friends. Mother and dad were married in Chicago. As I say, I had a brother, Harold A. Marks, who was five years older than I and he was an infant when we came out here in 1906. GONSHER: Was he your only brother? MARKS: Yes. He was killed in an airplane accident in 1936. That's when I came back to be with my father. GONSHER: You say you came back to be with your father. Where were you in the interim? MARKS: I was in Los Angeles. Let's go back just a little bit. I think a little bit of the early history was there at 10th Avenue and Adams. Mother wasn't an architect but she had the idea of the type of home that she wanted. She made a drawing of a combination of a Spanish/Indian home. Dad and mother then started to build that on West Willetta. The home was at 33 West Willetta. That home was built in about 1916 or '17. I well remember riding on a bicycle with my brother from 10th Avenue and Adams over there to see the home while it was being built. And that was an all day trip, dirt roads. I can remember they were building the fireplace. The house still stands at 33 West Willetta. They were building the fireplace. It was a beautiful huge fireplace and our initials in the masonry are still there. It was still wet and Harold put his there and I put mine on one side of the fireplace. At any rate we moved there when the house was completed I believe it was about 1917. Prior to that time though I remember going to McKinley School. I don't know whether that school still stands or not but it's on McKinley Street about 8th or 9th Avenue. I also remember going to a school GONSHER: Let me ask you another question while you're thinking. When you went to McKinley School, were your classes all inclusive with every age group or were they broken down? MARKS: No, it was broken down. The first school I went to was kindergarten at Adams School which still is a school there around 9th Avenue and Adams. Then the first, second and third grades I believe I was in McKinley School. I'm trying to think of the name of the school where Harry Rosenzweig and I went when I was in the fourth grade. GONSHER: Were the two of you in the same grade? MARKS: Yes. GONSHER: Well, we can go on and maybe you'll remember later. From that school you went on to high school? MARKS: Well, no. Then, when we moved to West Willetta there wasn't any school in the neighborhood. You speak about these youngsters today taking buses, I walked from that house on 33 West Willetta to Monroe School, which you know now is no longer in use but it's being reconverted into an office building. That's on 7th Street between Van Buren and Monroe. I went there in the fifth, sixth and seventh grades. Harry Rosenzweig and a lot of the other boys went there; the Goldwater boys. Then they built Kenilworth School in 1920, our eighth grade year. We were the first class to graduate from Kenilworth School, which still stands on 5th Avenue between I believe it's Culver and Moreland. Harry Rosenzweig and Stan Gray and Kenny Flickinger, there's a whole group of us that were the first class to graduate from Kenilworth School in 1921. GONSHER: It sounds like there was quite a group of Jewish people working in the community in those days. MARKS: Yes. I well remember the Funks. The Funks lived about three doors down from us. Art and Morris and Dave Funk; John Funk; there was a whole group of them. Mr. Funk had a jewelry store on I think it was -- I know it ended up on Washington and about 1st Avenue. As I say we graduated and went to high school in 1921, the same group. There was quite a Jewish community. GONSHER: Do you remember many of the Jewish activities that occurred as you were growing up in grammar school? MARKS: Yes. They had a Jewish Hebrew School. Not Hebrew but a Jewish Sunday School (art classes) at one time was on lst Avenue. It's the old school administration building. It's about on the 300 block on lst Avenue. That's where we had Sunday School upstairs there. I can well remember Harry and Newton Rosenzweig, Eli Gorodezky, the Friedman boys and girls. As I say, dad really started that school. It was around 1917, if you go back a little bit, when dad I believe brought the first rabbi to Phoenix. It was I believe 1917 or thereabouts. GONSHER: Do you remember his name? MARKS: Glicknets I believe was his name. I believe that was the first rabbi, as I remember. I could be wrong. But before that I remember they would hold services in the old Donofrio Building. It's right across the alley from the Rosenzweig's original store on East Washington between Central and 1st Street. There was a whole series of stores and Donofrio's Ice Cream Parlor was underneath and up above was the Knights of Pythias Hall, KP Hall. We had services up there for several years. As I remember as a kid there was a hardware store out in front with a great big dog, a steel dog. We used to climb all over that when they'd let us leave the services. We would play around out there. It was Washington, East Washington. That was where I remember the first services but there were services too I believe in what was the old Melczer Building which was where the Phoenix Title and Trust Building is now, Transamerica Title - at about 114 West Adams. They had a liquor business and I believe, as I recall, there were services held there prior to the one on East Washington I was speaking of in the Knights of Pythias Hall. GONSHER: When you mention services are you referring to weekly Shabbat services? MARKS: Yes, well, and services during the high holidays; Rosh Hashonah, Yom Kippur. Those were the only times really. We didn't have what they have Friday night services and so forth as a rule in those days as I recall. But the Sunday school I well remember. They had had some disagreements with some of the members of the congregation because I was Bar Mitzvahed in our home. When I was 13 I was Bar Mitzvahed in our home at 33 West Willetta. Dad carried out the whole services. I read from the Torah; I learned all the passages that they do now; I learned to say it in Hebrew. I lost most of that but I did learn to say them all in Hebrew through dad's coaching. There were about a hundred people in our home I remember as guests when that was performed. GONSHER: Were most of those people Jewish? MARKS: All Jewish; almost all Jewish people. Some of our neighbors weren't, Dr. Reese Couch, Roy Christy lived down the street, the Luhrs' boys, John and Allen Luhrs, lived down the street with their parents. Harry Roberts and I used to have to take those Luhrs' boys and spank them and take them home I remember as little kids. Now they're grown men and retired from the insurance business. One other incident that I should have mentioned. Way back in the early days I remember we still lived at 10th Avenue and Adams. I must have been about five or six years old. Charlie and Abe Korrick belonged to the Arizona Club. The Arizona Club served their dinners in what was the Homebuilders Building, which is where the Arizona Title Building stands now, right on the alley. There was a building there that was torn down to make way for the Arizona Title Building. There was a building there and the old Arizona Club, the original Arizona Club was in that building. Charlie and Abe Korrick took my folks and me and my brother to dinner there several times. I remember that very well. GONSHER: Did your family eventually become members? MARKS: Oh, yes. my father was a 60-year member and I'm a 50-year member of the Arizona Club. GONSHER: Let's talk a little bit about your home life growing up in Phoenix with your brother and mother and father. Could you describe some of the things that happened within your home and the relationship between yourself and your parents a you were growing up? MARKS: I well remember that there was discipline. If I did something wrong mother would discipline me, but the main discipline would come from dad when he came home. They had company over and had dinner parties. In our early days we didn't attend those. We were fed and put in our room and told to stay there. As we got a little older, I would say when we were 9, 10 years old, we were a part of the family participation. I well remember particularly around Rosh Hashonah mother would prepare everything that was necessary for the table. We would have our services around the table either with just the family -- we had no other family out here except dad and mother as all the rest of the family lived in Chicago or Detroit. But many times they would have friends in and they would join in. I remember the George Minces. George Mince was the founder of the Arizona Title Company. The Korricks and the Diamonds all would participate on the high holidays. That's before there was a temple of course as I say. I recall the early temple was on Culver and 2nd Street. I remember it was our own building. GONSHER: Do you recall when that was? MARKS: No. I would say it was in the 1920's. GONSHER: What were your feelings about being Jewish in rustic Phoenix in those days? MARKS: There was no problem. There was no anti-Semitism. We were all one big family here in Phoenix and we knew most of the people and they knew us. My folks were charter members of the Phoenix Country Club. We participated in all of the activities. To illustrate that, my father and mother both were active in politics. Dad ran as county attorney on the first election in 1912. of course Republicans had no chance in the early days here. My mother was the first Republican National Committeewoman from Arizona from 1920 to 1932. She was Republican National Committeewoman. Dad used to pay all of her expenses. The Republican party in those days used to meet in a room smaller than my office. When I became of age I participated. Mother and dad were very, very active in politics. Mother ran and was elected to the legislature. She was one of two Republicans in the legislature. As a result she was nominated for minority speaker. GONSHER: When did she serve in the legislature? MARKS: 1920 to '24, I believe. I've got a memorial that they presented to me. We can get that out. She represented the county in the 6th legislature. These are pictures of mother and dad and stories that were about them. GONSHER: Do you mind if we borrow these? MARKS: They have those, I think. I don't think they have this. These are great. There's a story about mother and there's a story about dad. GONSHER: What I'm looking at are two articles; one by Don Dedera, his Coffee Break column about the senior Mr. Marks. The other article is about Mrs. Marks and the heading is, "She Serves Her Community'. That is dated Arizona Republic, Sunday, April 23, 1961. Mr. Mark, if you don't mind my borrowing these and we'll return them to you. MARKS: They have this at the Jewish Historical Society. GONSHER: Okay. What were your parents' professions? MARKS: Dad was an attorney; mother was a housewife. GONSHER: As an attorney, what kind of practice did he have? MARKS: He had a general civil practice. He was very active also in the Masonic fraternity as was mother in Eastern Star. But dad did a lot of corporate work and he was a participant in one of the early famous water cases here. I'm trying to think of the name of that case. GONSHER: Was it one of the landmark cases? MARKS: Yes. Then when he was in the U.S. District Attorney's office he started what was the famous Walapai/Santa Fe case. That's how we got into representing Indian tribes because of dad's participation. In 1928 he started that case which had gone up to the Supreme Court twice and involved the aboriginal rights of the Indians to their land. That's the landmark case that established the aboriginal rights of Indians to their lands, which was the forerunner of the Indian Plains Commission. I was in the service and came back in 1945. In 1946 one of the old Walapai Indians came to the office, Fred Mahone, and said that he had been sent to the office by the superintendent who said if you ever need a friend go see Barney Marks. So they came to the office and asked us to come up and talk to the tribal counsel to see if we could help them settle this Walapai/Sante Fe case that had been up to the Supreme Court on two different occasions. So we went up, dad and I did, and visited with the Walapai tribe. As a result we were employed by the Walapai tribe as counsel to do something with that case, which we did as a result of settlement talks with the Fennemore firm who were the attorneys for the Santa Fe Railroad. We settled that case which was probably the largest quiet title case in the country. It quieted title of 650,000 acres in the Walapai Indians. In the early days when the railroads came through they were given every odd section of land as they crossed the country. That's why Sante Fe still has a lot of that title. As a result of that settlement the reservation comprising of 990,000 acres, all was solidified and became the Walapai Reservation. Up to that time, this was 1949 I believe it was or '50 when they settled, every odd section of course belonged to Santa Fe. Title was quieted and became a part and parcel trust for the Walapai tribe by the United States Government, as all the reservations are in Arizona, except for the Navajo tribe. That's how we started representing and I started representing Indian tribes. GONSHER: This is by the time you and your father were in practice together as attorneys. Going back to your earlier education did you go to college in the community or did you go elsewhere? MARKS: After I finished high school I went to Phoenix Junior College. GONSHER: Which high school did you attend? MARKS: The only high school that was in town. The Phoenix Union High School was the only high school that was in town. I remember in our graduating class we had about 500. There were about 5,000 attending high school. Then when I graduated I decided to go to Phoenix Junior College. Phoenix Junior college had just been established in 1928. It was a new secondary type of school available for us so that we didn't have to go right into college, we could go to junior college. That was in an old building on 7th Street just east of what is the Phoenix Union High School campus. That's where our junior college was at that time. We had a hundred students in the college. I can well remember I played football, basketball, baseball and tennis. I made letters in all of them. GONSHER: Did you have winning teams? MARKS: Well, in those days yes, we had basketball and baseball and football. Of course we played the universities. We played against Tempe Normal, I played against the University of Arizona and what was Flagstaff in those days. I played center and end on the football teams. During my tenure at Phoenix Junior College I received out of the blue sky an appointment to Annapolis from Senator Ashurst. He was a great friend of mother's and dad's, but a Democrat. Here was a great old Republican family, but he wanted to give me an appointment to Annapolis United States Naval Academy. So I decided instead of going the second year to junior college that I would go back and study for the exams. Well, I went back and I made up my mind that that life wasn't for me. In 1927 1 came back to Phoenix. The interesting part of my travels back might be a little history. My brother was going to the University of Michigan and he got Newton Rosenzweig to go to the University of Michigan also. But anyway during their undergraduate days Newton Rosenzweig went there and graduated. Harry (Rosenzweig) went back there for one year to try but Harry didn't care too much about college I guess. But it so happened that about the same time that I was coming back here Harry and Newton were planning on coming back so I rode back with them in the little old four-cylinder Buick. I remember this very well. Speaking of coincidences, we stopped in St. Louis to rest one evening and stayed there in one of the finer hotels and lo and behold -- that was about the time that Lindbergh had flown across the ocean, the first trip in a single-engine plane across the ocean. I well remember the next morning Harry and Newton and I went down to get our car to start some more of our trip back to Phoenix and here were all these big Cadillacs and Rolls Royces and everything because of Lindbergh's being there, and our little old Buick. We still laugh about that. But I came back with them and I worked one year with the City of Phoenix in the water department. GONSHER: What did you do in the water department? MARKS: First I was in the cashiers department. I handled the bills as they came in. That was the old city hall, where the Fox Theater was put up then. The old city hall building was where the Fox Theater was. When I came back from college a couple of the summers this was after I had been a cashier in the city water department - they had a water shortage here. They had an ordinance put into effect that you could only water certain days. one side of the street would be on the odd numbered days and the other side of the street, the east side of the street, would be the even numbered days. Well, they were violating it so they hired me. I rode on a bicycle. I'd start out about 6:00 in the evening and go up and down the streets on my bicycle and warn the people if they were watering or irrigating on the wrong night. GONSHER: This was about 1927? MARKS No, this was about 1929, along in there. I remember that incident. The dean of the College of Commerce came over and gave a commencement address at the Phoenix Junior College. Dad was vitally interested in education here in Phoenix. In fact, he was a member of the School Masters organization which was made up of principals of the schools and so forth. He was with the Exchange Club and they had essays on patriotism. I remember very well dad has always been opposed to this prayer in the school business. In fact, he was very close to Senator Jackson and some of them in opposing that. But, this Dean McClune gave the commencement address and dad happened to be in attendance and he was quite impressed with him and I decided that I didn't want to be a lawyer. I was going to go back and make some money. So we decided that I could enroll over at the University of Southern California. This was about the same time that my brother was graduating in 1928 from the University of Michigan. He was to be married in Long Beach. This was in September, the start of school. So mother and dad and I and Harold drove over to the coast. I'd shipped my trunks over; in those days we packed trunks. Harold was married and I went over to the university and they said, 'Well, didn't you get our wire." We said "No." 'Well, you weren't admitted. You didn't have the grades to be admitted to the university.' Well, unfortunately when I was in junior college as I mentioned all I did was play football and do athletics and I hardly went to class. Unfortunately, they insist upon those grades as well as my high school grades. They took those and said no. Dad said in the early days Rufus B. Von Kleinschmidt had been the president of the University of Arizona and he was a great friend of dad's through the Masonic fraternity. Von Kleinschmidt was then, when I tried to get in USC, was then the president of USC. So dad said let's go in and see Mr. Von Kleinschmidt and see if there's anything we can do. We went in and had a nice visit with Rufus B. Von Kleinschmidt, a beautiful gray haired man. He was one of the top men in the country. Finally, after some visiting he said, "Well, maybe we can make an exception. Maybe we can take Royal in." So they admitted me on probation the first year. I started at the university in 1928. I started to major in foreign trade. It was just about that time when I graduated in 1932 that they had the problem in Czechoslovakia. The major professor and I were going to go into business and import glassware and fine linens and so forth and that's when Hitler went into the situation. It was the middle of the Depression; the Depression from '29 to '32 had been very bad. I worked in the tea room and worked partly for my food. GONSHER: Excuse me, what's the tea room? MARKS: I worked in the tea room at the university there on campus. GONSHER: Could you explain what a tea room is. MARKS: Well, it was an eating place but it was called Mrs. Hunter's Tea Room. It's where the alumni house now sits on the university campus. I worked in there at noon and in the evening and got my two meals a day that way. Dad did have sufficient funds to help with the tuition. In those days tuition was only about $400 a year. It's now about $6,000 a year. I finished in '32. I was president of the college and I had had foresight enough to have speakers to our assemblies; some of the personnel men. I had met the head of the personnel of Union oil. And also, I was given the opportunity of taking charge of half of the coliseum for the '32 Olympics. While I was in school I also had charge of the ushers in certain areas of the coliseum for football. Knowing that I knew the coliseum the committee that was a part of the university was working on it too, just like it did this year, in '84. The University of Southern California had a lot to do with it. Well, they had something to do with the coliseum and I had been given that job. I finally got a call from the Union oil Company and said that if I wanted a job to come down. So I went and the first place they sent me was to Desert Center. I don't know whether you know where Desert Center is, but Desert Center is halfway between Blythe and Indio, California. It's out in the middle of the desert. Union Oil Company had the oil and gas contract, gasoline contract with Metropolitan Aqueduct. They had a substation with several trucks out there. There were about eight of us out in the middle of the desert that would get up at 5:00 in the morning and start out in old white trucks and furnish the oil and gasoline to the equipment that was working on the big tunnel that came through the mountain there. As you go through that road you can see the big tubes that come out of that that delivers the water to southern California. That's where all their water comes from. Anyway, I got a job at Union oil Company and I worked there and I was transferred into Redlands, California as assistant to the agent there and later transferred to Burbank, where I was made assistant district sales manager. It was about at that time in 1936, I'd been with the Union oil Company four years, I was listening to the Richfield Reporter one night. That's the news that you young folks don't know -- the Richfield Reporter was what we have now as the 10:00 news. I was living in Burbank and my first child had been born and I was shocked to hear that a plane had gone down and they were looking for four occupants of the plane and one of them was my brother, Harold Marks. Harold was national vice president of the Junior Chamber of Commerce. The next year he would have been probably the national president of the Junior Chamber of Commerce. They had gone down in March to Douglas to present a charter and fortunately Harry Rosenzweig was supposed to go and Dick Fennemore was supposed to go. But they backed out so they took a smaller plane and Harold had to appear in the Supreme Court, Arizona Supreme Court, on a case that he had for Diamond Dry Goods Company on an argument there before the Supreme Court. So he insisted that they had to come back and flying back in March the plane I guess iced up and was forced down and crashed in the Catalina mountains. GONSHER: That's too bad. How old was he at the time? MARKS: He was 32. GONSHER: And his survivors included? MARKS: A wife and two children. GONSHER: What were their names? MARKS: Lucille was his wife's name and Buddy, Harold A. Jr., and they're all grown and have grandchildren of their own now. GONSHER: Were they all growing up in the Phoenix area while you were over in California? MARKS: Yes. Harold and dad had established a partnership and Harold was very active politically here in Arizona. I still say he would have gone way up in politics. He was very active here. At any rate, when I heard about the accident of course I came back and it was probably one of the largest funerals ever held here in Phoenix that they had at that time. Harold had established in the office a commercial department and dad asked if I thought I would like to come back and maybe study for the bar. I hadn't taken law, I had majored in foreign trade. I have a Bachelor of Science in Business Administration from the University of Southern California. So I told him I was resigning from Union oil and I decided to come back and bring my family and come back and be with dad and mother and be with dad in the office. So I then signed up, I was the last one to be able to do that, to be able to study law under my father. You were allowed to in those early days to be able to do that. This was 1936. GONSHER: You said you brought your family back. You were married at the time? MARKS: I was married and had a child. GONSHER: Your wife's name is what? MARKS: My present wife is Marion but this was another, Cecille. My three children are by my first wife. GONSHER: I see. MARKS: I have nine grandchildren and three great grandchildren incidentally. GONSHER: This was as the Depression was just about subsiding. Do you recall how the Depression affected Phoenix in the early 30's? I know you were over in California but did you have a chance to come back to Phoenix at times to see what was happening? MARKS: Well, I don't think Phoenix was adversely affected because of the economy because they relied a lot on cattle. They were adversely affected from the tourist standpoint. Certainly the tourist industry was affected but in the early days I really can't answer that because as I say I didn't come back here until 1936 and things were picking up pretty well by then. But I did have in our commercial department, I will say this, there were a lot of people that you had to go after for payment of money. Things were I believe I would say a little tight for the first three or four years. Then I passed the bar in 1940 and I've been admitted to practice ever since. GONSHER: Mr. Marks, perhaps you could describe for us some of your father's activities in our community. MARKS: Well, dad was very active in the community and I think a lot of people would be surprised to know that dad was the attorney for the YMCA, Young men's Christian Association, here in the early days. I think it was back in the 20's he handled quite a few legal matters for the Young Men's Christian Association. Also, the Phoenix Chamber of Commerce -- in the early days dad was a member of the volunteer fire department. I remember coming back from a drive out on North Central. We used to go out there in the summertime. And we saw this huge flame and dad said, "My gosh, that's right downtown." I remember he stepped on the gas, all of 30 miles an hour. We tore down Central Avenue and I can still see dad getting out of the car, we parked the car far away from the place, but dad took his place on one of the hoses helping to put out the fire. That was when the Luhrs Hotel burnt and that was later rebuilt, but dad was a member of the old fire department. We were out driving one summer evening when the alarm sounded. He was dressed in his white flannel suit, I remember that too. The fire was at the Luhrs Hotel and he got out on the hose. But anyway he was a member of the Volunteer Firemen's Association and was the head of that. In fact, this article that appeared in the paper in May, 1968 shows him. He was president at that time of the Volunteer Firemen's Association. Besides that, father was very active in the Masonic fraternity. He was the founder of what is the Silver Trowel Lodge which is the second main lodge that was founded here in Phoenix. He was the first master and in fact raised me in the Masonic fraternity. He gave me that when I was 21. I now have my 50-year certificate in the Masonic fraternity. Then dad went on through the chairs and became grand master of the Masonic fraternity of the State of Arizona. He was a great friend of Morris Goldwater who was also active in the Masonic fraternity, the old uncle of Barry Goldwater. He was the brother of Barry's father. Morris Goldwater was active in the Jewish community in Prescott. Dad, besides being active in the Masonic fraternity, also as I mentioned was very active in Republican politics and also with the Phoenix Chamber of Commerce. He was honored I know by the Phoenix Chamber of Commerce. GONSHER: Did your father ever run for public office? MARKS: The only time he ran for public office was when they got him to run on the ticket for the Republican county attorney the first election in 1912, the statehood. He did run for county attorney. GONSHER: And he won that office? MARKS: No. No, Republicans were in the minority here until the 1960's or 1950's, maybe. To be Republican here was what they called a bad name. In fact, Roger Levine who was then county recorder where they used to register all the voters used to tell anybody that came in there, "You might as well register Democrat or you lose your vote, because you don't get to vote in the primary and it doesn't mean anything in the general election to be Republican." He used to say that. I used to kid him about that. He really did. We finally starting electing Republicans, although my mother was one of the ones behind the election of Tom Campbell, who was elected Republican governor. He beat out G.W.P. Hunt. In 1920, I believe it was, he was elected governor. Hunt had been elected governor every two years up to then. I always remember they used to wait to see how many votes old Hunt needed to beat the Republican. They'd wait until Gila County and then they'd count them in Gila County where most of the Democrats were in the early days. There were more votes in Gila County in the early days than there were in Maricopa County. GONSHER: Is that the year your mother also attended the national convention? MARKS: No. Mother attended the Republican national conventions from 1924 through '32 because she was Republican national committeewoman. I have pictures how they described mother back there. They would have a cartoon as they pictured mother in a cowgirl outfit and as she really was in her nice evening gowns and so forth. Very interesting. I have a lot of those in clipping books at home. GONSHER: Do you think that she found it somewhat rare to be a woman in those days, yet to be so politically active? MARKS: Yes and no. She'd go to Washington; dad used to pay her way and they had no money. She was sent to Washington on two different occasions to visit with President Coolidge. She stayed in the White House with the Coolidges and also with Hoover to try and get a copper tariff, which we're now arguing about again, trying to protect our copper here in the state. I well remember mother coming back after a visit with President Hoover and she was really shocked, and I was too, and that's why I almost went against the Republicans the next time, because of what happened, but I didn't. Hoover told her, he said, "Mrs. Marks -- and these are the exact words that mother came back and told us, he said, "Mrs. Marks, what right do you have to come back here from a small state like Arizona and ask for a protective tariff for copper?". She spoke right up and told him, she says, well, that , s our life's blood out there. That's what we need." Hoover wasn't a politician. Reagan wouldn't have said that same thing to her today. He would nicely have put her off maybe, but he wouldn't say what right do you have to come here. But that's what Hoover said to her. Both mother and dad were very active in the community here in the early days. Mother, when she was in the legislature, introduced the first women's jurors bill to have women on the jury. They didn't have women on the jury in those days, and she introduced that. She was also a founder of the first section of the Council of Jewish Women here in Phoenix. In fact, she was I think president five different times because they lacked leadership along the line and she'd be forced back into it. GONSHER: Did she ever consider running for public office? MARKS: Yes, she ran for the legislature. GONSHER: In addition to the legislature though? MARKS: No, no. She never ran for anything else. She went out in 1932. I was also active. When I came back from the service I helped start what was called the Young veterans Republican Club. That later turned into the Young Republican Club, as they know it now. Charlie Garland and I started that. In 1946 I was elected secretary of the Republican State Central Committee and served on that until 1952. 1 served for six years as secretary of the Republican State Central Committee. GONSHER: Maybe we can talk a little bit about what you and your classmates did as you were growing up in Phoenix. MARKS: Well, in the days I'll tell you about, our home was out there on West Willetta. Of course, in those days McDowell Road was the city limits. In fact, when I was in high school if we wanted to do a little bit of necking as they call it, we'd go out on Thomas Road, which was way out in the woods in those days when I was in high school. In the early days there was nothing cut through Culver Street, it was a huge orchard. From 3rd Avenue through to Central there was the Blount house and where the Central Arizona Museum Museum is now, that was a private home of course. And all that was a field of alfalfa and an orchard. And living on Moreland Street were the Lewis family and the Fannins, Paul Fannin and all of them. We lived on Willetta and we had what we called the Willetta Street Gang. Then they had the Goldwater Gang that lived on Central down where the Westward Ho is now where the Goldwater house was down in that area. And Rosenzweig and all of them; Rosenzweigs lived about in the 600 block on Central and then they built a home over on Monte Vista and 3rd Street, a nice home. We used to have a lot of parties over there, swimming and everything. I can well remember the football games, sand block games of course and softball games and everything we used to have with the Willetta Street Gang against the Goldwater Gang on the big acreage that was in between Moreland and Willetta. There was nothing, no Culver Street in the early days. When we were in high school we used to of course go down to University Week and Harry Rosenzweig had the first Model A Ford. We went down to the university on two different occasions for what they call University Week. That would be in May when we had the baseball games and track meets and so forth. I don't know whether they have that now or not. I don't think so. But we used to have the state championships down there in May. Also, I remember how we used to have the military and Harry Rosenzweig was the last man in the last squad because he was so small, the gun he carried was bigger than he was. I still remember that. I was very young. I went into high school when I was 12 years old, just barely 13. 1 graduated when I was 16 from high school, so that's one reason that I stayed out of college for the interim period of some three years. It's a good thing I did. A little bit more of what I did with my activity. I became very interested in the service club that I helped found here in Phoenix. It was founded at the same time Rotary was in 1912 but we didn't start one here in Phoenix until 1948. And I became quite interested in it because of the name Sertoma, Service to Mankind. I helped establish the first youth employment service in Phoenix as a result of working through our service club. Karen Stalcup was the one that really started the youth employment service. We came in to help her finance it. As a result of my activities I went from district governor to the international board of directors of Sertoma. Then I became international president in 1958 of Sertoma International. As a result I represented and traveled all through Mexico and Canada and the United States, where we had clubs in those days. Now in 1984, 26 years later, we have clubs all over the world -- Switzerland and Puerto Rico and all over. I was interested in service club work and I still am. GONSHER: When you were the international president that must have taken you away from Phoenix quite a bit. MARKS: Yes,, I'd be gone from about Thursday until Sunday and then I'd come back and practice with dad Monday, Tuesday or, once in awhile I'd be gone for a week or ten days or two weeks at a time. Dad covered for me in the office. Another activity that I was interested in was with my university. I remained active there and I was president of the associated alumni clubs about nine years ago all over the world, and I'm still on the alumni board. I still am active in the University of Southern California activities. I just returned Sunday from a meeting over there last weekend. GONSHER: Well, we've just about reached the end of our discussion today. I would like to thank you very much for the time you've spent with me. It's been very, very interesting. Thank you. MARKS: It's been my pleasure. [end of transcript]