..inte: Dorthee S. Polson ..intr: Dorothy Pickelner ..da: 1994 ..cp: Clipping from the Arizona Republic describing Admission Day party by Food Editor Dorothee Polson, 7-21-90 ..ca: ..ftxt: An Interview with Dorothee S. Polson July 29, 1994 Transcriptionist: Susan Jacobs/Carol Ruttan Interviewer: Dorothy Pickelner Log for Dorothee Polson Interview 1 Family history Singers 1- 2 Husband's family from Russia Sorkins Kolns 2- 3 Jewish upbringing 3 Met husband Paul Polson 3 Aunt in Phoenix Minnie Lebow Mac Lebow 4 Moved to Phoenix 1962 7 Bred as Food Editor at Arizona Republic 9 Women's Editor Maggie Savoy 9 Managing Editor J. Edward Murray 10 No anti-Semitism at Republic 10 Did interview Clare Booth Luce 11 Growth of food section 11-12 More interviews Barry Goldwater Carl Hayden John F. Kennedy Hubert Humphrey 12-13 Arizona Republic conservative, not prejudiced 14 Joined Temple Beth Israel 14-16 Children Paige Elizabeth Polson Stone Dennis Stone Dorian Leigh Polson Leiberman James Leiberman Paul Elliott Polson Jr. Susan Rosenblatt Polson 16 Paul opened jewelry store - 1971 Paul Polson's Jewelers Serbins Irving Cohen 20 Dorothee Polson's Pot Au Feu Cookbook 21 Son's bar miitzvah, high school and wedding Rabbi Plotkin 22 Beginning of Young Israel 23 Beth Israel Plotkin Judaica Museum Sylvia Plotkin Sue Lebo Noon Walter Noon Betty Cohen Lowenstein Michael Lowenstein Vitoff family 27 75th Statehood Day party Rose Mofford Brenda Meckler 29 Family traditions 29 Publishers at Arizona Republic Mr. Pulliam Mr. Montgomery Mason Walsh Mrs. Pulliam Duke Tully Pat Murphy Dorothee Polson Interview INTERVIEWER: Good morning, Dorothee. POLSON: Good morning, Dorothee. INTERVIEWER: So glad we have you here today. This is July 29, 1994, and we are doing this at my home. I am Dorothy Pickeiner, and I thank you for coming to add to our list of interviews and stories of people. POLSON: My pleasure. INTERVIEWER: I want you to tell me something about your origins, Dorothee. POLSON: I was born in Minneapolis, and my husband and our three children were too, and my father was too. And, there were big families on either side. The Singer family, that was my maiden name, grandparents and lots of aunts and uncles and cousins. And the Sorkins, my mother's family, grandparents and aunts and uncles and lots of cousins. INTERVIEWER: Where did they come from originally? POLSON: The Sorkins came from a little town called Conatep in the Ukraine and the Singers came from Poland, so they are all from other countries. INTERVIEWER: Yes. POLSON: My husband's parents. Let's see, his father came from Russia. He was much older, he was 50 when my husband was born. INTERVIEWER: Oh. POLSON: They had lost a child, and he Game, if I have the story right, in about 1905 to escape the Russo-Japanese War. He came from a wealthy family; they were grain merchants, and there were 17 children. INTERVIEWER: Now we have talked a little beforehand, and so we know a little bit about you. But will you continue from there about what you did in Minneapolis and how you came to Phoenix. POLSON: Well, I was telling you about my husband's father... I have a tin- type covered photo album of the family in Russia, his father's family, and I keep thinking, it's all in Russian, every description. I want to hire somebody to translate that for me and find out, you know, because as we've looked at the pictures I can almost see my father-in-law, the resemblance in my husband and son, too. So I think that will be another piece of detective work, like the Sorkin family one I did, which was very fulfilling. And then my husband's mother came from a family that had two mothers. Her mother died when, I think, she was 12, and there were five children. Then the father remarried, and there were seven more children. So they were also a big family, and they lived in Duluth, Minnesota. We are going to have a reunion, I guess, of that. That was the Koin family, and in 1904 - no - 1907, excuse me, he applied for citizenship in 1904 and was granted citizenship in 1907. So, in 1997 the Koin descendants are planning a reunion in Duluth, Minnesota, to celebrate that hundredth anniversary of the citizenship. INTERVIEWER: I see. POLSON: So, our own, I didn't know my husband as a child, but my own childhood was a very Jewish traditional background. My grandmother was actually Orthodox; my grandmother and my uncle were both Orthodox. INTERVIEWER: Yes. POLSON: They were the only ones. But on both sides of the family It was a Jewish life with Shabbot observance and ail the holidays and the huge Passovers. I have pictures from when we were children of the Passover Seders, and 0 was very traditional like you'd find anywhere. Minneapolis, however, does have a very old and very established Jewish community. INTERVIEWER: So I have heard. POLSON: With a fine system of Jewish education; and my uncle, this is my mothers only brother, the one who did remain Orthodox and was a artist and was very well known in Minneapolis. He taught at the Talmud Torah for, oh I don't know, his whole adult life. and he was honored. They had a fifty-year retrospective of his paintings. INTERVIEWER: Wonderful! POLSON: And, he taught Bar Mitzvah boys, and he was quite a model. INTERVIEWER: Tell about meeting your husband and getting married and having your children, then how you came to Arizona. POLSON: Arizona. Well, we met at the University of Minnesota, and he was just out of the army and was coming back to the university, and that's how we met, and we just started going together right away, and within two years we married. He had another year at the university, and I had another two years, which I look back on as the hardest two years of our marriage because there was always studying. INTERVIEWER: Yes. POLSON: There was never play time really. But it was fun. He belonged to a fraternity. I did not, so there was a lot of social life, too, even though we were married. And, I had an aunt living here in Phoenix, Minnie Lebow. Her husband was Mac... she's in that list I gave you. And so my mother used to come out here every winter. After I met Paul, I learned that his mother and father came out here every winter, and they always talked about these wonderful Phoenix winters and the wonderful climate. And, of course, it would be May, and it would still be stormy in Minnesota. The last winter we lived there, the warmest it got in a three week period was 21 degrees below zero. INTERVIEWER: Oh. POLSON: It was very cold; the winters were very hard. It's a beautiful, dynamic, exciting city, but the winters were impossible. And, from the time Paul and I met, we would talk about, when we got married, we would move to Phoenix and have these nice winters. But we didn't. You just get entrenched in your job and your family; and, after I graduated college, we just wanted to start our family and, before you know it, we had three children and had built a home and were just settled. And then that last winter, that it was 21 below zero, the children were sick, and then, it seemed for every holiday, either my children or my sister's children, would be sick and we would not get together for Thanksgiving or Chanukah or whatever because one or another of the babies was sick...she had five. So we started to think very seriously of moving, and that's really why we came. INTERVIEWER: That's very interesting, and I think that's a very good reason for coming. My reason was pretty much like that too. So, what was Phoenix like? Tell what it was like coming to live here in Arizona. POLSON: Well, we came in January of '62, which was a wonderful month to arrive. We even took a picture of the children sitting on a snow bank. Then, when we came here, we took a picture of them sifting in the flowers and the green grass and in shorts, and we made up a card for our new address with both pictures, and sent it to everyone. So, it was just like everyone had described it. It was beautiful and warm, and we just loved it from the start. We did have a friend who lived here, from Minneapolis. Everyone we did talk to said don't buy a house right away, but lease one for a year and you'll know more about where you'll want to live. So, we leased a house at... I think the address is 820 W. Luke. It wasn't far from here. And we were in that house about a year, and the children went to Solano School. Meanwhile, we started looking for a house to buy, and again everyone said you'll want to be in the Madison School District. That's the most important thing to think about. The school districts are very different here. There were, I think, thirteen or sixteen different school districts, and we were used to one school district, so it didn't matter where you lived. It was the same governing board. So, we looked in the Madison School District, and then we bought the house where we still live. The children are away, and we are still in the Madison School District! INTERVIEWER: Isn't that wonderful? POLSON: I think the school districts should be combined, but anyhow, we bought a comfortable house, and the children started to the Rose Lane School, and then Central High School, and then the University of Arizona. And we're still in the same old house - they've all moved and to bigger - plus, another thing, the time that we bought this house, on 13th Street, that was considered North Central. INTERVIEWER: Yes. POLSON: A very desirable neighborhood. Well, now, all the newcomers are buying in Scottsdale Ranch and Gainey Ranch, and I heard from some woman I met just recently, who just bought a house in Scottsdale Ranch, and she asked me where we lived, and I gave her our address, and she said, "Oh, you're in downtown Phoenix..." INTERVIEWER: Yes, that's right. We're practically in central city, all of us who remain here, but we enjoy being here. POLSON: And I like the area, and I don't want to move away. INTERVIEWER: Did you make friends right away and find work right away? POLSON: Yes, about friends... friends taught me a big lesson. It just seemed like everyone in Phoenix was from somewhere else. Everybody was looking for friends, or a surrogate family. Everybody was very warm and welcoming. We just found friends immediately, and it made me think of what a closed company we were in Minneapolis. To my great shame, when newcomers came to town they had to make friends with other newcomers. I don't think we really intended to shut anyone out, but we had friends from kindergarten. We had enormous families, and there wasn't room or time unfortunately. But here it was very different, and the friends became family. And I think that is one of the wonderful things about Phoenix, and I think it continues. I'll tell you a funny story about a woman we met. I met her at a meeting this last season, and she said she had just moved here, and how long had we been here, you know, the usual thing, and they didn't know anyone here. And we made a date to have lunch on a Sunday with our husbands. And I think it was the next Sunday. As we were settling down to lunch, we were saying to them where are you from, and when did you move here and why. Yola, that was her name, said to me "We've only been here two weeks, and you are our best friends!" INTERVIEWER: Oh, isn't that lovely. POLSON: It's a good story. INTERVIEWER: And I think that really describes how you make friends, and they become family very quickly. And it saved many of us. And what did you do? The children were in school, and what did you do? What did your husband, Paul, do? POLSON: Paul had come here. He was transferred really. He was with Zale's Jewelry at the time. INTERVIEWER: He was with which jewelry company? POLSON: Zale's... Z-A-L-E-'-S. INTERVIEWER: Oh, Zale's, yes. POLSON: It was a big, big firm at that time, and we had asked for this transfer to be here. We had to wait for it. And so, he had a position. I had been working for a newspaper. When we left Kansas City, we lived in Kansas City for two years. While he was with Zale's, they had said the first opening in Phoenix you will get. INTERVIEWER: Yes. POLSON: So, when we moved to Kansas City, I got this job as the Women's Editor at the newspaper there. INTERVIEWER: How interesting! POLSON: Yes. It's all in that bio if you need it. So, just before we left town, I wrote a letter to the Republic here and said we would be moving, and I would be interested in working for them. And then, we drove two cars here from Kansas City, and we decided to make a vacation of it. It took us two weeks, because we stopped at a lot of places. When we got here, we found the managing editor of the Republic had been calling Zale's and saying, 'Well, when are the Polsons going to arrive? We need a food editor." INTERVIEWER: Oh. POLSON: So, when I got here and got that message -- I hadn't even brought working clothes. I had just brought traveling clothes and one suit, in case my aunt wanted to take me to lunch. I had one suit to wear! And so, I put on this one suit and went to see the managing editor, and he wanted me to start that day! We didn't even have a place to live. And, so we made an arrangement, and I told him as soon as we got an apartment and got the children settled in school, I would come to work. And at that time in '62. one of the women who used to work for me in Kansas City had come out here earlier, and she had told me it was very hard to get into the Republic... it was very hard to find jobs - period. So, we were really lucky with that timing. You know, timing is all. INTERVIEWER: That is a very interesting story. POLSON: It was fun. INTERVIEWER: But, you see, you came equipped, so to speak, with a little talent that was needed. There were people who had no... POLSON: Well, I had the experience; I had experience. INTERVIEWER: Yes. POLSON: So, I just.. as soon... Oh, I had to wait for our belongings to come. Everything was being shipped by the movers. So, I couldn't start work until I had some clothes, you know. So, it was fine. We rented an apartment while we looked for a house, right here at the Park Lane Alice... INTERVIEWER: Oh. POLSON: My aunt, who lived here, was related to the Blacks, who owned the Park Lane Alice, so she got us this nice two bedroom apartment. And we were there just a couple of weeks until we got a house and our furniture came. And my clothes were with the furniture, and I started with the Republic. It was great. INTERVIEWER: Now, will you discuss your work on the Republic? We all knew your byline, and admired your work. So, tell us how that went on, your career. POLSON: I had been the Women's Editor in Kansas City. It was a smaller paper. And I had two-and-a-half people to help me, including the weekly food section. And I remember telling my husband that, if I couldn't be the Women's Editor and do everything, I would rather be Food Editor than anything. I liked it better than the social news. I didn't like that at all. Fashion news, I didn't care for that at all. But food was really fun. My education is in journalism, not in food. I have a degree in journalism with a minor in history and humanities, so that makes me a Food Editor. So, when we came here the opening was for a Food Editor. And the Women's Editor, at the time, was Maggie Savoy. She was very well known in town. INTERVIEWER: Yes, I remember. POLSON: She was a terrific woman. And the Managing Editor at the time was J. Edward Murray. INTERVIEWER: She was the Women's Editor? POLSON: She was the Women's Editor, right. But the Managing Editor, J. Edward Murray, was the one who hired me, and he was very well known. He was... if there was ever a mentor, he was it. INTERVIEWER: He was the general manager? POLSON: No, he was the Managing Editor. And so, he was the one that hired me, and he was the one who let me ... you know... just not let me come to work until I settled my family. And he was wonderful to work for. You know, Dorothy, many people, when we were new in town, would say to me," How can you work for the Pulliam Press? How can you stand to be there? They are so anti-Semitic." I never saw evidence of anti-Semitism, never ever. They really gave me wings. You know, I just did my thing. Ed Murray said, "if you have creative people, you just let them do what they want to do. That way you get more out of them. I never had any orders telling me what to do, except when they did get space for a full food section. Then I remember Ed Murray coming in and saying," Well, we're getting you space for a whole food section. Can you have it ready by Friday?" INTERVIEWER: Yes. POLSON: And I did, I did. And even Mr. Pulliam, who so many people, I think, had some... you know... mixed up ideas about, I mean he had firm ideas in his own right. I remember I once did an interview with Clare Booth Luce, and he sent me the most wonderful letter. It was all about "God bless you, and may God give you strength to do more such wonderful interviews", and he was... they were very supportive. We didn't use that word in those days. And the more creative things you brought to the job, the more advances they gave in return. It was a wonderful experience. INTERVIEWER: He praised your interview with... POLSON: He particularly liked the one with Mrs. Luce, because they were friends. INTERVIEWER: With Clare Booth Luce? POLSON: Yes, because she was a friend of Mr. Pulliam's. That wasn't the only time. He and Ed Murray would just constantly be praising and building you up. It was a wonderful place to work in those days. INTERVIEWER: That is very, very interesting, and I think it showed in your articles. We all read them, you know, and the paper, and knew that you were Jewish. But not only for that reason. We admired your column. POLSON: Thank you. INTERVIEWER: Can you tell us a little about how you built it up and how it became part of the community? POLSON: Well, it was nice... again, it was timing because when I started there, I was just to do two food columns a week. That's all they had been doing. But just within a couple of months they arranged for a whole food section. What they used to do is have a food section for the Gazette, to try to build up the Gazette, and not have one in the Republic. But after I came, they decided they wanted to have one in the Republic as well. Actually, I think it helped me that there had not been a food section, because there were no rules and regulations to follow. I could just do whatever I wanted to. And I did. I would do interviews with interesting people, that had nothing to do with food and just bring in their favorite recipes, because everyone eats. Everybody eats, and most people cook a little bit, and most people have a favorite recipe, whether it's theirs or somebody else's. No matter what I wrote about, I could bring in a food angle. And I would interview chefs and do cooking contests and that sort of thing. And then another thing, I started to travel a lot. I've been to, I think, forty different countries, all searching for the perfect recipe. I'd come back and write all these travel stories which were such fun to do, and then write about the food of the country. So, that was a lot of fun. As a matter of fact, that is where I interviewed Mrs. Luce, in her home in Hawaii. She had us come to her house. It was fabulous. And I interviewed Barry Goldwater and Carl Hayden while he was still a Senator. And, not in Phoenix but in Kansas City, I interviewed John F. Kennedy. That was very exciting. And I interviewed Hubert Humphry three times. I interviewed Hubert Humphry when I was in high school. I was the feature editor of the high school paper, and he was the Mayor of Minneapolis. And, then I interviewed him in Kansas City when I was the Women's Editor and he was a Senator. Then I interviewed him twice in Phoenix when I was the Food Editor and he was the Vice-President. So, I don't know how I worked food into that, but I did. INTERVIEWER: You said you interviewed Barry Goldwater. POLSON: Yes. INTERVIEWER: And Hubert Humphery. POLSON: Yes, and Jack Kennedy. And Carl Hayden, and a lot of celebrities in the entertainment business and all that, but these were particularly interesting for me. INTERVIEWER: Did you find, when you talked to people asking about how you could work for the Pulliam Press, because most of us that came from liberal areas in the East, thought they were ultra conservative and not very fair, say, to the young Israel, the new Israel and so on... POLSON: Well, of course I wasn't living here then. They were conservative. There was no question, they were a conservative paper. But what was interesting to me, as the years went on, and we made friends with several couples that were very conservative, moving here from different parts of the East, they would say, "What a wonderful newspaper!", because it expressed what they believed, and validated their interests. But we were talking about anti-Semitism, and never, ever was there any evidence... and there were several Jewish people there on the staff, and they're still there. INTERVIEWER: Are there higher Jews? POLSON: Absolutely. INTERVIEWER: Because that was one thing that they were... POLSON: You know, Dorothy, I remember when there was a lot of criticism that the paper did not hire Blacks or Hispanics, and I remember a person had been put in charge of recruiting Blacks and Hispanics and having a terrible time finding qualified people. People who had degrees in journalism were going to bigger newspapers, papers in the East, where there was bigger pay, and more of a national press. But it seemed to me that there was this ongoing search to put... I remember one Black reporter, and he got a better offer somewhere and left. But I do remember several Hispanics, too. Particularly I do remember this effort to recruit them. INTERVIEWER: I think that is important to know, because they have been accused... POLSON: I would not deny the conservative bias. You know, that certainly has been well established, but I never saw unfairness. The newspaper did not support Barry Goldwater in his Presidency, if you remember. They did some favorite son kind of thing, but... and Hubert Humphrey was I think friends with the Pulliams. I know they did a lot for him when he was here, and I think they supported him. I shouldn't say that because I can't remember now. INTERVIEWER: That was a long time ago. POLSON: Yes. INTERVIEWER: Can you tell us more interesting things as to how you got to know your work on the paper or the Jewish community? POLSON: The Jewish community we sought out on our own. INTERVIEWER: You could talk about that. POLSON: We had always belonged to a Reform temple, and we were searching for a Reform temple. I think that there were three Reform temples, and we said we were going to go temple shopping. And we would go to the Friday night services and try to find what was best for us. And I made a note about it, anyhow. We decided, after we went to Temple Beth Israel, that this was for us. And we joined and have been members ever since. And now there are some twenty temples and synagogues here, aren't there? INTERVIEWER: Yes. POLSON: There are so many, and now they're all moving out and away. Temple Beth Israel talks about moving too. INTERVIEWER: Yes. POLSON: I don't know what is going to be there, but I remember our shopping, and there were only these three places to go to. And our children started there, the girls were confirmed there and went to the religious high school and graduated. INTERVIEWER: Tell me about your children, what their names are, and who they were. POLSON: Who they were? INTERVIEWER: Who they are, and what they are doing. POLSON: Paige Elizabeth Poison was our first daughter, and her married name is Stone. Her husband's name is Dennis Stone, who is an attorney in Miami. And she is an executive with... I guess now with all the mergers and whatnot, it's the largest financial agency in the world. They just sent her to Helsinki, Finland and to St. Petersburg, Russia to do... I don't know what they do there, but they have offices there, and she just had a wonderful trip. INTERVIEWER: Yes. POLSON: I'd been there myself, and I was more excited for her going, because when I was there, it was Leningrad. And the way she described it, as St. Petersburg, it was totally different. So, that's our daughter Paige, and they live in Miami, and they have two children; Allison Lee, who is ten and Zachary, who is seven. INTERVIEWER: The oldest is Paige? POLSON: Yes. INTERVIEWER: P-A-G-E? POLSON: P-A-1-G-E. INTERVIEWER: P-A-1-G-E. POLSON: And our second daughter is Dorian Lee Polson, and her married name is Leiberman. Her name is here, too. Right here, Dorian Lee Polson. And her husband's name is James Leiberman and he is from Chicago. They met at the University of Arizona. And she has a Ph.D. in Clinical Psychology. She has a private practice which she limits to part-time. INTERVIEWER: Where? POLSON: In San Diego, and they have three children. Benjamin Nathan Leibennan is nine, and Marley Rae Leiberman is six. She was six in June, and Jesse... I can't remember his middle name. Isn't that terrible? Anyhow, Jesse is three-and-a-half. So, she has three little children and limits her practice to two to three days a week. So that's very nice for her. INTERVIEWER: Aren't you pleased with them? And your youngest? POLSON: And our youngest is Paul Elliott Polson, Jr. His name is here, and he is fulfilling all his mother's dreams. He was married last July; they just had their first anniversary. And he married a lovely Jewish girl from a local family. Can you believe that! Her name was Susan Rosenblatt, and now it is Susan Polson. Paul's mother's name was Sue Polson. INTERVIEWER: He married ... POLSON: He married a year ago. And they're expecting their first baby in October. And they live in, they live here, well, now they're living at the Biltmore, I don't know when they're going to outgrow that. So, it's like five minutes from us. So, having two daughters on two different coasts, it's going to be great having them here. We just came back from Florida, but it's hard to maintain a grandparent relationship so far away. Now, with our son and Sue, living five minutes from us, we are so excited about this new baby. This will be our sixth grandchild and, living five minutes away. It's going to be a whole new thing. And her parents don't have any grandchildren. This is their first, so they are even more excited than we are. INTERVIEWER: That's just wonderful. What does Paul do? POLSON: He's in business with my husband. I was going to tell you about that, too. My husband came here with Zale's, and Zale's is since kaput. And then he was associated with Lee's Departments, and at two different discount stores, Govway and Woolco. And they've since gone under. You know, they were very big here for a while. So, in 1971 he opened his own store downtown, a retail jewelry store. But last year, he and my son decided to move uptown. So they are at 3003 N. Central. It's right cross the street from Park Central. Do you know where Park Central is? INTERVIEWER: Yes. POLSON: Then, across the street is this Phoenix Corporate Center, also a historical building, but I won't go into that. And then behind that they have a little plaza with shops on the mail, so that's where their business is. So, he's been in business here since. INTERVIEWER: Give me the number again. POLSON: 3003 N. Central. And it's Paul Polson's Jewelers. And our son is a third generation jeweler. My husband's father was a jeweler, too. INTERVIEWER: Paul Polson's Jewelers. POLSON: Right, and our son's name is also Paul. My husband's father had a jewelry store in Minneapolis for about fifty years, so my husband grew up in the business. Now my son is, too. That's why we say he's third generation in this family of jewelers. INTERVIEWER: And tell me about your feeling having lived in a very close community like Minneapolis. How do you think Phoenix does as a community, community wise? Do you like it? Would you recommend it to people, etc.? POLSON: I think it's a wonderful, wonderful community. There are branches of everything that there was in Minneapolis, except the Talmud Torah, which I guess is really singular. But there is a Jewish day school here. Yes, it's a wonderful community. The only thing there was the family. But I see families here, like Shyrl Myland's family. What is their name? INTERVIEWER: Shyrl Myland? POLSON: Yes - her family, her own family name - the Serbin family. They are like 120 people in that family. INTERVIEWER: That's very interesting. POLSON: So, if you have your big family, you have the same kind of relationships that we did in Minneapolis. As a matter of fact, after we moved here, my sister moved here with her family. And my brother, his four children were born here, and my mother moved here. So, we did for many years have a family. And then of course, my aunt. And then my husband had an uncle here, too - Irving Cohen. He lived here for many years; I don't even know how long. So, we did have a family for a long time. Unfortunately, my mother, brother and sister all died in the same year. INTERVIEWER: The same year? How dreadful! POLSON: The same year. It was dreadful. And my uncle in Minneapolis, who was the painter. It was a terrible year. INTERVIEWER: Dorothee, you had a most unusual experience because you came and walked into a job that was so creative. Tell how that affected you, and how it affected your community relations, working in that field. POLSON: I don't know how it affected my community relations other than, between the job and the children and the home, you know, I really did not have the time, and did not choose to belong to anything. The job really fulfilled every kind of social, communal, creative need. It just filled so much for me. I always said that, when I retired, I would start paying back. but, unfortunately, I haven't done that, except in a small degree. INTERVIEWER: You have been very busy? POLSON: I have been very busy - busier than I thought. I didn't think that retirement would be so busy. But, I did feel that I could contribute in a different way. And that is, when organizations would come to me, and say, you know, like temple, and say, we're having this big fund-raiser - Hadassah, or whatever their big fund-raiser was - or wherever they needed publicity, then I was able to do that for them. So. I don't know if I was rationalizing, or what, but I felt that I Gould do more in that position, than I could as a member, just going to meetings or whatever. So, I had a lot of stories of Jewish activities, and always wrote about the Jewish holidays, always. INTERVIEWER: That was food related too, wasn't it? POLSON: Or you make it food related. INTERVIEWER: Yes. POLSON: There was always, for every Jewish holiday, there was always an article with the recipes of the holidays. INTERVIEWER: And, very good. POLSON: And the Kivel Ball, I would, if there was no other angle, I would get the favorite recipe of the chairman. We'd do it that way. I could always help publicize the events. INTERVIEWER: And I don't think it was simply because you were Jewish; I think this was another avenue for you. POLSON: Who knows? It was a very well-read section, very high readership, so any stories in it brought results. INTERVIEWER: I know you were always much appreciated, by both your publishers and your public. POLSON: That's sweet of you to say. INTERVIEWER: You know, you really were, because we all read you every day, and all the interesting things. POLSON: It was fun. It was so much fun, wasn't like working at all. And then I started a very personal column that had nothing to do with food, but about the children, about how they grew. That was also extremely rewarding. No matter what I wrote about, I would have letters from people saying, "Oh, you know, you wrote about your little girl going to camp. Well, my little girl went to camp, and here's what happened..." Or the first tooth and the tooth fairy. Or the concerts. It was like it was my family, but it was everybody's family story, because children all do the same thing. INTERVIEWER: Yes. POLSON: So, that was a lot of fun to do. And then one year the paper compiled them all into a book with recipes. INTERVIEWER: Really? POLSON: With recipes. That was nice, too. INTERVIEWER: What was the title? POLSON: Dorothee Polson's Pot Au Feu cookbook, cause Pot Au Feu was the name of the column, so they put it on the cookbook. And, that was about 40 or 50 columns, and 156 recipes. It's a hardcover book, but loose leaf, because the idea was that every year I would add more recipes. But after doing these 156 recipes, I said that's it! I didn't want to do it again! It was a lot of work. INTERVIEWER: Yes, and it was the paper that... POLSON: ... published it. The paper published it. But it was me who gained all the weight! You know, testing all the recipes. INTERVIEWER: I see. POLSON: I gained 14 pounds on that cookbook. I did not want to do that again. But, I was going to tell you about the temple. INTERVIEWER: I wish you would. POLSON: When we started at the temple, we didn't know anybody. And over the years we got to know so many people. We would come to services; and if we didn't know people intimately, we knew them by name and exchanged greetings. INTERVIEWER: Yes. POLSON: And all that. But now, we're back to not knowing anybody, it seems. There have been such changes. But the children were all confirmed, and then they went to the religious high school, and they graduated from that, and we had weddings there. But, my son, when we came here, he was I don't think quite five years old. He was consecrated there with Rabbi Plotkin, and then Rabbi Plotkin conducted his Bar Mitzvah, and his confirmation, and his religious high school, and he graduated from that. And, then married him this last year. INTERVIEWER: Isn't that lovely? POLSON: And rabbi used that in the ceremony. It was a very nice feeling. And then we really felt like we really do have roots here. We really do. INTERVIEWER: And it's so nice that you have a child that's continued here. POLSON: Yes. INTERVIEWER: Continued the name and the... POLSON: We've been so lucky. But, we felt lucky to have Rabbi Plotkin at that time, and he conducted my mother's funeral, too. INTERVIEWER: He was very much part of your family. POLSON: Yes, he was a very good friend, too. INTERVIEWER: Many people who came at that time found him a very good person to know, and have. What do you see as the future for Phoenix and Jewish Phoenix? Do you have any ... POLSON: I don't know if I'm the right person to ask about this, but I cant imagine that it would go any way but forward. It's like in any city. We've lived in three cities. Minneapolis and Kansas City, where we were only there a short of time, but we did belong to a big Reform temple, and in a small way were part of the Jewish community. And, I just can't imagine any thing other than Phoenix growing in strength and numbers and in organizations. I can't imagine any other future. Look at the changes there have been. INTERVIEWER: Talk about the changes you have seen. POLSON: Well, so many temples now, and synagogues, compared to when we came, compared to when you came. I've counted them sometimes, and I think there are something like twenty. And the day schools. In our neighborhood, I remember when the Chabad started on Maryland in that little house. I used to walk by it on my way to the office. Then they bought this big building, not far from us on Lincoln (Glendale becomes Lincoln). INTERVIEWER: Yes. POLSON: And then a family, that belonged to Chabad, bought a house in our neighborhood, across the street, and they were very active in this Chabad House. And then about two years ago, they called my house and wondered if my husband could come over to their house for a minyan. And, I remember we were surprised. And they had some sort of failing out, which is typical of any temple in any community. So they decided to start a new Orthodox community. So, that's how Young Israel began. So, they started that. There's another Orthodox Congregation. And we saw this in Minneapolis. As a matter of fact, we were married at Beth El. Rabbi Aronson was the big rabbi. I still have his book I'm using for a paper this week. INTERVIEWER: In Kansas City? POLSON: No, in Minneapolis. But, by the time we married and moved to St. Louis Park, we were not going to go into Minneapolis to Beth El, and we started to go to a little synagogue where all the young couples were going, which started in a house, a little old house. Now, that's a great big temple in the years that we've been gone. And there's another little synagogue starting in a little house. So, I think it's growth and renewal, with a split and start again. I see great future. INTERVIEWER: I know that you've been very active in Beth lsrael's Plotkin Judaica Museum, and I know that you've added much of your particular talents and so on. You want to talk about the museum and how you got going? POLSON: I think it's an absolute jewel for the whole community, not just the Jewish community. It's a wonderful undertaking. I think all the credit goes to Sylvia Plotkin. Without her there wouldn't have been a museum. She always used to say, "When you retire, I'm getting you for the board." Because she knew that I would not join anything while the children were at home and I was at the office. So, when I retired she said, 'OK, the children are grown, and you're retired. You've got no more excuses. You have to come on the board.' And I really wanted to. As I told you, I really wanted to join the historical society when they started. But there's just so much that one person... So I did go on the board, and I enjoy it very much. I think, again, a very rewarding position. I'm sure you feel the same way. INTERVIEWER: I certainly do. POLSON: What you put into that, you get so much more. INTERVIEWER: Much more. I think that this is something that we could teach others. It isn't a chore; it becomes a very rewarding experience. POLSON: I think we really need to Involve a lot more people, and 1 have some suggestions. I don't know if you were there when I suggested a whole program of involving people by the dozens and maybe hundreds. INTERVIEWER: In the Historical Society? POLSON: No, in the museum. INTERVIEWER: Oh, I think you should do that. POLSON: They want to do it, but it just takes somebody to head it up. INTERVIEWER: That would be most interesting. POLSON: I can't imagine anybody not being a friend of the museum. INTERVIEWER: The museum is apart from everything else. POLSON: Absolutely. INTERVIEWER: For all religions. POLSON: Absolutely. INTERVIEWER: And I notice that many people who are not Jewish come and visit the museum. POLSON: Yes. INTERVIEWER: They bring their classes and so on. What else would you like to tell us about? POLSON: Let me see. I told you about the two families that were living here. My husband's uncle, living Cohen, and my aunt, Minnie Lebow. When we first moved here in 1962, these were things that I got from my photo albums, the first thing we did was to buy cowboy clothes, because the rodeo was coming. So, we had to outfit everyone in boots and sombreros, the whole thing, and that was a lot of fun. INTERVIEWER: That's fun. POLSON: Yes, it was. And very different for us, coming from the mid-west. INTERVIEWER: Did you feel part of the city? POLSON: Yes. We were astounded that the schools closed for rodeo. I don't know if they still do, but that was a surprise. And, of course, we wanted to see much of the state, so that was the summer we went to the Grand Canyon, and the Petrified Forest, and the Painted Desert and Monument Valley and the Zane Grey Ranch and Nogales, Sonora, also. And these all provided stories for me, too. INTERVIEWER: That's interesting. POLSON: And then that same year we moved here, there were weddings in these two families that were here. My cousin, Sue Lebow, now Noon, was married, and the children were all in the wedding party. And then in the Cohen family, their daughter was married; and all the relatives came, so we felt really caught up in new family. My cousin, Sue Lebow, married Walter Noon, who grew up in Nogales, Arizona. INTERVIEWER: Yes. POLSON: And Betty Cohen married Michael Lowenstein, who grew up in Scottsdale. So, there was more family there. And the children started that summer at the day camp at the Jewish Center, but it was, at that time, at 15th Street and Camelback. They were there a couple years and then they moved to your neighborhood. And, let's see. I told you about my own family moving here in the '60s. And my mother and my sister are both buried at the Temple Beth Israel Cemetery. And three of my sisters children still live here. Their last name is Vitoff. INTERVIEWER: What's the spelling? POLSON: V-I-T-0-F-F. They live here, and two of them have children. And my brother's children, he had four - all born here. They don't live here, but we just went to their weddings, two of the girls' weddings in Minneapolis. One lives in Australia, but they consider Phoenix their home. INTERVIEWER: That's very interesting. POLSON: When we first came here, we used to celebrate New Years Day with a picnic at North Mountain. We thought that was the most Arizona kind of New Year's we could have, because in Minneapolis it would be twenty below and snow. INTERVIEWER: And thirty below! POLSON: Yes. We have wonderful pictures of the children getting bigger every year, at this New Years Day picnic. In 1971, in Lake Havasu City, they were building the city and moving the London Bridge there. Do you remember that? And the developers asked me to come up and write some stories about it. So, we turned it into a family weekend, and we all went up there. They had the bridge in place, but they had not excavated underneath it. So all the sand was pretty much up to the bridge. My whole family stood there on the top of the sand pile and reached up our hands like this, and touched the bottom of the London Bridge. Very shortly after that they excavated underneath there and moved it away, so that picture will never be able to be repeated. INTERVIEWER: That's a real historic moment. POLSON: I thought so, and I have pictures of that. So, whenever we go there, we always look at that bridge in awe and say, "We were up that high touching the bottom of the bridge." And then, in 1973, again to do a story, but also to have a little weekend with my husband, we went to Castle Hot Springs. And of course that's gone. It was so beautiful. I wish I had brought you the pictures. There we were, in the middle of winter, wandering among these beautiful gardens, with everything in bloom. And bubbling away in the hot spring. You think, who would want to be in outdoor water at this time of year, but it was beautiful. And then in 1986, February of '86 -- my husband and I were big party givers, we always gave big parties with big themes, and made people dress up and all that. And our party in 1986 was the 75th Statehood Day party. INTERVIEWER: What was it? POLSON: For Arizona's 75th birthday. INTERVIEWER: Arizona's? POLSON: Yes. INTERVIEWER: Arizona's 80th? POLSON: You know, Arizona's.. you know February... 75th. INTERVIEWER: 75th. POLSON: Yes, Arizona became a state in 1912 1 believe, so then this would have been 75th Anniversary in 1986. 1 hope my figures are right, Dorothy. We'll have to check them. We told everyone to dress in the style of 1912, and everyone did. They were beautiful! We researched the foods and just served the foods of 1912. And we had been friendly with Rose Mofford, our former Governor, and she came dressed in one of her Liberty outfits. She gave the most beautiful little speech, political and sentimental. Nobody has ever forgotten that party. That was one of our really good parties. And, let me see. I think I mentioned before that in 1980 my mother was 80 years old. And so we had a birthday party. INTERVIEWER: She was born in 1900. POLSON: 1900. INTERVIEWER: So was Brenda Meckler. POLSON: Really? INTERVIEWER: Yes. POLSON: Is Brenda living? INTERVIEWER: Yes. POLSON: She is? Isn't she lucky? INTERVIEWER: She's 94. POLSON: Yes, 94. Well, my mother died at 87. But we had this big 80th birthday, with a family reunion, and everybody came from all over. The sisters live in every state. And, that's when I did this family narrative. So, there were only two sisters, my mother and her sister Minnie Lebow, who lived in Phoenix. But the story is like a universal story of a Jewish family anywhere. Of how they left Russia and came to this country and the hard times they went through. How everyone made it and had wonderful lives. So, that's the narrative of the family. And there were songs to go with it. Everybody sang song parodies, but I don't seem to have a copy. And then in 1985, just before my mother's 85th birthday, we did it again. And we had another big reunion. I wrote what I called the Sorkin Family Opera to the music of Fiddler on the Roof, which you know INTERVIEWER: Now that was in 19.... ? POLSON: 1985. And, stupid of me, I did not save a copy of the verses, but I think my aunt has them, and I'm going to get a copy. INTERVIEWER: Yes, you should. POLSON: Each generation had their own song. The one we sang went something like this: "Second generation - we're the children of the Sorkins, and we number 23. Though we come from many states, we're as close as we can be." And on and on like that. INTERVIEWER: Lovely, lovely. POLSON: It was a lot of fun. Each group got up and sang their part, and we had an orchestra, and it was just fun. INTERVIEWER: Wonderful. POLSON: Then in '87 so many of the family died. Oh, you wanted Jewish things. When we lived in Minneapolis and we had little children, we started to do a Hanukkah open house. The first Sunday of Hanukkah, we'd invite all of our friends and their children and their parents and their grandparents. And it was just the most wonderful party. We continued it here for many years. Now I don't do it, because the kids are gone. But the children do it. And my little nieces, who used to come to the early parties do it. Paige does it in Miami, and Dorian does it in San Diego, and another little cousin does it in Los Angeles. I feel very good about that. They all tell me that, because of all the fun they had as children, they do the same party. You start traditions, and they get continued. INTERVIEWER: Family traditions are so important to hold the family together. POLSON: And another thing. When we came here in '62, we used to go to the symphony concerts at Phoenix Union High School. Then they moved to Gammage. So, we'd follow them out there. It was hard. I would come home from the office, give the children dinner, do homework with them and get them off to bed and then drive out to Tempe. I used to sit in a stupor through the concert. Now it's very nice that it's in Symphony Hall. That was a change here, too. And, the Madison School District is still the best place to buy a house, I think. And then, at the newspaper, I remember Mr. Pulliam was publisher and then Mr. Montgomery, Mason Walsh, Mrs. Pulliam, Duke Tully, Pat Murphy, two more since I left. I went through six or seven publishers - a lot of changes. INTERVIEWER: You went through how many publishers? POLSON: Six or seven. INTERVIEWER: Seven. POLSON: I think so. INTERVIEWER: I think that's very interesting. You ought to write them down for me. Let's get back to food, since that's what brought you here. Have you embraced western food, or Southwestern foods? POLSON: Oh, sure, and Mexican food. I like all kinds of food. The only thing I don't do anymore is cook. And I don't keep house anymore. When I retired in 1989 the newspaper had an early retirement incentive buyout. They offered a golden parachute or a silver parachute or whatever. It was a very, very generous offer. You were foolish not to take it, so, I retired earlier than I ever imagined I would, but with all the benefits. INTERVIEWER: When was this? POLSON: I think it was 1989. INTERVIEWER: Early retirement? POLSON: Yes. But I said to my husband, I'm not going to retire from the most glamorous job in Phoenix, to keeping house and cooking. I'm retiring from everything! So, that's what I did. Although, depending when the kids come, I cook their favorite foods, and when we go there, I bake cookies with the children, just for a bonding thing to do. I don't really want to anymore! Then I eat the cookies and that's not too good. I don't cook anymore, but I still eat, and I am interested in food. INTERVIEWER: You don't eat? POLSON: I still eat. I don't cook, but I still eat. Everybody eats. INTERVIEWER: I'm sure you do. And, the newspaper, as you see it today, do you think it's a good paper? We hear such various comments on the Republic and the Gazette. POLSON: Yes. You know how it is when the newspaper has an editorial that you agree with totally, then you think it's really good. If there's an editorial you oppose what they're saying, you think it's pretty bad. I used to do a lot of speaking to different groups, but after I retired, I thought, I won't be doing that anymore. But, I am. INTERVIEWER: That sounds like a wonderful idea. POLSON: It was actually someone else's idea. I said I would talk to their group, if they wanted whatever talks I had prepared, but I wasn't going to do a new one. It's a lot of work, as you know. INTERVIEWER: Yes, I know that. POLSON: So, this program chairman said, 'Well, OK, we'll take whatever talk you want to give us. But, we were hoping you would speak to us about your years as a food editor." I never thought about that so it was flattering. So I put together a talk, and I give that. The theme is that everything changes. Everything changes. When I came to this newspaper, there was no food section, as I told you. Then they started one for me, not for me, but for me to edit. Then, after I left, it was combined with the Gazette. So we're back to 30 years ago, thirty-some years ago. Now there is just one section for both newspapers, instead of two when I left. Everything changes. The newspaper changes; the columnist changes. INTERVIEWER: People change. POLSON: Absolutely. INTERVIEWER: Everything else changes. [end of transcript]