..inte:

Dorothy Pickelner

..intr:

Bobbi Kurn

..da:

1988

..cp:

1988.022.001
Dorothy Pickelner organizing the first meeting of the Jewish Women’s Federation, 10-29-58

..ca:

..ftxt:





Interview of

Dorothy Pickelner

August 11, 1988

Transcribed by: Maria Stewart 

Interviewed by: Bobbi Kurn


TABLE OF CONTENTS

Dorothy Pickelner

August 11, 1988

Page No. Subject Names

3 Place of birth Lithuania

7 Brother-in-law Sam Pickelner

11 Hadassah Sophia Kruglick

Bert Goldman

Fay Gross

Marsha Reichert

15 Father Louie Wahl

15 Visiting the sick Bikkur Cholim

16 Workmen's Circle Mr. Chriss

Sam Pickelner

24 Phoenix Symphony

28 Jewish Community Center

30 B'nai Brith Zena Sobel

30 Pioneer Women

30 Na-a-mat

31 Jewish Women's Groups Mrs. Linde

32 Westward Ho

34 Bible Study Group Rabbi Jaffa

The Haskes

The Mecklers

The Metz's

The Merrins

The Karps

The Silvers

The Mallins

-1a-

Page No. Subject Names

36 Book Review Club Helen Kaplan

Pearl Langerman

Ruth Bank

Ruth Marks Rosen

Brenda Meckler

Frances Koolish

Bernice Siegel

Terri Levine

Lil Feiler

Bert Kahn

Helen Korrick

Millie Ehrlich

37 Hoffman houses Sam Hoffman

43 Organizations Hirsh Kaplan

45 Ort Ted Barkin

50 Kivel Hyman Kivel

52 Hill-Burton money Al Spector

Dr. Eckstein

54 The Jewish Family

Children Service Lois Tuchler

55 Clothing styles in

early Phoenix


	Dorothy Pickelner Interview

Bobbi: This is Bobbi Kurn, a volunteer with the Jewish Historical Society,
and today is August 11, 1988, and I am in the home of Dorothy Pickelner,
1808 West Citrus Way, in Phoenix, Arizona, 85015. She is a retired high
school teacher. She was born February 25, 1904. She is a female. She was
born in Lithuania, came to Arizona--directly to Phoenix--in 1947, in
September, and came from Cleveland. Her parents' names were Louis (Lazar)
and Rose (Risha) Wahl, and her husband's name was Sidney, who passed away
in March, 1961. They have no children. Her education is varied. She has a
B.A. from Western Reserve University, and went to UCLA and went to Harvard.
We'll have to hear about that. Her work experience is she taught high
school for 20 years in Ohio, and taught Humanities at Camelback High School
for 10 years. Her civic community services include President of Chapter and
Region of Hadassah. Is a Friend of the Phoenix Library. She's on the Board
of the Jewish Community Center, the Jewish Federation. Twice she was
Chairman of the Women's Campaign, and the Women's Division. She pays dues
and is active in many, many organizations. Also affiliated with Temple Beth
Israel, particularly with the Plotkin Judaica Museum. She also is on the
Board of Directors of the Arizona Jewish Historical Society. My, Mrs.
Pickelner!

Dorothy: I'm a professional volunteer.

Bobbi: That's true. That's true, and I forgot to push my button to zero.
We're going to start at zero right now. None of us are perfect. Tell me,
may I call you Dorothy?

Dorothy: You certainly may, Bobbi. We've known each other a long time.

Bobbi: Thank you. Tell me about your place of birth.

Dorothy: Well, we--my mother and I and my father--my father was
Russian--but we lived in Lithuania because when I was an infant my father
left Lithuania and went to South Africa where many of my mother's family
had migrated, and he joined them, and joined one of my mother's sisters and
a brother, and they became South Africans, and the family lives there to
this day, scattered all over the map of Africa, practically.

When I see the news today I worry myself sick because I have cousins
everywhere. But when I was about almost five, when I was five years old, my
father left South Africa and came to Cleveland, Ohio, where he had a
brother, and we came from Lithuania in the meantime. We had all lived with
my grandmother and assorted aunts and whatnot in Kovna, Lithuania. When we
came over of course I knew no English, but I started in first grade and I
learned to speak English almost immediately. I don't remember how, and
never spoke with an accent, and my other friends never lost their Hungarian
accents, for example, they were very tough to lose. The trip over was by 
ship, and my mother was seasick the entire trip, and never left her cabin. 
Whereas I ran all over the ship and made friends with people. I think we 
landed at Ellis Island, New York, but I don't remember, but they transferred
us immediately to the train and my father had misread or misunderstood the 
day when we were arriving, so when we got there, to the station in 
Cleveland, there was nobody to meet us. It was very traumatic and my mother 
was very shaken up. We took a horse and carriage and we arrived at my 
uncle's address. Fortunately my mother had that, and we astonished 
everybody. one of the first things I did--and I was eager to investigate 
everything--I found everything quite different, you know. The bathroom with 
the pull chain, you know, was very amusing to me. I started school almost 
immediately. My father was a carpenter, and I think he was earning $3.00 a 
week, or $4.00 a week. We found an apartment very soon and started out to 
be citizens. My mother went to night school, and I went to school. My father
spoke English, but he spoke South African English. That is with a decided 
English colonial accent, which everybody thought very funny. From then on, 
of course, we just lived and became active in the community. I went to 
school. I went to Central High School, went to Western Reserve University, 
had many friends. My mother said she never knew anyone who went to school 
as long as I did, but I kept it up.

A year or two after my mother died I met Sidney, whom I had really known as
a youngster. We had known each other, but like ships, he had moved to
California. But then he came back. It was really at the time my mother was
in the hospital dying, and he was in the hospital for just a general
checkup. So we met there. My mother died shortly thereafter. He came back
from California. We got engaged and married and immediately came out here,
like the day after the wedding we started out for Arizona.

Bobbi: How did your family feel when you told them you were moving to
Arizona?

Dorothy: Well, there was nobody really left except my father. My brother
had married and moved. I have only one brother, and he had moved to New
England--to New York, actually. He married Dorothy Herzberg. We decided to
go West, because I had gotten tired of the Cleveland winters, and I didn't
think it was good for Dad, either, so we drove out on our honeymoon,
practically. We came out to Arizona.

Bobbi: With your dad?

Dorothy: No. We stayed here a while and then went back. Of course, it was
very traumatic. We came on September 16, or 15 -- something like that. It
was blistering hot, and we had come from Prescott across the country, over
that hill. What was the name of that hill, Bobbi. Do you recall it?

Bobbi: No.

Dorothy: Before, there was a big road. You know, you came over that, and
they called it a hill. We didn't expect what we found. It was a terrible
mountain with narrow roads, and I didn't think we'd get there alive, but we
did. I don't know why we came to Phoenix, exactly, except Sid had a brother
here, because he'd always lived in California--had for many years. But we
stopped in Phoenix. Sid says, "I know it's hot, but no one perspires here."
Wrong!

Bobbi: But what image did people Back East have of Arizona?

Dorothy: Well, they never heard of it! I never heard of Phoenix, actually,
It was just a name on a map. I hardly remembered it. I knew about Tucson,
because I knew people who had gone to Tucson, but Phoenix meant
nothing--absolutely nothing to me--even at that stage. One of the reasons
we thought we'd come to Phoenix to try it out was that a friend of Sid's
said his wife used to come to Phoenix every winter, and she had an
apartment here, and she wasn't going this year. So he said, "You can rent
that apartment," and we were delighted, you know, to know that we had a
place to come. Sid took the key and almost as soon as we arrived, or the
next day, we drove out to that apartment, which was near the Capitol in 
Phoenix. It was upstairs, and we walked in--we opened the door, and I 
started to cry. It was the filthiest, dirtiest, ugliest apartment in the 
world. We just stood there and I cried, and Sid took me by the hand, and we 
walked out and closed the door, and I never saw it again. Then, of course, 
it was extremely difficult to find a place to live, because it was '47-- 
very close to the end of the war. There had been no building, and nobody had
even a room to rent, and the hotels only kept you three days. So we stayed 
for three days at some hotel on the West side--kind of a western-looking 
place--and then we decided we would go to California and see what was doing 
there. I had many friends in Los Angeles and so did Sidney, and everybody 
wanted us to stay there, but nobody could find us a place to live. So we 
went on and went to San Diego--no place to live. So we came back to Phoenix.
Sidney had a brother here, Sam Pickelner, who had moved out here with his 
family (that was her father). He was much older than Sid. He found a very 
nice room for us to live in on West Maryland. This very nice old couple had 
remodeled their house and had this large room, and we had kitchen 
privileges, which I never used, and our own entrance and so on. That was all
that could be had, when you find a garage to live in. So we stayed there, 
and Sid scoured the city every day, and I sat out in the backyard and
looked at the orange trees and tried to recover from the trial of the trip.
We ate out. I remember there was a restaurant we liked--I think it was run
by Greeks--called The Skylark, near downtown. That was a good restaurant.
The Steakhouse and some of the others--I can't remember the name of that
one that was quite fancy downtown. one thing that bothered me was that I
saw very few young people, and I saw very few women. Then we were told that
the women all went away for the summer, and the men sort of batched it
around, until near holiday time they all came back. In his wanderings
around the city, Sid found a place where they were building an apartment
house. Sid met the old gentleman--a Jewish gentleman, a very nice chap--and
he said he was sorry. He was building sort of a garden complex, you know,
six apartments with a garden in between up on, where was it--near Highland
somewhere off Central--a very nice area. First Avenue and Highland, you
know, near the Central/Highland area--Camelback district. He said, "I'm
sorry. They're all rented." And the floors were just being poured. Sid
said, "You've got to get us an apartment, because otherwise we just haven't
any place to go." Finally he said, "I'll work something out and let you
know," and let us know that we could have an apartment and that when it was
ready, he would let us know. So we packed up and went home--back to
Ohio--and there we helped my dad sell his house, and sold all of our 
belongings--Dad's stuff. We had a big sale. It was terrible to sell some of 
these things, but because of the war we had to keep some of these things 
because you couldn't buy them: like refrigerators. So Sid bought a new 
half-ton Ford, and we found a young couple that wanted to come to Arizona, 
so they drove the Ford and we put in things like a sofa and a refrigerator 
and, you know, all my books, and all the things we wanted to keep: Dad's 
tools. My father drove his car, and we drove our car--it was a little 
caravan. We came across country.

Bobbi: Didn't people think you were crazy?

Dorothy: Yes, yes they did. My friends just couldn't understand. Arizona
just seemed like the end of the world, and I guess it was. We drove out,
and it was lovely, except that in Texas, as we came further west, it was
warm, and it was in January. We took off our jackets, and then we hit Texas
where there was a terrible ice storm, and we holed up in a motel for two
days because the roads were impassable. Finally we got to Phoenix. The
thing, of course, that I couldn't get over were the saguaro cactus on the
way, and the mountains. The second time it was in January, and I couldn't
get over the fact that there was no ice and snow on the ground, you know.
But everything looked green and we went right to that apartment that we had
rented. Someone told me, "Don't wash the shelves in the cupboards because
they're full of a dust that turns into hard stuff." It was caliche! She
said, "You can only clean them with a vacuum cleaner." We settled in and
settled down and began our life in Phoenix.

Bobbi: With your dad.

Dorothy: With my dad. We dropped Dad off in Hot Springs, Arkansas, where he
was going to take the baths. Then he drove over himself, and he lived with
us always, until his death.

Bobbi: What was your feeling as a bride?

Dorothy: I was very lonesome. I was lonely, you know, and too much had
happened all at once. Besides which, just before I was married I was very
ill. I had had surgery for the first time in my life. It was kind of a
serious thing, and I was really not ready to go jaunting across the country
in a car. But we did, and we managed, and knew nobody except Sid's brother
and his family. Those were the only people we knew in the whole area. We
just settled down and said, "This is it! This is home." So we proceeded to
buy furniture and furnish the place. We really didn't make any friends at
all. After a while--I had been used to a very busy life, and Sid was out a
lot looking for business or something to do. He had to establish himself
too--I began to look in the paper to see what was going on, and they would
advertise a meeting like for B'nai B'rith or Hadassah. I went shopping. I'd 
go to all the meetings that I saw advertised. Some of them I thought were 
just terrible. Then I went to a Hadassah meeting, and I had no right to go 
there because I misread the article. It said there would be a meeting of the
board at the Westward Ho, and a luncheon, because they were entertaining a 
woman from the national board. So I went, and Rose Rosenberg was the 
president, and I could almost tell you every person who was there because 
they all became my personal friends. I thought, "What a beautiful meeting, 
and what beautiful women. They were all so cordial and kind. They made no 
comment about the fact that it was a private meeting and that I had no 
business there. We heard the speaker, whose first name was Juliette. There 
were Sophia Kruglick and Bert Goldman and Fay Gross and Marsha Reichert, 
and all of these women who later became my very good friends. It wasn't 
long before Rose Rosenberg gave me a job.

Bobbi: Smart president.

Dorothy: She was a very smart president. I was supposed to be the contact
to the community of whom I knew no one! Before long, I was out collecting
for the community fund. The very next thing--we no sooner got settled in
the apartment than--one of the neighbors came and asked me if I would work
on the library bond issue. So I sat on the phone and I rang doorbells and
we got the bond issue passed for the new library. It wasn't long. Before I 
knew it, they had a hard time getting a president in Hadassah because all 
the young women were pregnant.

Bobbi: Some of these ladies that were . . .

Dorothy: You know, and some of the others. This was just about a year later
or so. I guess the slogan was, "I'd rather be pregnant than president!"

Bobbi: I never heard that! That's good.

Dorothy: So there was a special meeting and we all sat around, and here I
sat, bright-eyed and bushy tailed, knowing nothing of what's going on at
all, and I came out of there president of the chapter. We only had one
chapter in those days. They were lovely women--wonderful people. There was 
a wonderful program and the city was growing. It sort of planted me firmly 
in the community, because I had to get to know people and I had to learn a 
lot. Sid by then had decided to go into the real estate and building 
business. Then he built an apartment for us. Well it wasn't a large 
apartment, I think there were only eight apartments. All one story, you 
know, four on either side with a garden in between. The front apartment was 
a special apartment for us. Very nice.

Bobbi: Where was this located?

Dorothy: It was also on Highland near that place where we had been. At 
Highland and Central, not too far from Camelback. Everybody thought we had 
moved out to the boondocks

Bobbi: Come on.

Dorothy: Nobody went much further than Thomas. I remember Fay Gross said,
"Why did you move way out there in the boondocks? We have to pack a lunch
to come to your house!" A couple of years later I went to a convention of
our region, the Southern Pacific Coast Region . . .

Bobbi: Of Hadassah.

Dorothy: Of Hadassah. I had just gotten out of being the president. Some of
us drove up in the car to California to the this regional conference. It
was very exciting. Lo and behold, they asked me to be president of the
region! Nobody from inland had ever been president, because it was mostly
coastal, and the region was from San Francisco all the way down. No--Santa
Barbara. From Santa Barbara, all of California, all of Arizona and New
Mexico. It became, I think, the largest region. And I called my husband and
I cried and I said, "They want me to be president. How can I do that? I
live in Phoenix." And he said, "If you want it, you just take it." Lo and
behold, he surprised me by driving out and coming to the installation. That
was a whole new aspect because being regional president I was on the
national board, and met a lot of very important people and women.

There were a lot of exciting and interesting things. This was the beginning
of Israel, you see. In 1947 Israel was declared a state, and that caused a
great deal of movement and excitement then: program changes and, you know,
everybody was all steamed up about Israel becoming a state. Then followed
all the wars, you know, the wars for independence. There was so much going
on and so much doing all the time that there wasn't time to be sad or
sorrowful or anything.

Bobbi: How did it help Phoenix, having a regional president?

Dorothy: Well, it was very exciting, although very often I would fly over
in the morning and come home at night, or else I'd go on a regional visit
and I'd have to be away from home a long time: I'd fly from city to city. I
met a lot of people that way and learned some very interesting things about
the West. But there was the usual camaraderie. It was a learning process
all the way. I'd go to the meetings in New York. It was very broadening, I
would say.

Bobbi: In those stinky airplanes.

Dorothy: I thought my husband was most, most cooperative, because I would
just walk out and leave my dad and my husband, and fly off somewhere, and
then come back.

Bobbi: You were a jet-setter in the '40s.

Dorothy: Right. No, this was, yes, it was the '50s already. It was in the 
'50s. Then after I was elected president of the region, they asked me to go 
to Israel on a--sort of a--mission with a group of Hadassah leaders from 
throughout the country. Again, my family was most cooperative, although both
Dad and Sid had had surgery not long before that, and I felt like a dog 
leaving them, you know, but they insisted that I go. My dad could cook, and 
so on.

I must tell you about my father.

Bobbi: Good.

Dorothy: Louis Wahl. He was really quite a character. Pretty soon most
everybody knew him. Very independent guy, very soft spoken, and very
capable. He could do a lot of things, including cooking. He was a carpenter
and a cabinet maker. You see, this was at the time when Phoenix burst into
bloom, so to speak. Many new organizations were formed. on my father's
level, they formed the Bikkur Cholim, which was an organization,
B-I-K-K-U-R C-H-0-L-I-M, which really means "Visiting the Sick."

Bobbi: B-I-K-K-

Dorothy: U-R C-H-0-L-I-M. The Bikkur Cholim, which took him . . . A lot of
older people joined that. Their business was to take care of the sick and
the destitute. As far as social service in Phoenix, there was one person
who was the whole social service bureau.

I can't think of her name, and I'm embarrassed. She was wonderful. She's
still here. She's still around.

Bobbi: We ought to interview her.

Dorothy: Yes, yes. By all means. She was wonderful. Everybody adored her.
Everybody went to her for help on almost everything. They formed this
Bikkur Cholim and there were men and women. There was a women's Bikkur
Cholim, too, that was formed just for women.

But then there was a mixed group, and Dad became president of that. There
was also a group of men that he met who had been in-- wherever they had
come from in all the various cities--they formed a branch of the Workmen's
Circle, which was a very fine organization which had existed for a long
time in this country.

Bobbi: Is that a Jewish organization?

Dorothy: Yes, of Jewish working men of all kinds. They had quite a social
program. I mean social in the sense of helping. They bought a cemetery
here, a Jewish cemetery which was for people not necessarily affiliated or
even affiliated ones. It's next door to the Beth Israel Cemetery and it's
still in existence. My father is buried there.

Bobbi: What's it called?

Dorothy: It's the Workmen's Circle Cemetery, and it's almost filled. Lots
of people that we knew--when I go there it's like seeing old friends, you
know, because they're my father's friends and my father's generation, 
mostly, in that cemetery.

Bobbi: Who else was active with your dad in those days?

Dorothy: I'll see if I can remember some of the people. I can't remember
their names very much, but they were lovely older middle-aged men, working
men, and very dedicated to the cause. I don't know if it's still in
existence or not. I think they left money or something for the upkeep of
the cemetery, and it's still there, and I think the community council and
then the federation is responsible for its maintenance. The plots were very
reasonable, and they had a man to take care of them, and whole families are
buried there. It's right next door to Beth Israel. My father was also the
chief unpaid assistant to the social service department. He would go from
nursing home to nursing home and find Jewish or non-Jewish patients who
needed help. He was always rebuilding their houses or taking them to the
doctor or getting them medicine. He would just start on his own and just do
it, you know, whether people wanted him or not. I used to prepare extra
food for the weekend, you know, so that I would be free, and fill the
refrigerator, and lo and behold, I'd get up Sunday morning or Saturday
night and go to the refrigerator, and it would be empty! He had carted off
all the soup and all the chicken and all that to his various patients in
their various homes, because he was  sure they weren't getting decent food. 
He was quite a character and children adored him. Everybody knew him. He was
always transporting somebody in his car, and that used to worry me because 
he was not a good driver.

Bobbi: Now I know where you get that from.

Dorothy: Yeah. Well, I don't say that I'm as good as he was, but I, I
definitely was his daughter in many ways, I guess.

Bobbi: Did he ever work professionally here in Phoenix?

Dorothy: Yes, for a while. For quite a few years he found jobs on his own.

Bobbi: Where at?

Dorothy: Held go around and held fix houses, you know, and held do things
over and held work on jobs and held go down to the union hall. Everything
was so different for him. He was not used to the way they worked here and
not used to . . . The first time he saw a truck come in and a great big
forklift, like, would come out and dump a ton of bricks in stacks. He just
couldn't get over it. And the fact that sometimes the carpenters would come
and they would have a shop set up in a van with all the electricity and
everything, precut and all that, he just couldn't stand that. One time when
Sid was building an apartment, he came in and he fired the whole group of
contractors, and Sid just absolutely had a fit, because carpenters were
very, very scarce. He said, "They're not carpenters, they're shoemakers. 
They don't know how to hang a door." Of course, they did know. They were 
doing it their way, not his way. Dad lived with us until he died, which was 
the year after Sid died.

Bobbi: They didn't have Jewish old-age homes then. He would just go to the
various . . .

Dorothy: No, but held go on his own, and they talked about starting a home
for the aged. He kept waiting for Kivel to be built. He said he wanted to
move in there. of course, he wasn't sick, but when they built the
apartment, he thought that he would get to move in there, and he worked
very hard on getting that established, that is, raising money, and
collecting money, and all that. But he never got to see Kivel.

He was gone before that was built, which was a shame. He would have enjoyed
that. Oh no, I think the nursing home was built. Yes. The nursing home was
built, but not the apartment. He was a kind of an unwanted supervisor. Held
march around and make sure they were getting what they needed, and the food
was all right, and hear all the complaints. Held come and tell me. It was
very interesting.

Bobbi: Good for him.

Dorothy: Yeah. He was a tough old boy.

Bobbi: He knew his trade.

Dorothy: Yes he did. He was a character, that's all I can tell you. It was 
nice. I couldn't have stood it if he had lived elsewhere when we were there,
you know. He was always with us.

Bobbi: Was there a fairly good-sized community for him to be . . .

Dorothy: Yes, there was a very nice Jewish community. I mean, men his
age--couples his age. He was wonderful, the way he became acclimated so
quickly and found a place for himself and found work to do. He was always
busy. I mean, in his social work.

Bobbi: You don't remember any of his buddies, do you?

Dorothy: Yes, there was a Mr. Chriss and Sam Pickelner. That was Sidney's
older brother. There was a Mr.-- we always called them Mister. We never
called them by their first names--I can't remember right off hand. There's
hardly anybody left. I think there's nobody left of that group.

Bobbi: Did he go to services? Was your dad involved . . .

Dorothy: Occasionally. our family were never temple-goers. We had a
strictly kosher house at home. My mother kept a kosher house, and she was
very learned. She knew as much or more than my dad, who was pretty good. We
always celebrated holidays with friends and family. When I came
here--although we didn't join any temple until sometime later when we
joined Beth Israel--my father was kind of a socialist. You see, there were
the whole group of them who were not anti-religion but they were a labor
party, you know, a labor group, and they didn't attend temple regularly at
all, or synagogue.

Bobbi: Were there quite a few people like that?

Dorothy: Well, there was quite a group, although there were mixtures, you
know, but there were quite a group. They'd get together. They'd come to our
house and go to various people's homes, have meetings. You know, the
Workmen's Circle and the Bikkur Cholim. I'm talking about my dad's groups.
He found a life for himself, and I was always very proud of that.

Bobbi: What was the purpose of the Workmen's Circle?

Dorothy: Well, back in the early days, it was a group of people, most of
them whom were immigrants, who became workers of various kinds in the
trades. They were carpenters and painters and so on, and they formed this
Workmen's Circle, and they were union men. See, they were all strong union
people. My father belonged to a German union. They were all Germans in that
union. There was a Jewish local, but he was a member of the German.....

Bobbi: Really.

Dorothy: Local and.....

Bobbi: I wonder how come?

Dorothy: They worked for the good of the working people--wages and working 
conditions and so on. The unions were very, very important to raising the 
standard of living and to the growth of America and to Americanizing foreign
people.

Bobbi: How about in Phoenix. Did they get involved-in any particular issue
here that you can remember?

Dorothy: Well, I think they did. I know they used to go to lectures. We
always had, you know, when there were lectures, and they would meet, and I
don't know, they would discuss various things and look out for each other's
welfare, although few of them were workers any longer. You know, they were
older people. But they formed a branch here because they had belonged to
branches in various other cities.

Bobbi: So the younger men weren't necessarily involved much.

Dorothy: No, not much.

Bobbi: Sid wasn't in it?

Dorothy: No, not at all.

Bobbi: That's interesting.

Dorothy: It's a very big story there, you know, in the whole union
movement. It was very powerful.

Bobbi: Is it dissolved now?

Dorothy: No. There's a big union. You know, you've got the Teamster's union
and all those great--the C.I.O. is a great union of many crafts. But these
were craft unions mostly--carpenters or whatever, you know. They
would organize in groups, because otherwise they had no chance to better
their circumstances at all.

Bobbi: Did they pay dues?

Dorothy: Oh yes. They paid dues, and they raised funds, and they'd go on
strike sometimes.

Bobbi: In Phoenix?

Dorothy: No, but here they did. My father became the president of that at
one time. Sometimes they spoke Yiddish at their meetings. They conducted
their meetings sometimes in English, sometimes in Yiddish. They had much in
common. Their backgrounds were similar.

Bobbi: Did you ever go to the meetings and hear them talk in Yiddish?

Dorothy: Yes. I used to go sometimes, and I knew all the gentlemen. They
were lovely people. Sometimes they'd have meetings at our house, too, but
they usually met in whatever halls were available. I think altogether there
must have been 50 members at the most.

Bobbi: And they were all Jewish?

Dorothy: Yes.

Bobbi: Were they troublemakers? Did they get into trouble?

Dorothy: No, no, no. Not at all. Most of them weren't even working at that
time. In the East this was a very respectable, very highly respected . . .
These were groups of people who were working for the good of the

people. The building of America was very much involved with the union
movement.

Bobbi: But there's not a group in Phoenix now that's called Workmen's
Circle.

Dorothy: No. They're all gone. There's no longer a Bikkur Cholim.

Bobbi: Really.

Dorothy: Really. Not anybody who's called by that name. Social service has
taken over some of that. But another thing: Sid and I, when we were first
in Phoenix, went to the first concert given by the Phoenix Symphony--the
very first concert that the orchestra ever gave. They finally got one
together.

Bobbi: What year was that?

Dorothy: I don't remember, but it must have been around '49 or '50 --
somewhere there. No, it was earlier. Maybe it was in '48. The concerts were
always at the Phoenix Union High School auditorium for many, many years
until they built the new building, Symphony Hall. They always gave the
concerts there. It was quite an event. At intermission we went out and
stood on the patio of Phoenix Union High School and all the people came out
and I looked around and I said to Sid, "Do you think if we really settle
here, that we will ever know anybody," because there wasn't one familiar
face and that kind of hurt, because when I'd go to the symphony in
Cleveland. We had belonged to the symphony all our lives. We had
these beautiful seats, finally, because you couldn't get them otherwise.
You had to earn them, sort of. Over the years you might have gotten a
little better seat. I always said I didn't think my friends in Cleveland
were so much interested in my leaving as they wondered who was going to get
my seats! You had to bequeath them to somebody. You know, they were so hard
to get. So, that was a strange thing. But we came back, and the orchestra
continued and we always were members.

Bobbi: Where was that school located?

Dorothy: Phoenix Union High School? It's right downtown. You know, right
downtown on Third Street. Don't you know where Phoenix Union is? You came
very late. It's still there. Still there, although they're not using it as
a high school anymore. But that was THE high school for a long, long time.
Everybody, everybody we knew had gone to Phoenix Union High School. It was
downtown on about Third Street, Seven Street and on, gee, I don't remember
the address. Big, beautiful campus. Gorgeous big buildings. No air
conditioning.

Bobbi: Evaporative cooling?

Dorothy: Finally. Finally they had evaporative coolers, but before that,
everybody just went to school, you know, and you kept cool as best you
could. There were fans of some kind.

Bobbi: And that was the only high school in the city?

Dorothy: For a long time, and then they opened North High. And then there
was East High, and then West High. But Phoenix Union was the basis.
Everybody went to Phoenix Union. As I've done interviews like you're doing
now, I say, "Where did you go to high school?" Well, they all went to
Phoenix Union. And they all remember the same kids: The Rosenzweigs, and
the Goldwaters, and the Goldmans, and everybody just went to Phoenix Union.

Bobbi: Did you look for a job as soon as you came to town?

Dorothy: No, I didn't work at all. Sidney wouldn't permit me to work. No,
No. There was no question of my working. I had worked enough, and I wasn't
going to work anymore. I was very much interested in the system, though,
because I had had visions of cowboys and Indians, you know, who hardly
spoke decent English, and all that, and I was amazed to find such elaborate
programs, especially in the drama and music departments. And the
curriculum, of course, I was very much interested, you know, like an old
fire horse. You never lose your interest in education. I was amazed to find
a large library which was, again, it was built shortly after we arrived.
That was a whole period of the whole burgeoning. The symphony hall was
built, the library was built, all of the many new schools were built, and I
was very much interested as I mentioned. I'd heard before every Spring they
gave, the whole school system gave, a great big pageant-like evening, but 
all the high schools, each one, took part. And it was called, "The Mask of 
the Yellow Moon." And they would do an Indian legend and the they'd have it 
out in the stadium somewhere, and they'd have horses and wagons and 
machinery and Indians and cowboys and music, and it was marvelous. It was 
just a marvelous thing, the way they had it done. There was a Miss Perkins, 
who for years and years had run that thing.

Bobbi: This was in the '50s?

Dorothy: Yeah.

Bobbi: And where was it located?

Dorothy: Well it was for the whole Phoenix system. They would have it in
one of the stadiums downtown. I don't know whose stadium it was.

Bobbi: A high school stadium?

Dorothy: Yeah, one of the high schools. of course, in those days the Black
community was segregated, and had their own school

Bobbi: Which was . . .

Dorothy: On the South Side.

Bobbi: Oh.

Dorothy: George Washington Carver. It was Carver High. They had their own
staff of Black teachers and then in the middle '50s sort of, it was
desegregated, and they had to move all the teachers, you know these Black
teachers had to move into the other schools, and the teachers and students 
had to be segregated. of course, there was still some kind of segregation 
because they lived in separate parts of the city.

Bobbi: So there was busing?

Dorothy: Well, no, it wasn't that. They stayed in their own neighborhoods,
largely, except when there's just one high school, people had to go to it
from all over the city. After there were two or three, they were closer to
their districts, you know. It seems strange to think about it, but it was
true. Sid and I traveled a great deal.

Bobbi: Did you?

Dorothy: We were very much interested in Arizona. We wanted to learn a lot
about it. We traveled the state and we learned all about the flora and
fauna, and we went to all the celebrations of everything. We'd go to the
state fair and we'd go to all kinds of meetings. While we weren't active
politically, Sid became very much interested in the Jewish Community
Center, which was just being founded. There wasn't any. He spent a great
deal of time on the Jewish Community Centers, and he was on the board for
many years, and there's a room named after Sidney in the new building.
That's where he put most of his time. He became very involved in the
center, because he wasn't very synagogue-minded at all. And watched it
grow, and there was a lot of stress and difficulty. But it was very
interesting in that period, so much was happening to the city, and it was 
happening in the Jewish community.

Bobbi: Like . . .

Dorothy: When we first came there was a kind of community council, but it
wasn't really, it was called that. They met in the little house on Fourth 
Street. There was a director after--one year, I think, or two years. Those 
were the years when Israel needed so much. You know, the war years. One war 
after another. The community was growing. I remember how proud we were when 
they'd raise $20,000 or $15,000 or $40,000, you know, that was big. Finally 
the UJA came in and we'd have big community-wide meetings--a dinner where 
everybody came and announced their gifts. Eddie Cantor came out one year as 
the speaker. He sat on Mr. Korrick's lap, trying to wheedle more money out 
of him!

Bobbi: And it worked?

Dorothy: Sort of. They'd have good speakers, you know. They'd send out
speakers, although we were really a very small community. It was quite an
experience when we finally raised a million dollars. That was big, big. And
it was. It was a great effort. Then various other organizations came in and
they became quite competitive, that is, they stayed off by themselves. Of
course, B'nai B'rith had been here when we came--the men's B'nai B'rith and 
the women's B'nai B'rith. And they were the strongest organizations at 
first.

Bobbi: Were they?

Dorothy: Almost all the men belonged to the Phoenix group of B'nai B'rith.
The women had one group, and then they had another group, and then Hadassah
grew quite strong, was organized, and was pretty strong, quite strong.
And I remember it was quite a while, we had a campaign we were going to
have to raise 400. We were going to be 400, and we were going to get--to
become 400 members strong. It was hard work. I remember Zena Sobol. She was
a darling, darling lady. An intellectual Jewish lady. In all the heat,
she'd go out with her umbrella, and she'd go from door to door, getting
Hadassah members. Then the Pioneer Women was organized, which was the labor
group of the Zionist movement. That Pioneer Women in modern times became
Naamat. N-A-A-M-A-T. Their purpose was to raise the status of women and
children in Israel--working women in Israel. That was their big push. Golda
Meir had organized them.

Bobbi: Really. Across country?

Dorothy: Well, from Israel. She was their first organizer. They were hard
working women. Hadassah grew and we later on divided into groups, instead
of one chapter. Then Ort was organized, and Brandeis Women's Committee was
organized, and the Council of Jewish Women had been here all along, and was 
very strong, and they did a lot of local social work. They had a milk 
program, for example, and they had gathered clothing.

Bobbi: What kind? Milk?

Dorothy: They distributed milk in the poor sections of the city.

Bobbi: Really!

Dorothy: That was part of their national program, and they did it here.

Bobbi: Who was this, again?

Dorothy: The Council of Jewish Women. And there was a Junior Council of
Jewish Women, too. And everybody belonged to that, I guess. Bert Goldman,
and Molly Friedman, and all those girls belonged to the Junior Council and
then the Council of Jewish Women. They were nationally a very powerful
organization, and still are. Then they had, let's see, there was Brandeis,
and Brandeis was very interesting because it was a different offshoot.
Hadassah was very creative in many ways, you know, they had very
intelligent and lively women in it. For example, we had a concert every
year, and the person who organized our concert was Mrs. Linde.

Bobbi: How do you spell that?

Dorothy: L-I-N-D-E. Now, she was the kind of an entrepreneur or a promoter,
and she had an office in the basement of Goldwater's store downtown. She
was the one who wanted to "culture" everybody! We didn't have any culture.
She'd get up at all the concerts and scold everybody, because we didn't
have a decent place to have a concert, and because we were negligent. She'd
carry on. She was a little woman. Very outspoken and very sharp. Hadassah
brought in great talents. Great talents, you know, the best.

Bobbi: Like . . .

Dorothy: They had great singers, they had brought, I think, one of first,
and those were big cultural events. You know, they had fine singers and
women actors, and so on.

Bobbi: Fund-raising. This was all for the . . .

Dorothy: Yes. We raised money through that, but we brought the best. You
know, that had not come before. We'd have them in Phoenix Union High
School. They were great events. Another thing I remember well and very 
fondly, was how much a part of our lives the Westward Ho was.

Bobbi: The hotel?

Dorothy: The hotel. Because it was downtown, and because it was beautiful,
and because they had two wonderful men at the head of it. The maitre d' and
his assistant. I can't for the life of me think of their names. They were
marvelous to us. We would have the most beautiful luncheons, and balls, and
donors, and conventions, and everything took place at the Westward Ho. 
Weddings! Oh, beautiful, beautiful weddings. And another thing that I 
remember, was that when there was a bar mitzvah in town, everybody baked.

Bobbi: Really?

Dorothy: Even if you didn't know the people.

Bobbi: Really!

Dorothy: You just baked. It was a big event. Generally they invited
whoever. You know, the whole congregation of whoever you were, plus all the
friends. Well I thought we'd never get to know anybody, but somehow we had 
made various groups of friends. Groups. There was a great deal of group
entertaining because there was no refrigeration, so people didn't stay
indoors. We sort of would meet out in the garden.

Bobbi: In peoples' backyards?

Dorothy: Peoples' backyards. And in this one group, they became like
Chevras today. We'd meet, because everybody was strangers and had no
families. We kind of looked after each other in times of need. We
celebrated holidays today, had Seders together, and general holidays, and
the park

Bobbi: Encanto Park?

Dorothy: Encanto Park was a big item. Everyday you could see all the old
guys out there playing pinochle. My father used to schlep my samovar out
there and get it going with coal and serve tea at those things out there
in the park. They'd sit on the benches and they'd play pinochle. of course,
if you were a tennis player you played, and there was a lovely pool that
you could swim in.

Bobbi: Oh.

Dorothy: The great Encanto Pool. They had big, important . . . And we had
lots and lots of picnics there and cookouts.

Bobbi: organizational cookout picnics or individual?

Dorothy: No, just social people. I guess sometimes the organizations used
it. We'd have cookouts and we'd just get together and sing and eat.

Bobbi: Come on.

Dorothy: Yeah. It was fun. Then we got another group of friends, a study
group, and we read the Bible for years, led by Rabbi Jaffa.

Bobbi: Oh.

Dorothy: I'll tell you who that group was, and that was wonderful. That was
the Haskes, the Mecklers, and the Metz's, and the, oh, where's my book? I
have all of their names. Zach Merrin and his wife, and the Karps, and the
Silvers, and we would get together every other Sunday night and have coffee
and we'd read and discuss the Bible. For years this went on.

Bobbi: And some were Beth El people and some Beth Israel.

Dorothy: Yes, most of them were Beth El people. We just had a wonderful 
time, and it so happened that--oh, the Mallins were in that, too--they 
lived, some of the groups like the Mallins and the Karps had their houses 
kind of back-to-back and the cleared space of their gardens formed like a 
big garden in the back, and even in the heat of the summer we were out 
there all the time and we just had a ball. We loved it. We'd tell stories 
and we'd sing, and we put on operas, and we did all kinds of things that 
were just loads of fun. We still get together once in a while.

Bobbi: Did you have a name for the group?

Dorothy: It was called the Study Group, the Bible Study Group, and Rabbi
Jaffa was so kind and so knowledgeable. He was such a scholar. We just went
on and on and on, and we just enjoyed every minute. Later on it turned into
a general discussion group. That was a lot of fun, and we had Seders
together. There were special holidays where we'd go to the park.

Bobbi: Really.

Dorothy: We'd go on trips together. We'd celebrate New Year's Eve together.
We were really a Chevra without knowing it.

Bobbi: Could just anybody join?

Dorothy: Well, because we met in each other's homes, you know, we couldn't
get very large. But once in a while there would be new people.

Bobbi: You didn't blackball people?

Dorothy: No, no. But it was a lovely social family thing for all of us.

Bobbi: Would the children come?

Dorothy: The children came, but basically the children were all very small.
Now that was another thing. Even when we had organizations, at our various
meetings, even for federation later on, the girls would bring their babies.
You know, they would bring the babies, and the babies would sit there, and
they were all pretty good. Very seldom that they were disturbing, and there
was sometimes little infants. Later on they were bigger, and the girls
would bring their babies, and nobody cared. We were very much interested in
each other's children and all of that.

Here's another item that I think is unique, and that is that oh, I'm trying
to think of what year it was, it must have been in the late 160s. oh, it
was early '60s, yes in the '60s. A group of very bright young women
organized our book club.

Bobbi: I figured that's where you were headed. Good.

Dorothy: The reason that is so unique is because it started out as a group
of--we didn't know much about it, but Helen Kaplan had had experience with
a book group like that when they lived in Nashville, so she kind of talked
about. Pearl Langerman, Ruth Bank--Ruth Bank was the big intellectual in
those days, Dr. Bank's wife, and she was big Hadassah and big everything.
She was a brilliant, brilliant woman. Brilliant and charming woman--and 
Ruth Marks, she was in those days, Ruth Marks Rosen, and various people 
whose names I don't remember. Then later on there was Brenda Meckler and I 
joined and Frances Koolish, Bernice Siegel. Some people moved away and some 
people died. Terri Levine died and Lil Feiler died and Bert Kahn was there 
from the beginning. Helen Korrick. There were all young marrieds at the 
time. They all lived in Hoffman houses. Right in that one neighborhood, up 
here off Seventh Avenue. Around Missouri and Seventh Avenue. They were all 
young marrieds and they all lived in Hoffman houses and they were all 
neighbors.

Bobbi: As in Mr. Hoffman.

Dorothy: Yes, Sam Hoffman.

Bobbi: He built houses?

Dorothy: Oh, well he was one of the great builders. This was a phenomenon
here in Phoenix. He built these wonderful houses, which are still in whole
neighborhoods. There's one over here very close.

Bobbi: It's not near Park Lee Alice?

Dorothy: No, well, back of them. North of them. But there were two
neighborhoods. one on the east side, one on the west side. They were
wonderful brick homes which you could buy for $7,900; $8,000; $8,200. Two
and three bedroom homes, two baths. He became a great phenomenon in the
country. It was wonderful for these young people. Some of the people stayed 
in them all their lives.

Bobbi: Freestanding, separate homes?

Dorothy: Yes, freestanding, separate houses, with yards. The best people
lived in them, you know. All, as I say, all these young marrieds, like the
Langermans, and the Korricks, and the Ehrlichs. They all had Hoffman
houses. Those were all the people in our group. I just wanted to say that
the club is now still in existence. We still are very, very operative. Some
of the personnel has changed, but it's been around 15 members, and we've
now been in existence some 38 years. Basically the same people, except
those who've moved or died. It is one of the things all of us cherish very
much.

Bobbi: I bet.

Dorothy: It really is very stimulating, very interesting.

Bobbi: And you review good books.

Dorothy: Oh, only the best. And sometimes people would take special areas,
like Pearl Langerman always reviewed things about the law. Millie Ehrlich
usually reviewed things about art, and I did the classics, and Brenda
Meckler usually did literary things, you know. But we had no officers, no
dues, no rules, no regulations. Just that you gave a review and the next
week you were the next time. We met every other Friday for years, and
years, and years. Now we met every other Wednesday, or every other Thursday.
There were no rules, no dues, no officers, no anything. We knew we went 
alphabetically, and once we gave a review the next time you were the 
hostess, and then somebody else reviewed, and it was just a chain that went 
on and on. We think that's one of the reasons we were so successful.

Bobbi: Did you serve meals?

Dorothy: Just coffee and stuff. Occasionally we had a party or a luncheon
or something for an occasion. Again, our group was small because we met in
each other's homes.

Bobbi: That's neat.

Dorothy: But that became a very important part of our lives, for the women
who were..... It was apart from everything else that we did. It had no
relationship to anything else. And we were all quite different from one
another.

Bobbi: Would you see each other socially?

Dorothy: Some of them did, but some of them did not. They were very varied.
There were some non-Jews in there, too. Still are.

Bobbi: Do you seek people? Do you go out and ask people to join?

Dorothy: Rarely. Only when several people had died and there was room, and 
then somebody may have had someone that they thought would be especially 
good. They had to be kind of special, offbeat people in a way.

Bobbi: Offbeat?

Dorothy: In a way.

Bobbi: In what way?

Dorothy: Well, that is they'd have to be interested in literature, and they
had to be able to give a review, and they had to be able to discuss, and
there was lots of discussion.

Bobbi: Oh. oh, you give your review and then there's questions and answers?

Dorothy: Oh, well, they talk all the time--all through it. They sort of
challenge the reviewer.

Bobbi: Oh really?

Dorothy: I once wrote a poem called, "Oh pity the poor book reviewer. She'd
utter ten words, maybe fewer. When there arose such a clatter of a relevant
matter, she was never heard from again. Poor reviewer!"

Bobbi: Dedicated to your book review club, of course.

Dorothy: Yeah. And we had celebrations of one kind or another. We were
always friends, and concerned about each other, but not social friends,
necessarily. You know, we had great respect for one another, and respected
each other's abilities.

Bobbi: Were most of you about the same age group?

Dorothy: No. Very wide range. Very wide range.

Bobbi: How old's the youngest?

Dorothy: Young marrieds to--there were a few young marrieds. Well, now it's
38 years later. So, you know, the differences still exist, but they're not
as young as they were in those days! But Brenda was the oldest; I was
second oldest.

Bobbi: Would they bring their children--the little babies?

Dorothy: No, they never did to this group, generally. But we met at each
other's homes, and it was something that we wouldn't miss. We had to be
dying before we'd miss the meeting. I mean, this was just something
different apart from everything else we did, or our political ideas, or
involvements, or anything else. We certainly did not think alike on many,
many things. There was . . . was very good.

Bobbi: What do you contribute the growth of all these organizations to?

Dorothy: Well, as various people came from all over the country, many who
had been active in, say, art in their communities back home, were urged by
their national boards to start groups in Phoenix. And there were many, many
different organizations. It was amazing how many there were, and how fast,
and it became quite competitive for membership, for the dollar. Some were
more successful than others. Some women drifted to certain things, like you
rarely saw the B'nai B'rith women stuck very close to B'nai B'rith. Hadassah
women seemed to be more outgoing, you know. Everybody more or less in one 
way or the other joined Hadassah for a while and worked through it, 
especially after Israel. What else can I tell you that's exciting?

Bobbi: Phoenix.

Dorothy: I'm doing that now.

Bobbi: Oh good.

Dorothy: Many things happened, you see. For example, as we got bigger, the
temple was built and the city went farther and farther out into the
environment, and now, of course, those neighborhoods which seemed pretty
far are practically the inner city. The temple built their new temple, and
it seemed far out. And when Kivel was built, and we were all very much
interested in Kivel, everybody worked on that very hard. I remember going
to a meeting after the land was given to us by a couple--an old couple.
Then we made great plans, you know. There's this whole story of how it came
to be Kivel, and I'm not going to repeat that. But at a meeting in which
they were talking about how many beds, and, you know, everything we'd have
at community meeting, some man came up and he grabbed me by my blouse and
he said, "Are you people crazy? Building out there on 32nd Street? Who's
going to go out there? You'll never get anybody to come out there." When
they built the temple on Osborn, it just seemed like the other end of the 
world. As the city grew it just became . . . everybody else moved further 
and further out. Most people followed their bent, you know, they joined 
whatever they were interested in. Some joined many organizations, some only 
stuck to one. There seemed to be kind of a rift between those who were very 
Zionist minded and those who weren't.

Bobbi: Really.

Dorothy: Because there was a group of people here at first who were not for
an Israel at all. They said it couldn't succeed, and they were very anti,
as a matter of fact, and so there was kind of a rift, but then there was a
very strong Zionist push, and they pushed hard, because the only way they
could raise money for Israel was through the UJA, and that became part of
the whole deal. And then after, Hirsh Kaplan came. And he came in about
'49, I think, or '50. I think I was the only person he knew in Phoenix...

Bobbi: From...

Dorothy: From Cleveland. We had been at camp together. We had both worked
in camp. And he had come from Nashville, and he took charge of all the
various agencies. Everything was under Hirsh's jurisdiction. And he was the
one who worked tirelessly in the building of Kivel and the center.
The whole center story was very interesting. At first there was nothing,
and then for a while we rented, or it was given to us, the part where the 
library is now--downtown library. Next door to it, the people who owned all 
that land had a beautiful home there, and they gave it to us. I remember 
how Pearl Langerman sewed drapes. Drapes--by the hour she sat and sewed 
drapes. We had that for a couple of years.

Bobbi: Let's see, that was on McDowell and near Central?

Dorothy: Yes, in there. It was lovely and . . .

Bobbi: It was a Jewish community center?

Dorothy: Jewish community center.

Bobbi: Was there?

Dorothy: We used that house that they had.

Bobbi: Really!

Dorothy: Yeah.

Bobbi: Was that the very first . . .

Dorothy: I'm trying to think of the name of the people. It was named after
them. In fact the whole area belonged to them, and they left their home.
Then the land at 16th Street and Camelback became available. We built that,
and the day that opened, it was like going to the Promised Land. We were so
thrilled, we were so happy, and so proud, and the whole city came to see
the center.

Bobbi: Really.

Dorothy: We were there for quite a long time.

Bobbi: That's good property.

Dorothy: It was very interesting, and people were very active. They had the 
parking lot in front. You see, the stuff was built in the back. It's a car 
agency now. That's who we sold it to. But the front, the Camelback front, 
was all parking lot. It was probably the most expensive parking lot in the 
city.

Bobbi: I'd say.

Dorothy: Then there was a movement on. Some of the board wanted to sell
just the parking lot. You know, so much per square foot, and all the rest
of us, oh, we, we fought tooth and nail not to have that happen. Then they
didn't sell it. Finally, the while thing was sold for a lot of money . . .

Bobbi: Good.

Dorothy: A couple of million dollars.

Bobbi: Good.

Dorothy: With that money we built the center over here on Maryland. And
that was a great step forward. We'd just move the whole thing out here.
Hoffman built the swimming pool, and that was great. of course, the other
had a swimming pool, too, on 16th Street.

Bobbi: Really?

Dorothy: It was very much used. They held dances there and everything, and
here, when it was built here. Ted Barkin had come and he had been the
director of the centers. I remember he had been a director at the old
center. There were a number of them, but I remember Ted best. Then he was 
the director here until he went on into other things. He became a Ph.D. and 
so on.

Bobbi: I wanted to ask you. Did Kaplan kind of appoint himself as . . .

Dorothy: No. It was just--the community council just--he was the director
of the council. Then it turned into a federation. When it became a
federation, all the agencies were grouped under it, and Hirsh directed the
whole works. There was a director at the center, and there was somebody,
but then later on, when Kivel was built, he gave up being the overall
supervisor and director of all those agencies.

Bobbi: Oh, I see.

Dorothy: And moved, and he became the director at Kivel.

Bobbi: So he was paid to do all these type of things?

Dorothy: Oh, yes.

Bobbi: Ah.

Dorothy: He was a paid employee, I mean, but he never got very much money.

Bobbi: I'm sure.

Dorothy: Really, it was pitiful, and yet, in those days people just didn't
think that social workers had to be paid very much. Social workers were
underpaid--like teachers, you know.

Bobbi: Like Jewish professionals.

Dorothy: You did for the love of the work.

Bobbi: Check your notes.

Dorothy: I'm trying to think what I have left out. I do think that as
people poured into Phoenix . . . put it this way; When we were a smaller 
community we were more together. Everybody knew everybody else. There was a 
much more democratic feeling. It didn't matter, really, whether you were 
rich or poor, in a certain sense. When you were in a group you just took 
part in the group, whether it was your temple or an organization. Everybody 
really knew everybody else. Most of the people were business people.

Bobbi: Were they?

Dorothy: Yes. Like, you know, there were big ones and small ones. Like, you
had the Korricks and the Rosenzweigs, and you know, those people, and then
you had small businessmen. But most people were--that's what they did--they
were involved, or else they were in the real estate business or whatever.
Some people were very active in the community and some were not. Once the
federation was formed, and they began to campaign in really high style,
there was a women's division, and the women worked very hard, too, I was
chairman twice

Bobbi: How did that all get started?

Dorothy: Well, let's see. I think Corinne Ehrlich--Rose Rosenberg, who was,
I think, the first women's division chairman--and then Corinne Ehrlich, Fay
Gross, some of the earlier ones. It was just that, I guess, the people who 
knew about those things said the women were doing well in other cities, and 
we started a women's division, and...

Bobbi: And the men didn't give you static about that?

Dorothy: No, at that time they didn't. They didn't think women would do
very much, but they did it very, very well. This year they were going to
raise a million. I don't know whether we made it. Not quite.

Bobbi: Not quite.

Dorothy: Not quite. But generally speaking, the best, most ambitious people
were the leaders. It was an honor to be a chairman. A lot of work, as you
know. I was chairman twice.

Then I had a whole other career. Then Sid died suddenly at the Seder at our
house. It was a very terrible time. Terrible, terrible! My father was with
me. We had built a lovely, lovely home at 830 West Palo Verde Drive. Just a
beautiful house. We were very happy. I lived there for 10 years. Sid had
become fairly active in his work. You know, we were living a life,
whatever, and then at a Seder, 1961, he just got up to get his pipe--walked
into the other room--and I heard him cough, and he was gone. So I had to
reorganize my whole life, and I thought I'd better go back to work, and I
did. As soon as things got settled a little bit--it was awful, I was so
bewildered--but I went to the board of education to find out how I could
get back in the school system. I was lucky. They sent me out on interviews,
and that Fall I began to teach at Camelback High School, and I started a
whole different life and a whole different career because I was asked, then
the students petitioned for a course in the humanities and they asked me to
teach and I had to organize the whole course, and it was only for advanced
students in the senior class. It became a very important item in the school
and it became very important in my life. I taught for ten years until I
became ill and had to quit. But by then, after about a year--my father had
gotten sick the week Sid died--and he died a long, lingering death of
cancer. Then when he died--I said as long as he was alive I would not leave
the house--then I just couldn't maintain it because it was a large house
and there were things to be done all the time, and I just hadn't the
ability or the physical strength to do it, so I sold the house and went
into a furnished apartment. Hated every minute of it. I don't think I lit
the stove in there twice in eight years or something! 

Then when I quit teaching I--when I sold the house and went into this one 
bedroom apartment, then I was looking for a new apartment and wandering 
around, and they were just building this complex here. You know, the one 
where I'm in now. We were just--out of curiosity--I wasn't going to move 
into this, I certainly wasn't going to buy a house--this was the last model.
You know, there were models up near the pool. I just thought it was very 
nice, and I turned to my friend, and I said "I'm going to buy one of these."
She said, "You're crazy!" I said, "No. I'm going to buy one. I'm going to 
buy this model." And I walked into the office and bought an apartment-
condominium. So, that's up to the present.

Bobbi: I want to hear your version of the Kivel story.

Dorothy: Well, the Kivel story, as I recall it, was that Mr. Kivel was a
very private person. He seemed very poor. He lived in very poor
circumstances. He didn't speak English very well, and they weren't sure
whether he could really write and read. Nobody knew very much about him
except that occasionally people would go to him and ask for a handout, you
know, for a Nadava, as we say, and that is to contribute to something.
Hyman Kivel.

Bobbi: How do you spell Nadava?

Dorothy: A Nadava? I don't know. It's a Jewish word. Nadava means to give
alms, you know, the way to, well, contribute. To contribute to something.
one time Sid was out collecting for UJA and he came home and he said, "I
went to one house today and," he says, "it was terrible." He says, "This
sick old man in an old bathrobe came to the door, and" he said, "you know, 
he gave me $25, and," he said, "I was amazed!" He said, "I wanted to take 
money out and give it to him because I wasn't sure he was eating properly."

Bobbi: Do you remember where he lived?

Dorothy: I don't. Brenda, I think, knows. Morris Meckler knew.

Bobbi: Like South Phoenix?

Dorothy: Yeah. And then, lo and behold, one day Beth Israel was informed
that he had died, and he had left $100,000 to Beth Israel to build a kind
of a wayfarers' lodge and a nursing home for Jewish people!

Bobbi: Oh.

Dorothy: And the gentleman in charge of the Valley National Bank that had
the money--they had made the will and they were his, they were carrying out
his (tape ended).

Bobbi: Yes . . .

Dorothy: And Beth Israel didn't know what to do with the money. They were
in the building business. They kept the money for some time in a bank,
where it was earning interest. Then they came to the community council, to
the federation, and they said, "This money was left to the community, but
through Beth Israel, and we're not in a position to do anything with it,
and you'd better take it over." And they did. Hirsh Kaplan was the
director then, and got Hill-Burton money, you know, from the government.

Bobbi: What kind of money?

Dorothy: The Hill-Burton Act gave money for hospitals and . . .

Bobbi: How do you spell that?

Dorothy: H-I-L-L-B-U-R-T-0-N. Hill dash Burton Act. They give money, and
they still do, I guess, for building charitable buildings, like hospitals
and nursing homes and old folks' homes, and so on. Hirsh knew all about
that, and he had some very able assistants. Al Spector, Sr., was a very
fine lawyer, and he was very much with it, and a very strong committee was
formed. I was on that committee.

Bobbi: Really.

Dorothy: Because I helped formulate the intake policy. A couple of years
before it was even started, we were meeting regularly. Dr. Eckstein was the
medical director, and gave us a lot of help as to how it should be built. I
think we had 18 beds when it first opened.

Bobbi: Is that right?

Dorothy: The land had been given to us by this couple that I told you
about. There was a couple used to winter here, and old couple, from
Pennsylvania . . .

Bobbi: Oh.

Dorothy: And they were well to do, and they would buy land and sell it. 
They were always buying up everything--she was. She was a sharp old lady, 
and a friend of the Spectors. I mean, he was her lawyer. So through that 
combination they gave the land out there on 32nd Street. We put up the 
nursing home and it was a thing of a beauty and a joy forever. It was 
amazing. They didn't think they'd ever fill it, but as soon as it was done 
it was filled, because people had been in nursing homes throughout the 
Valley in the most deplorable, deplorable conditions! I knew about all
of them because through my father. And Rabbi Krohn had started, you know,
griping about these nursing homes, and he preached against them, and, you
know, said it was a disgrace. There were Jewish people just left in them
and nobody took care of them or anything. So, that's how it came to be
started. Then, later on, after that had been going for quite a while, they
built the apartments. Kivel Manor West, no--East. That was the first one.
And people moved into the apartments--couples, and single individuals, and
they got a meal a day. That's really the story.

Bobbi: And they named it Kivel.

Dorothy: Yes. Certainly he deserved to have it named after him. And his
children came from California to the opening. They were a little
astonished. They thought it was going to be some little . . .

Bobbi: Dinky.

Dorothy: Dinky something, and here was this gorgeous building. And
everybody in the community gave money, you know, we had to have matching
funds. And it didn't seem too hard to raise it, and everybody took out
memberships and all that.

Bobbi: Now was Jewish Family and Children Service here when you came?

Dorothy: Yeah. There was only that one. Oh, isn't that terrible that I have
forgotten her, that I can't think of her name at the moment, because she
was . . .

Bobbi: It'll come to you.

Dorothy: But later on--she handled everything. She handled social services,
and got people in and out of nursing homes. Then they established the
social . . . She handled adoptions. But then, oh my gosh, we've got to
quit.

Bobbi: I'm okay. Go on. I've got time.

Dorothy: No, we've got to go eat lunch.

Bobbi: Oh.

Dorothy: Okay, that'll be enough.

Bobbi: No, no, no. Keep going.

Dorothy: And then they built Kivel Manor West, and um . . .

Bobbi: The Jewish Family and Children Service.

Dorothy: Oh, the Jewish Family and Children Service. Well, then they got a
director. I can't remember, was that

Bobbi: Lois Tuchler?

Dorothy: It was Lois the first one. There was somebody before her, but I
can't remember. And it became... they got a board, and they met regularly, 
and set up criteria, you know, became a real social service--family and 
children service. And then they would recommend people for Kivel, but first 
we had to go round up all these people from the nursing homes and drag--get 
them out of those awful nursing homes and put them in this beautiful, 
beautiful building. It was lovely.

Bobbi: Anything else you forgot?

Dorothy: Well, let's see.

Bobbi: Interesting.

Dorothy: Oh. I remember that in the early days, people dressed in Western
clothes.

Bobbi: Come on.

Dorothy: The men wore kind of a jeans and boots, and kind of tight pants
with slash pockets, or else rancher's kind of things, and, it was quite
stylish to wear Western hats and jackets cut a certain way that they called
rancher's outfits. And everybody wore them. Not only for the Western Week,
you know, but, Rodeo Week, but all the time. That was just, became a very
nice form of dress because it was so hot here, you know, and then nobody
wore coats in the summer. That was unheard of. A whole lifestyle changed, 
you know, with the coming of refrigeration.

Bobbi: How did the women dress?

Dorothy: And the women wore practically nothing then. I remember when I
wrote home, after I'd been here a while and watched the women, and I said,
"I stand on the corner. I think everybody's going to a masquerade."

Bobbi: Why?

Dorothy: Because it was hot, you know, and people wore the most casual,
crummy-looking clothes, and I never saw anything--people dress the way they
dressed here.

Bobbi: Like what?

Dorothy: Well, they wore short shorts, and they wore those pajamas that,
you know, went way down like. Nowadays, I think, we would've . . . what do
you call them?

Bobbi: The pantsuits?

Dorothy: They wore pantsuits, they wore but mostly they were pretty crummy,
you know, it wasn't the stylish thing . . .

Bobbi: Really!

Dorothy: It was the most underdressed city in the country, I think. But it
was very nice, you know, it had a nice Western flavor, and then suddenly it
all vanished.

Bobbi: Wow.

Dorothy: Except Levi's.

Bobbi: Did you dress like that when you first came?

Dorothy: No. I guess I never quite made it to that. But you wore whatever 
it was to keep you cool. You wore very little.

Bobbi: Incredible.

Dorothy: And everybody went away in the summers, anyway. That's what women
did.

Bobbi: Where did they go?

Dorothy: San Diego or up in um, up to Prescott to Iron Springs. That was
the big place.

Bobbi: Where's that?

Dorothy: Just outside of Prescott. But everybody went. Those were the
places. or a lot of people went back East to their families. So here we
are.

Bobbi: It was a good place to move to.

Dorothy: I think so. I think it was very--so different from anything that
had ever happened to any of us, you know, who came out. But it grew into a
community, and now I don't know. I don't think people are as interested.
There are too many of us. We don't know each other, and the organizations
all do things, um, for themselves and on their own. I don't know that
there's a great a feeling of community spirit as there was in the old days,
and I miss that.

Bobbi: You lose that.

Dorothy: Yeah. Well, thank you, Bobbi.

Bobbi: Well, thank you. Thank you, Dorothy Wahl Pickelner. This was
fascinating. If you think of anything else, call me. We'll add it to the
tape.

Dorothy: Will do.

Bobbi: Um. You've added a great deal to our community.

Dorothy: Thank you.

Bobbi: And Phoenix is richer for your presence and your work and your
efforts.

Dorothy: Well I feel that I owe the community a great deal. It's not so
much what you do--what your country did for you, but what you do for your
country that's important, and I don't know that I've done enough.

Bobbi: Well, you've gotten a lot of awards, and they've been well-deserved.

Dorothy: Well, thank you.

Bobbi: Yes. Yes. All right, hopefully this worked, and we've pushed the
right [end of tape]

	[end of transcript]