..inte: Allen Rosenberg ..intr: Dean Smith ..da: 1985 ..cp: 1994.005.003 Interior of Thrifty Drug Store, ca. 1940 ..ca: ..ftxt: An Interview with Allen Rosenberg January 17, 1985 Transcriptionist: Carol Ruttan Interviewer: Dean Smith Arizona Jewish Historical Society Log For Allen Rosenberg Interview Pages 1- 2 Morris Rosenberg Company 3 Family background 3- 4 Rose's background Mrs. Archie E. Linde 5 Military school; 1926 6 Pomona 8- 9 Marriage Rabbi Edgar F. Magnin 9 Active In Masons 11 Early married life 11-13 Experiences in drug business; became a pharmacist 1933 13-15 Reasons for move to Phoenix Jack Lofsky Harold Davis 15-17 Thrifty Payless Drugs Bob Jones B.B. Moeur Barney Marks Ike Diamond Dick Smith 17-20 Sold store to Skaggs 1942 Evan Lane Studio Theater 20-21 Became section chief at OPA Dick Harvel 21-23 Seed and grain business Archie Kroloff Terris Manley 23-24 Started Guaranty Bank 1959 Bob Robbs Jack Stewart Lloyd Bimson David Murdoch Jim Simmons Dr. Dan Noble A. J. Bayless Russ Lyon Sr. Mel Decker Guy Neeley 25-26 Became vice president of Guaranty Bank 26 President of Bank of Scottsdale 26 Pioneer Bank Arnold Smith 27 President-Phoenix Chamber of Commerce 27-28 Merger with Great Western Bank Ray Rich Jim Benedens 28-30 Activities since retirement Ralph Watkins Lee Watkins Hardesee brothers 31 Director of five banks 31-32 Met Rose In eighth grade 32-38 Rose's background Heinman Rosen Bertha Gordon Ben Gordon 39-41 Rose's education/interests 41 Rose as president of Hadassah 42-45 Son/grandson Bob Rosenberg 47 National Council of Jewish Harry Rosenzweig Women Allen Rosenberg Interview This is Dean Smith talking to Allen Rosenberg on January 17, 1985. SMITH: It's not like being interviewed for a newspaper story. You get to see what's going to be used. ROSENBERG: I don't know whether you'd call this a boast or not, because I don't know If there's any particular credit that goes with It. There's not anything that you can do about something like what I'm about to tell you, but I call myself an Intercontinental United states citizen because I was conceived In New York and born in California, from ocean to ocean. SMITH: Was your father a merchant, did you say, or was in business? ROSENBERG: No. His old business is still being run by one of our nephews in Los Angeles. In about 1907 he founded the Morris Rosenberg Company at 9th and San Pedro Streets In L.A. It was originally wholesale produce, you know, vegetables and fruits, wholesale. It opened at 1:00 in the morning. I have a brother 22 months younger than I am - I'm the oldest of six. My dad in the summertime, during summer vacation -- my brother and I would take alternate nights during the week -- my dad would take one of us one night and one the next with him at 1:00 a.m. to go out and work until about 7:00 in the morning. Then held give us a quarter and send us home. SMITH: You're the oldest of six then? ROSENBERG: Yes. SMITH: And you were born in Los Angeles? ROSENBERG: Yes. SMITH: And the date is on here - January 28, 109. You've got a birthday coming up. ROSENBERG: Yep. Number 76. SMITH: You started in the business at 21, apparently, as a partner in the drug company. Was that your first job? ROSENBERG: Yes. Well, no, I was working for my dad during the summers in high school. I drove a truck and made downtown deliveries in Los Angeles. I told you he was in the fruit and produce business, but gradually, over the years, he filled a vacuum in that great big city market company where he had his stalls. Nobody was handling nuts, so he gradually started in with a few nuts and gradually built up until, finally, he was the nut supplier there and got out of the fruits and vegetables and just was in nuts. He started importing from all over the world. He'd bring in brazil nuts and pistachios and cashews from everywhere - all the nuts. ROSE R.: And peanuts. ROSENBERG: Peanuts were domestic. I was talking about the imports. SMITH: I don't think you're ever going to get old. You and (?) will never get old. ROSE R.: I don't know. She might not get old, but I do get old. ROSENBERG: Rose isn't going to play squash. She's decided she isn't going to play squash. She has enough trouble getting good shoes to fit her feet. SMITH: Not going to go sail planing? You know, she did that on her 70th birthday. ROSENBERG: Yes, she sure did. ROSE R.: She's something else again. SMITH: She's crazy. ROSE R.: Well, she sure is full of enthusiasm, now that's for sure. SMITH: Well, her life is a joy. And she makes other people's lives better as a result of it. If you could just have that optimistic outlook. She says every morning, "This Is going to be a great day." ROSENBERG: Yes. You call her up and ask her, "How are you?" and her answer's always the same, "Fantastic!". ROSE R.: That's right. That's what she says. SMITH: Well, I'm glad I've got to know her. We're Just talking about the background of his family. It's interesting. His father came from Russia and his mother from Austria. Did you know them? ROSE R.: Oh, sure. ROSENBERG: Yes. We met In the 8th grade In grammar school. SMITH: Oh. ROSE R.: I was their seventh child. ROSENBERG: Absolutely. She was the seventh child in our family. SMITH: I'm going to get to you In a minute and find out -this was In New York that this happened, that you met? ROSENBERG: No. We met In Los Angeles. SMITH: Oh. Your parents met In New York. okay. That's right. ROSENBERG: Rose was born in Nashville. SMITH: Nashville? ROSENBERG: Yes. SMITH: You ought to know all about country music then. ROSE R.: Yeah, but when I was In Nashville country music - 60 years ago country music wasn't even written. SMITH: They just played it. ROSE R.: They just fiddled around, and you danced to that type of fiddling. But then it was classical. I heard Caruso and a lot of people in Nashville. They had the Ryman Auditorium and my father was too poor to buy tickets. it was hot and they used to leave the windows open of the auditorium and we would go to the open windows. He would sit us one at a time on his shoulders and we could look in and hear the music, see the people. That's how I got to know about classical music. SMITH: That's always been one of my favorite things. ROSENBERG: Bless Mrs. Archie E. Linde. ROSE R.: Oh, wasn't she wonderful. SMITH: They had an article about her the other day. Did you see that? ROSE R.: Yes. SMITH: The lady who brought us culture. she was the only one who did. ROSE R.: She really did - those crippled up hands and those crippled up feet. SMITH: Without her Phoenix wouldn't have had any. ROSE R.: She was a dear person. ROSENBERG: She did it all in the Phoenix Union High School auditorium, because that's all there was. SMITH: I heard___________ and________________ and______________. They used to run those as a double feature. ROSENBERG: Oh, for goodness sake. Were you born here? SMITH: No. We came to Glendale in 1933. ROSENBERG: We came here in '33. SMITH: Must have been a good year. ROSENBERG: Excellent year. It was tough going, though. SMITH: How did you get to Pomona? ROSENBERG: I got to Pomona because I wanted to go to Stanford. I went to the San Diego Army and Navy Academy -- SMITH: Went to which, pardon me? ROSENBERG: San Diego Army and Navy Academy. SMITH: Graduate school? ROSENBERG: Military school. I graduated from there in the class of 1926. SMITH: That was high school, then? ROSENBERG: Yes, that was the equivalent of high school. Stanford University gave in those days what they called the Thorndike IQ Test. They'd give it in different communities. So when they came and gave it in San Diego my roommate and I went in, along with a bunch of others, and took the test. I just squeaked by and he didn't. We wanted to stay together. His sister was going to Pomona and my father knew one of the trustees at Pomona, so we ended up being roommates at Pomona. Later he went to Harvard and took law and became a judge. After two years at Pomona I quit to get married. It was the heart of the Depression, so I couldn't go back to school. We got married and we've been married ever since, and I'm not sorry. SMITH: I guess Pomona was expensive even then, wasn't it? ROSENBERG: Yeah, it was. As I recall Pomona limited its intake. There were only about 1,500 there altogether, of which 1,200 were men and 300 were women. Then they opened Scripps College and boy, were we glad to see Scripps College for women. SMITH: I was there for a year. ROSE R.: At Pomona? SMITH: Yes, during the war. They turned it over pretty much to the Air Force. They had us pre-meteorology students there. Did you hear about that program? ROSENBERG: No. SMITH: They had a full year of math, physics and science, getting ready to go into weather officer's school. I finished that and then, just about that time, they decided they had enough weather officers, so they reclassified everybody and I got sent to Yale for communications training. I had a rough time. ROSENBERG: Pomona and Yale. SMITH: But I had to go to the Aleutians after that. ROSE R.: We were up in the Aleutians three years ago. SMITH: Is that right? Where did you go? ROSE R.: We saw those embankments of the, I guess, the Navy built them up there on those islands. SMITH: What island were you on? ROSENBERG: We were really short of the Aleutians. We were on Kodiak. ROSE R.: No, no, no. We were on another island where we -- Kodiak we didn't see those embankments. ROSENBERG: Yes, we did. ROSE R.: We did? I thought we saw them up there near Point Barrow. SMITH: I was out halfway to Siberia out on and ROSENBERG: Oh, yeah, you sure were. We got to Kodiak, but then we went up north to Point Barrow. SMITH: I'd like to go there. Fairbanks' further north, I think. ROSENBERG: Yes. We spent quite a bit of time in Fairbanks. We liked it. We were at the university there, too. Rose fell in love with their little museum there. She dragged me back there several times. she didn't have to drag very hard - I enjoyed it, too. That's quite a university there. SMITH: You know, it's the only university that's in four time zones. ROSENBERG: No. I didn't realize that. SMITH: They have a little branch out of Adak and they have another one down around Juneau, and it's that far. It's an amazing distance from east to west in Alaska. ROSENBERG: I should say it is. SMITH: Farther than from coast to coast in this country. ROSENBERG: That's what I understand. But, we were there a full month in Alaska. Gary Pickard worked out our trip for us. Rose wanted to get away for a full month in August. That's the first vacation I'd taken in 18 years. So, we went northeast, west and south. We went all over Alaska and we just loved it. It was a great trip. ROSE R.: We better get back now so he can finish out all his work. ROSENBERG: And get on to your's. SMITH: Tell me how you got in the drug business. That was apparently your first big operation, wasn't it? ROSENBERG: I had a brother-in-law In Los Angeles, Rose's sister's husband. SMITH: So you were married when you started this? ROSENBERG: Yeah. SMITH: So maybe we better talk about that first. ROSENBERG: Getting married you mean? SMITH: Yes. ROSENBERG: In those days you didn't live together like they do now - you got married. ROSE R.: And if you got married, your parents kicked you out of the house so you had to start earning a living. ROSENBERG: My dad, because I was the oldest, he lectured me. Rose and I got secretly engaged when I was 16 years old. Then, when I was about 18, I thought I was ready to get married my dad said, "Nothing doing." In those days your parents had to sign in California if you were under 21. SMITH: 21, really? ROSENBERG: Oh, yeah. You weren't legally of age in California until you were 21. So, my dad says, "Nothing doing." He wasn't going to sign anything, because he was 29 when he got married and I wasn't going to get married that young. So, 16 days after I was 21 I didn't have to ask him anymore and we got married. He wasn't at all sure it was going to last. SMITH: Where were you married? ROSENBERG: Los Angeles. SMITH: By? ROSENBERG: Rabbi Edgar F. Magnin. We were married in the Elks Temple. SMITH: Edgar? ROSENBERG: Edgar F. Magnin. SMITH: It was a famous family? ROSENBERG: Yes, that's right. SMITH: In the Elks Temple? ROSENBERG: Yes. SMITH: I've heard all kinds of places to get married, but I haven't heard that one before. ROSENBERG: It was a very nice place in L.A. SMITH: You were active later in Masons, right? ROSENBERG: Yes. I became a Mason - that was over here. SMITH: We were speaking of Morris a while ago. He was probably the most prominent Arizona Mason for 50 years. ROSENBERG: Yes. I know it. He and Harry Arizona _________. SMITH: That's right. They're fathers came over together In steerage. ROSENBERG: I didn't know that. For goodness sake. SMITH: Right. 1952. I've been doing the Goldwater family history - a year at it and I've got another six months to go, I suppose. It's 125 years and a lot of fascinating characters in that story, I'll tell you. His Uncle Joe was a book by himself. I'll tell you about that sometime. Anyway, you were married then, what was the date exactly? ROSENBERG: February 16, 1930. SMITH: That was the beginning of the Depression, wasn't it? ROSENBERG Yes, sir. the wedding gifts we didn't get. People were hurting economically. SMITH: Were you sort of a blue-class family? ROSENBERG: Yes. SMITH: Not wealthy. ROSENBERG: No. Strictly middle-class, not wealthy at all. SMITH: Anybody that had a big wholesale produce place, though, probably made some money - your dad. ROSENBERG: Well, he made enough to keep the family, you know, sending me to military school, but there was no way you could call him wealthy, because he wasn't. He never was. SMITH: Never gave you your own Mercedes or anything like that? ROSENBERG: No car at all. My brother and I earned a Plymouth and paid for it jointly. When Rose and I got married my brother gave us his half as a wedding present. Then he didn't have a car. But we had to have a car and he knew it, so he was decent about it. SMITH: Where did you live when you were first married? ROSENBERG: We lived In Los Angeles on Belvedere Drive. ROSE R.: No. We lived on 77th Street near Figueroa and Manchester. ROSENBERG: That's right. ROSE R.: And now it's covered by the freeways. ROSENBERG: My dad had built a so-called supermarket there. This was in the early days of supermarkets, you know, It was a relatively small supermarket. Eventually, he lost it, couldn't support it, but he built it there. My job was to manage it. That was my first job. SMITH: Was it near that location? ROSENBERG: Yes. It was right smack on Manchester and Figueroa, right on the corner. SMITH ; So you did that for a while before you got in the drug business? ROSENBERG: Yes. And left there to open a drugstore in partnership with this brother-in-law in the Belvedere Gardens Market, which was a big supermarket in Belvedere Gardens, which is just outside of L.A. In fact, it's part of L.A. SMITH: Why a drugstore? You didn't know anything about that, did you at that time? ROSENBERG: No. He was In the drug business. He had another store in Pasadena that he was running and he had to have somebody to run this store. So we went into partnership. SMITH: And you learned it after you got in. ROSENBERG: That's right. ROSE R.: We had pharmacists that worked in the drugstore filling the prescriptions and all. ROSENBERG: Sure, had to. ROSE R.: Then Allen learned pharmacy, enough to pass. SMITH: You actually learned -- ROSENBERG: Yes. I eventually became a pharmacist. I took the last board in 1933 in San Francisco that you could take on experience as an apprentice. SMITH: Without going to pharmacy school? ROSENBERG: Without going to pharmacy school. After that you had to go to pharmacy school. '33 was the last exam you could take. I needed 75 to pass and I made 76. SMITH: So you thought you might be a druggist for life or did you think that was going to be your -- ROSENBERG: Sure. I didn't know. SMITH: Was there anything that you wanted to do as a child? ROSENBERG: Yes. I wanted to be a lawyer. I aimed at law. In fact, I went to night school for a while after we got married, but I was no Abraham Lincoln. I would fall asleep, after working all day. SMITH: So you gave that up. ROSENBERG: I gave it up. SMITH: You didn't like it as much as you thought you would? ROSENBERG: No, I liked it. It was just too tough. I was driving a truck for my dad. SMITH: So that was before you were married? ROSENBERG: That was before we were married. I didn't go to law school after e married, do you remember? No, because then we moved out to Manchester and Figueroa. That's right. That was before we were married. SMITH: Had finance ever entered your mind? ROSENBERG: No. That was another accident. Everything I've gotten into -- SMITH: You became a pharmacist in '33 and that was the year you came to Phoenix. ROSENBERG: Yes. Well, I became a pharmacist early in the year. We came to Phoenix in December. SMITH: That's when I came, in December. ROSENBERG: Did you? oh, for goodness sake. SMITH: I was just a kid, 10 years old, at the time. We went to Glendale. my brother had asthma. So, I was going to ask you, why did you come to Arizona? ROSENBERG: To open the first cut-rate drugstore in the state of Arizona. It was a so-called opportunity. SMITH: How did that come about? ROSENBERG: There was a chap who used to set up displays and we'd pay him by the hour. He had an ability to put displays together. At that time we only paid about 50 cents an hour or something. He had come from here. So he started telling me, "Boy, you ought to go over and look at Phoenix. There's no cut-rate drugstore in the whole state of Arizona. Somebody's going to go in there someday and start one." This is the heart of the Depression, you know. So, finally, I got convinced enough to drive over here - I couldn't afford a public conveyance - and came over here and got with Walter Thalheimer. He had an empty store in the middle of the block at 22 East Washington. Half the block was empty at that time down there on Washington because everybody had gone broke in the Depression. So, we were able to make a favorable lease with him. So I entered into a lease with him, without any money, without anything - just because the opportunity was there and somehow, some way, we were going to work it out. We sweated blood and at the end of the next six months we owed $29,000, both of us working in the store all day long. SMITH: You mean, the two of you or your partner? ROSENBERG: No, I had no partner in that store. SMITH: What was your brother-in-law's name, by the way? ROSENBERG: His name was Jack -- SMITH: This is your brother? ROSE R.: No. My brother-in-law, my sister's husband. ROSENBERG: His name was Jack Lofsky, L-o-f-s-k-y. ROSE R.: But Harold Davis did have a 15 percent interest in the business. ROSENBERG: Well, I don't count that, Rose, because he was the chap who had sold us on the idea of coming over here to look and he was going to be a partner in the thing, but he had no money at all. We had very little. But, we had established some credit, so we were able to put the thing together. He turned out to be less than no good. So, finally, we had to work him out of the thing after just a couple of months. Right off the bat so, he never was really party to it. SMITH: He was the display arranger you were talking about? ROSENBERG: Yeah. SMITH: And what did you call this? ROSENBERG: We called it Thrifty Payless Drugs. SMITH: Is that name still used? ROSENBERG: Well, Thrifty was a big outfit over in California. That's where we picked up the name. It was Thrifty Drug and, of course, they're here now, too. But they weren't in those days. We called it Thrifty Payless Drugs. SMITH: Old Bob Jones was in the drug business over here, too. ROSENBERG: Right across the street. He was in the Fox Theater building. SMITH: He became governor right after that. ROSENBERG: Yeah. ROSE R.: We knew him quite well. SMITH: B.B. Moeur was governor when you came. ROSENBERG: Yeah, sure was. I went Into the Sciots with B.B. Moeur. Together there were 3 or 4 of us that went in the same night together. Barney Marks talked me into going into the Sciots. SMITH: He was an old man compared to you though. ROSENBERG: Yeah, at that time, sure, I was pretty young. SMITH: He came to Tempe In 1896. ROSENBERG: Is that right? ROSE R.: I'll tell you something. When we were in Phoenix for 11 years Barney Marks introduced Allen as a newcomer. ROSENBERG: Ike Diamond had died and -- what was his wife's name? Nellie. We went over to Nellie Diamond's home to pay our respects that night and Barney Marks was there. There was some fellow from the East with him and right there he introduced me to this man as a newcomer to Phoenix, and I'd been there 11 years. I came home and told Rose, I said, "I don't know how long you have to be here ---" SMITH: It's usually the other way. If you've been here two years -- ROSENBERG: If you've been here one summer! SMITH: This drugstore was on Washington then? ROSENBERG: Yeah, 22 East Washington. SMITH: Near the Fox. ROSENBERG: That's right; across the street. SMITH: Nothing like going over there to -- you knew Dick Smith, I'm sure. ROSENBERG: Oh, yeah, sure. ROSE R.: For years. ROSENBERG: He was a fellow Kiwanian. SMITH: I interviewed Dick for some reason 15 years ago. Is he still living? ROSENBERG: I don't have any idea. Lost all track of him. SMITH: He said if we could keep his Shirley Temple picture going two weeks, then Will Rogers for another two, we had it made. Then they'd come out with another one about that time. I used to love Will Rogers' pictures and I don't know why they don't have them on TV. They never do. It must be something tied up with the estate or something. It's hard to talk to you people because we're friends and we keep talking about other things all the time. ROSENBERG: We know so many of the same people. SMITH: So the drugstore was opened in December? ROSENBERG: The drugstore was opened on February 14 of 1934. Eight years later we sold it on the same day, February 14 of 1942 to Skaggs. It was Skaggs first store In Arizona. SMITH: I'll bet the established druggists didn't welcome you with open arms, did they? ROSENBERG: Oh, we had an awful time. Six months after we were here we owed $29,000. I'll never forget It. We were bankrupt, literally we were bankrupt only we wouldn't admit it. So we refused to go through bankruptcy, but we had creditors pressing us, we were ducking them, kiting checks at First National Bank with Sylvan Ganz, Wally Broberg, all those guys, Ernie Holgate. That was a hell of a time but we finally worked our way out of it. We worked from 7:00 to midnight, seven days a week. SMITH: That's terrible - to work that hard and then to lose it, wouldn't it? ROSENBERG: Oh, yeah. SMITH: That just broke some men, you know, I tried so hard and I'm still a failure, and some of them just never recovered from that. Seven days a week? ROSENBERG: Yes. SMITH: You said 7:00 in the morning til 10:00 at night? ROSENBERG: Til midnight. In those days, you know, drugstores didn't close very much. SMITH: That was a terrible job in those days. ROSENBERG: Oh, sure. SMITH: They just worked all the time. ROSENBERG: You're on your feet all the time. It was really tough going. I didn't mind it, though. I didn't realize, we didn't know enough about it, you know. SMITH: I was from a hardware company family. My dad was L. L. Smith. ROSENBERG: Oh, yeah. I remember, sure. SMITH: I escaped - I was the only one in my family. My brother runs it now. Herman's Sporting Goods(?). It's been A company that's survived in the face of all the big chain competition simply on one thing - they give service. You can go in and somebody help you find a bolt and a screw. You just don't find that anywhere else. ROSENBERG: That's true. SMITH: Okay. So, why did you sell? ROSENBERG: Well, you remember Evan Lane? SMITH: Yes. A realtor. ROSENBERG: Evan Lane came to me in 1941 and said he had a client that was interested, a big drug chain and they wanted to come into Phoenix, but they wouldn't take nothing less than 100% location. At that time the only 100% locations were in those two blocks on Washington between 1st Avenue and 1st Street. He couldn't get a location there because Kress was in there and Woolworth was in there and a few stores, and Lerner's, you know, and we were there. What was the name of the movie place? ROSE R.: The Studio. ROSENBERG: Studio Theater. So they couldn't get in there, so they came to us. He said, "How much do you want?" so I told him what we wanted -- forgotten now what it was -- anyway, I gave him a price and he said, "No. That's too much." I said, "Well, I can't get enough money to retire out of here. If I did I'd have to go look for another store and start all over again." In those days you couldn't get that much money. So, he went away. I never heard from him for another year. A year later he came back in and he said, "Hey, these people are still interested. Do you want to sell?" I said, "Yeah." He said, "Well, what's the price?" I told him what the price was - It was $20,000 above the inventory. He said, "How much inventory you got?" I said, "I don't know, $25,000 or $30,000 worth." So he said, "That's too much money." I said, "Why is it too much money?" and he says, "It's too much money because your lease is a year less now to go." You see, I had 15-year lease. He says, "It's a year less to go, so -- ". I said, "No, Evan, thanks very much, but that's the price. If you want it you have to go on that basis. If not -- ". So, they bought it and we sold the store for $55,000, including everything - the inventory, the whole ball of wax, the liquor license and everything else. Liquor licenses didn't have any value at that time. within a year the liquor licenses went way up and we'd have gotten more for the liquor license than the whole store, but we didn't know it at that time. So, I gave him the liquor license. SMITH: So, who bought it? ROSENBERG: Skaggs. That was their first store in Arizona. SMITH: So, what did you do? ROSENBERG: So then I went in - the war had just broken out and I had an old broken ankle. The services wouldn't touch me. I wanted to do something for the war effort, so I went into OPA - Office Price Administration - and became a section chief in the price division. I worked for Dick Harvel. Do you remember Dick? SMITH: Uh-huh. ROSENBERG: I worked for Dick Harvel -- we were in there until -- SMITH: The Dick Harvel I knew was president of the University of Arizona -- ROSENBERG: Same one. SMITH: Is that right? ROSENBERG: Yeah, Dick Harvel, at that time, was on leave from the University to become price officer In the Office of Price Administration. They were taking these professors out from universities all over the country to go into the price division. Of course, he didn't become president until much later. SMITH: Yeah, much later. And his wife's name was? ROSE R.: George. SMITH: George. ROSENBERG: Yeah, George. SMITH: I started to say Ralph. I knew it was a man's name. ROSENBERG: So, I worked in these until I resigned to go into the seed and grain business in 19 -- ROSE R.: You were in for 27 months, weren't you, or 18 months, something like that? ROSENBERG: I was in for about two and a half years, I guess, roughly. Something like that, in OPA. Then I resigned from there and went into the seed and grain business with two partners. We had two companies - Advance Seed Company and Allied Grain Company. My two partners were well known in Arizona at that time - Archie Kroloff and Terris Manley. SMITH: How do you spell that, Archie -- ? ROSENBERG: K-r-o-l-o-f-f. And T-e-r-r-i-s Manley. And we built the first bulk handling grain storage elevator in the state of Arizona. Before that all grain was handled in bags. We did that in 1946. SMITH: How did you describe that? The first -- ROSENBERG: The first bulk handling grain elevator in the state of Arizona. It's still standing at 24th Avenue and the SP tracks. It's called Feeders Grain Company now. ROSE R.: Built by Del Webb. ROSENBERG: Yeah, It was built by Del Webb. First time he ever -- he wanted the job because he'd never built a grain elevator before. He handled that personally. SMITH: Why did you do that when your experience had been in drugs? ROSENBERG: I was invited by them. The two partners started the seed business and then their farmers pressed them to handle their grain crops. They weren't prepared to do that, because they were strictly in the seed business, which was entirely different - alfalfa seed and different grass seeds and so forth. So, they propositioned me. Really it was accidental by virtue of the fact that I was handling the OPA price control regulations that applied to that. That's how we got started. They liked me and I liked them and we were friendly and everything. They said they would be glad to train me, because they felt they could trust me if I wanted to come with them and learn to run the grain division, which I did. So, I was in it for 17 years then - the next 17 years. SMITH: What was your title - Manager of Grain Division? ROSENBERG: Yeah, I was Secretary/Treasurer of the Allied Grain company and President of Allied Sales Company, which was affiliated. SMITH: 17 years. That's quite a career in itself. I didn't realize you'd been in that ROSENBERG: Yeah, 17 years. SMITH: I always think of you as a banker. ROSENBERG: Then toward the end of that time several things happened that kind of dove-tailed into each other. We had some interest in both the seed company and the grain division from different sources - the seed company from the Ferry Moore Seed Company (?) in California and we sold it to them, and the grain company to Continental Grain Company in New York. They bought the grain company, and then they asked me to stay on as their state manager, which I did, for about two and a half years. That was part of that 17-year period. It was during the latter part of the two and a half years that I was running the grain company for Continental Grain that I got a call from Bob Robbs, saying that he wanted me to attend a meeting out at Camelback Inn. I asked Bob what the purpose was of that meeting and he said held rather tell me when I got there. So, when my partner asked me what I thought the meeting was about when I was telling him about it, I said, "It was kind of a peculiar call, you know." I said, "Oh, hell, it's for their Salvation Army or the Red Cross or the United Fund. It's got to be for one of those deals. It's a charitable thing. That's why he didn't want to tell me." What it turned out to be was, there were 11 of us there, including Jack Stewart, who owned Camelback Inn, for the purpose of starting a brand new bank in Phoenix. At that time there were only 3 banks, the Valley National Bank and the First National Bank and the Arizona Bank. They had no competition. SMITH: _____________________ must have been awfully new. ROSENBERG: Well, the Arizona -- yeah, but they had started to grow. Lloyd Bimson was doing a good job with them. so, as a consequence, this was to start a new bank in a building that David Murdoch, who was one of the 11, was building on North Central Avenue. SMITH: This year was -- ? ROSENBERG: This year was 1959. So I joined the group and the 11 of us became the founding directors of Guaranty Bank, which was opened on the following March 7, 1960 at 3550 North Central. That's now the First Interstate Bank at uptown Plaza. we looked around for a president and we found Jim Simmons in Midland, Texas and we hired him. He was young president of a new bank there. James P. Simmons is now one of the most powerful men in the state of Arizona, bar nobody, and a tremendous guy and a very dear personal friend. SMITH: He became president? ROSENBERG: He became president at that time. We brought him in before the bank opened. He came in in September and the bank didn't open until the following March. But he helped with selling the stock and putting the bank together, taking care of all the details. Of course, most of us on the board sold the stock. SMITH: Now they start a new bank every week it seems like. ROSENBERG: Yeah, but not in those days. So, when I was still in the grain business and they were quite a blue-chip group, people that were in that original board -- Dr. Dan Noble of Motorola, A.J. Bayless, Bob Robbs, David Murdoch, Russ Lyon Sr., Mel Decker. It was quite a crew, Guy Neeley. Anyway, about -- let's see, was it about six months after that? I forget. The bank had opened on March 7 and then it had grown to about $40,000,000 in size in the next six to nine months, can't remember exactly, and Jim Simmons called me out at the grain company. He said, "What are you doing for dinner tonight?" I said, "Gee, I don't know, Jim, why?" He said, "Well, Betty Lou''-that was his wife at that time -- he said, "Betty Lou has a meeting she has to go to tonight." And I said, "Well, so does Rose." Rose was on the city planning commission and she had a meeting that night. He said, "Good. Come on down and have dinner with me. I'd like to talk with you." I said, "Okay." He said, "How about coming by the bank and picking me up about 6:00?" "Okay." So, I did. He said he was going to work late. We went over to Durant's and we had a couple of drinks and then we ordered steaks and we were just chit-chatting. About halfway through he said, "Well, I guess you'd like to know why I asked you to come tonight." I said, "Yeah, I guess I would, Jim." He said, "How would you like to get into banking?" I said, "What did you say?" "How would you like to get into banking?" I said, "I don't know anything about banking." He said, "Well, I know that, but I'll tell you what the reason is I'm asking you." He said, "I've heard you say several times lately that the government is coming in with all kinds of regulations and the grain industry and the agriculture and the developers were taking up a lot of your grain land with home buildings, and you've kind of complained, and it got me to thinking, because we're up to over 40,000 in size now. I think we ought to set up a marketing division. I thought about bringing somebody in from out of state, but, he said, "In the board meetings I noticed that you seem to know more people by 10 to 1 than any of the other directors. I got to thinking about the fact that I think you'd do a good job of starting a -- and I'll make you a vice president and start you off and don't worry about not knowing about banking. We'll teach you." So, I was intrigued. You know, this was a new departure. It was true. I was getting tired of the business. So I finally called the executive V.P. to whom I reported in New York and told him I was quitting Continental Grain Company because I'd been offered an opportunity to go into a new bank as an officer and I was going. He got mad at me for leaving. But I went with Jim. Within a year I was made a senior vice president. Then I was offered an opportunity to become president of the original Bank of Scottsdale. I accepted and went out there. Then, very shortly after I was there, Murdoch had his problems with the Pioneer Bank and Home Savings and his whole financial empire that he was building over there, financial center. It was falling apart. He had some real serious problems. So, I told our board of directors that if there was any possibility of our getting into Pioneer Bank, getting control of Pioneer Bank, which was in his financial group, that we could go much faster than if we branched out, you know. So, it came up for auction in Dallas, Texas and I influenced Arnold Smith, the chairman, to fly over with me and we bid against Jim Simmons and David Murdoch for the thing. We bid the highest and we got the bank. So, then I subsequently moved in and for awhile I had to serve as president of both banks. The regulatory authorities let me do it because we were aiming at a merger. It took about six months to get the merger completed. Then we merged the Bank of Scottsdale into Pioneer Bank and Pioneer Bank had several branches, including one up in Prescott. Then I moved back into Phoenix and became president of -- and at the same time I was serving as president of Phoenix Chamber of Commerce, right at that very same time. Then, several years later, after we had really begun to build the bank and began to open some additional branches, we had an offer to merge into Great Western Bank. SMITH: When did that take place? ROSENBERG: That took place on December 31st, 1969. SMITH: So Great Western had been Pioneer? ROSENBERG: Yeah. There was a five-year interval, because I became president of Pioneer Bank in 1964, November of 1964, and then the merger took place on December 31st, 1969. SMITH: So what was the merger, Pioneer and -- ? ROSENBERG: The merger was Great Western Bank - that had been in 1967 the Bank of Tucson merged with the Navajo National Bank up north. Coincidentally, at the same time, became Great Western Bank. The Navajo National Bank was turned into a state chartered bank, the same as the Bank of Tucson was. so, that became a state chartered bank and we were a state chartered bank here. So, here they were operating from Tucson five branches In the northern part of the state. They were on computer - just started going on computer down there. They were all manually operated up there and it was a mess. They didn't have anything in the central part of the state where 75% of the economy was. so they had to start looking. Mr. Rich, Ray Rich, who was a very wealthy financier from New York - corporate professional - had control, and he started looking around for somebody. He had put the deal together with the Bank of Tucson and the Navajo National Bank, of which Bing Crosby had been chairman. Then Jim Benedens became chairman. I remember Jim Benedens; he was the head of Southwest Forest Industries for a time. So, Mr. Rich dealt with Jim Benedens and he got that merger done. Then he realized he had to get something in the center, so he came up here and he talked to Bob McGee at Thunderbird Bank and he talked to Jim Simmons at what was then Guaranty Bank - I don't think they'd become United Bank at that time, until a little later - and he talked to Simmons and he talked to Bob Robbs at Continental Bank, and he talked to me at Pioneer Bank. And we worked out the deal with him at Pioneer Bank. Then they asked me to stay on as president, which I did, until I became 65 years old in 1974. So, I served as president for 10 years from -- SMITH: At Great Western. ROSENBERG: Well, at Great Western and its fore-bearers, from '64 to '74. In '74 I was 65 years old. Corporation had a mandatory retirement age of 65. SMITH: Well, since that time you've been involved in some other things -- ROSENBERG: Well, then I was elected vice chairman of the board and I've been re-elected every year since. They only have one vice chairman - one chairman, one vice chairman and one president. SMITH: Your other things, such as Buckeye and so on, that's been coming along, too. ROSENBERG: Well, four years ago Ralph Watkins came to me -- SMITH: I saw Ralph yesterday, by the way. ROSENBERG: Oh, did you? SMITH: He was playing golf in the tournament. ROSENBERG: Oh, that's right, yeah. He was in that tournament. I forgot about that. SMITH: He's gotten pretty heavy. I didn't realize Ralph had gained weight like that. ROSENBERG: Yeah, he's a husky boy, though. So, Ralph asked me -- said that he and his brother, Lee, and the Hardesee brothers, who had all gone to school together out there and they'd been friends ever since and they have both owned property out there -- would I organize a bank for them. They'd been thinking about it for three years. I said, "Yes, if I don't have a conflict of interest." So I talked to Ray Rich when he came out from New York--- he flew out every month to conduct a board meeting--and he said, "What the hell do you want to start a competitor to us for?" So, I laughed. I said, "Hey, wait a minute, Ray. You don't know anything about Buckeye. You've never been there in your life. I'm chairman of our branch expansion committee here in the bank and we don't have Buckeye for 20 years down the line on our list." I said, "It's too small a community. These people live there and it's got to be home-owned to do any good. The Valley Bank's the only one that has one there. It's going to be tough to take business away from them. They want a bank and they're willing to pay me a fee, and I'd like to take it." So. after I explained it to him, he said, "Go ahead." So, I did and started the bank for them. Then, they asked me if I'd invest with them in it, you know, a year later by the time we got it underway. So I did. SMITH: When was that, recently? ROSENBERG: That was four years ago. SMITH: It's a bank that -- ROSENBERG: Farmers and Merchants bank. SMITH: Farmers and Merchants. ROSENBERG: Yeah. So I organized that. SMITH: And you have an office in it? ROSENBERG: No. Senior consultant - that's what they call me. Senior advisor, I'm sorry, senior advisor. SMITH: Senior advisor for the Farmers and Merchants Bank, which is located in Buckeye? ROSENBERG: In Buckeye, yeah. They wanted me to go on the board of directors, but I couldn't, because I'm on the Great Western Bank board. SMITH: Can't do that. ROSENBERG: No. SMITH: Then I think you listed community activities as pretty well -- ROSENBERG: Before we get off banking, let me tell you this. I have served as a director of Guaranty Bank, First Security Bank In Mesa, Pioneer Bank, the original Bank of Scottsdale, that's four. I thought there were five -- I've forgotten now. SMITH: Great Western? ROSENBERG: Oh, Great Western Bank. Yeah, I forgot Great Western. Certainly. I thought there were five. I've served as president of three. I served as president of the Bank of Scottsdale, the Pioneer Bank and Great Western Bank. I was a senior vice president of Guaranty Bank. SMITH: I want to see how you got Rose, anyway. How did you manage that? ROSENBERG: That was the smartest thing I ever did. SMITH: Where did you first see him, eighth grade, did you say? ROSENBERG: Yep. She came in to the eighth grade in grammar school. ROSE R.: I came from Nashville, Tennessee and I was in the seventh grade in Nashville and when I came to West Vernon School where Allen was a student there and they had the opportunity Room - and he was in the opportunity Room. I had been trained in the seventh grade to be an eighth grade level - to be able to go into the eighth grade in L.A. schools, so they put me in the Opportunity Room. I walked into the room and he saw me and that was that. ROSENBERG: She was wearing a tight-fitting blue sweater. I remember. SMITH: That early? ROSENBERG: Yeah. ROSE R.: I weighed about 80 pounds so you know what my figure looked like. ROSENBERG: She was small, but it looked pretty good. SMITH: So, you were you the only two that you two ever went with? Did you ever have any other -- ROSENBERG: Yep. No. SMITH: Were you collecting rocks at the time? ROSE R.: Oh, no. SMITH: I was just admiring your collection. ROSENBERG: I was her first rock. SMITH: You obviously like the name Rose. ROSE R.: Yeah. SMITH: Rose Rosen Rosenberg - that's not an everyday name. You're just a Rose from start to finish. ROSE R.: Yep, that's right. SMITH: Tell me about your ancestors. ROSE R.: My mother and father came from Poland that was under Russian control for about 300 years. My father was in the Russian army. Jewish boys were treated very poorly in the Russian army - that was an understatement. He didn't like it at all. SMITH: What was his name? ROSE R.: His name was Heinman Rosen, R-o-s-e-n. Before he had to join the army his father, my grandfather - they built highways and they didn't have safety rails or anything. They would dig holes and put telephone poles or tree stumps, you know, in to make it safe for the__________, you know, the rural Russians they were to go on. My father did the work - was the foreman for his dad. In going through Russia, if you go over a river or over a mountain the dialect changes, just like it does in China. Every community has a different dialect. Pretty-soon they don't understand each other. In working on the railroad my father knew five different dialects of Russian as he went from one little place to the other, to hire the people to work on the roads - putting those posts in the roads. He joined the Russian army and he was sort of like a mechanic of the roads. They were near the German border, so my father had on a workman's suit on underneath his uniform. When he got to the border where the German soldiers are watching the Russian soldiers working along the border, my father threw his hammer over the road, walked across the road to get his hammer and kept right on walking. The German soldiers just laughed and let him go. That's how he walked to the border of Germany. By that time he knew German, too. He walked to the border where he got on a boat and got to England where he had relatives. SMITH: Just walked out of the country and left everything behind. ROSE R.: Yeah. SMITH: That would be hard to do. ROSE R.: Yeah. SMITH: Was he married at that time? ROSE R.: Oh, no. Things were very terrible for those people in those days, in the 1900's. You had the __________ and all that sort of terrible stuff. My mother - her father had come over to America twice. He came back the second time to bring his wife and children over, but his wife wouldn't go. She was afraid to cross on the ocean. So, my mother crossed the border - they had people, Just like they have people bringing wetbacks over from Mexico - it was the same idea. They would walk during the night and hide during the day until they got to the border of Germany and would sail to England to get the boats to come to America. My mother had relatives in England, too. SMITH: So, where did your parents meet? ROSE R.: In London. SMITH: They hadn't been out of Russia very long, had they? ROSE R.: No. My father was an apprentice in England and he learned to be an upholsterer. SMITH: What's your mother's name? ROSE R.: Bertha Gordon. SMITH: Bertha Gordon? ROSE R.: Well, that's not the Polish name. It was all changed in Ellis Island, or really in London when she married Papa. Papa's name was__________. So, they both came out of Poland. The Cunard line and other lines had fights to see who could bring over the Immigrants the cheapest. Papa and mama got over $10 each on steerage. SMITH: $10? ROSE R.: Each. SMITH: Amazing, isn't it? ROSE R.: And my mother had relatives in Nashville, Tennessee. In New York Papa had a job and Mama had a job -- SMITH: Excuse me. Were they married in London? ROSE R.: They were married in London. They got to Nashville, Tennessee to her brother, Uncle Ben Gordon. He had a tailor shop there. SMITH: So both of them moved there. ROSE R.: And my father got a job as a junk peddler going through Mississippi and Alabama and Louisiana and Tennessee, you know, tucked in all those places. SMITH: Junk peddler? ROSE R.: Well, he really was a junk buyer, because he worked for a company. He would buy the junk and it would be sent to Nashville to this big operator. When my father got to New Orleans, to Bergman Street and Royal Street, and he saw pretty things -- he had never seen pretty things in his life, because when you live on these little communities in Poland the ground is the floor and thatched roofs. He had never seen a pretty vase, a pretty piece of furniture, silverware, just everything beautiful. He eyes just popped. He had $140 in the bank and he wired his boss, "I quit" and he invested all of his money in French vases. He had them shipped to Nashville and he opened up Rosen's Antique Emporium in Nashville. That was the year I was born - 1907. SMITH: What's your birthday? ROSE R.: May 1, 1907. SMITH: May Day girl. ROSE R.: Yeah. He had a flair for beauty and art. SMITH: How many children were there in your family? ROSE R.: There were three, but one died when she was about six, and my other sister died when she was about 63. SMITH: So you're the oldest or the youngest or -- ROSE R.: I'm the middle. SMITH: You started school in Nashville? ROSE R.: Nashville - Tarbock School. SMITH: What brought you to L.A.? ROSE R.: My father developed malaria traveling in Mississippi and Missouri - all that swampy country. SMITH: He thought he'd do better in L.A.? ROSE R.: Yeah. Mrs. Sheep (?) from the Sheep Neil Coffee Company, makers of the Maxwell House coffee, came to Papa when he was sick and said, "Don't go to Los Angeles. Everything is for sale over there. Go to Florida where there's stability." But he did go to Los Angeles and he opened up an antique shop there. SMITH: His health was better there? ROSE R.: Well, yeah. He got to feel much better. SMITH: Then you came along? ROSE R.: We went together. SMITH: I'm sorry. What year did you move there? ROSE R.: About 1920, '21, in that period. SMITH: You came to L.A. in '21? ROSE R.: Uh-huh. SMITH: You'd have been -- ROSE R.: About 12 or 13. We either came in '20 or '21. SMITH: Must have been '20 then. You'd have been 13. ROSE R.: Yeah. SMITH: Okay. That was a little small town in those days. ROSE R.: Yeah. It was a nice town. SMITH: A lot of nice, green countryside around. ROSE R.: Beautiful parks and things. SMITH: Remember those little, red Pacific electric trains? ROSE R.: Yes., yes. SMITH: I used to love those. ROSE R.: They were neat. SMITH: You could go to Tabonga -- ROSE R.: Pasadena and Long Beach, it seems to me - a lot of places. SMITH: Remember them calling out those things "Kukamonga", "Etawonda". "Pasadena". ROSE R.: Yeah. That was a nice thing. And that Huntington (?) Library is certainly a legacy. SMITH: Isn't that great? ROSE R.: Yeah. SMITH: Do you get over there a lot? ROSE R.: No. We really don't. We used to, but we don't anymore. SMITH: So you came there and then you got in the eighth grade right away after you got there. So you were in the same grade. ROSE R.: Yes, and I went to Manulard's (?) High School with Allen, but after he lived there about one or two years his father moved to Santa Monica, so after that he went to Army/Navy Academy. SMITH: That didn't split you up though, did it? ROSE R.: Oh, no. He used to write to me every week. I've still got the letters. SMITH: That's the end of a lot of those romances. My wife was going with a boy in military school. He went to West Point and they never saw much of each other, fortunately. ROSENBERG: They broke apart? SMITH: Uh-huh. He's back now, retired, and living in Tucson. ROSENBERG: Is that right? SMITH: I want to meet the guy. ROSE R.: See what he looks like, sure. SMITH: He was the one that her folks always thought she ought to marry. ROSENBERG: That's the way it works. SMITH: Well, Jean and I had an interesting story because we were sweethearts in college over here in 1942. The war came along and I had to go and she married a cadet who was training over here about a year after I left. I was brokenhearted, but I managed to get married myself a few years later. 25 years to the day after we split up we got married. ROSE R.: That's nice. SMITH: We each had four kids and we brought them all into the marriage. ROSENBERG: That's great. SMITH: Eight kids. They're all gone now, fortunately. ROSE R.: That's a houseful. ROSENBERG: We just had one son, and I've heard Rose say many times-- did she tell you what she used to tell me all the time? She'd say -- you know Bob, of course -- she'd say, "I don't understand how anybody could ever bring up two." SMITH: Imagine having all that we had - in a little house. But we'd had unhappy marriages and it was so great to have peace. We had a little old house and one bathroom and all those kids. But, we were happy. ROSE R.: You were poor and didn't know any better. SMITH: That's right. So, when did you get married? ROSE R.: February 16, 1930. ROSENBERG: Right. SMITH: Yeah, you told me about that. You got married the same day he did. ROSE R.: Yes, I did. ROSENBERG: Yeah, coincidental. SMITH: So, what happened in the ten years between the time when your father opened the antique shop -- you went to high school and then -- ROSE R.: And then I went to the University of Southern California. SMITH: What did you take there? ROSE R.: A liberal arts course. SMITH: Did you inherit your father's love of art and -- ROSE R.: -- beauty. ROSENBERG: And antiques. Yeah, she did. ROSE R.: My sister became an antique dealer with her husband and she was really terrific. She had a fabulous memory and a photographic mind and could remember so much. I don't have those. I don't have the feelings (?) of value that she did. She could pick up anything and say it's worth so much money for me to buy and I can sell it for so much money. I don't have that ability, so I have pretty things and I love my apartment. It absolutely is a reflection of me. I just love it. It's cluttered, but I love it. SMITH: It's full. It's lived in. ROSE R.: Oh, yeah. We live in the whole apartment and love it. I'm very happy here. SMITH: Let's see. What did you do there? In high school, what were your interests? ROSE R.: I really didn't have what you would call hobbles. I never did have. Oh, we used to collect dumb little things, but really never had a hobby. SMITH: Music or sports or -- ROSE R.: My folks exposed me to the violin, but I flunked, so that doesn't count. They tried their best, but I resisted. SMITH: Were you in clubs or class activities and that sort of thing? ROSE R.: No, not really. I was a very, very -- my mother had taught me to be seen and not heard which made me a very retiring person. To this day I'm a very private person. SMITH: Oh, come on, Rose. ROSE R.: Yes, I really am. SMITH: You're very outgoing. ROSE R.: I will motivate myself now If I have a terrific interest. This luncheon that I went to today for the zoo, you know, that they gave the people who had given to, this luncheon today. It's the first luncheon that I've been to in about five years. I just did everything for Allen and I devoted the last four and a half years to Phoenix Children's Hospital. I would stay home and answer the phone for him. Well, I was president of Hadassah for three years. That's because the war came on and we had these relatives in Poland. Allen and I were in the drug business and we did not have a financial statement that we could present to the government to say that if we take over these relatives we will be responsible for them. We couldn't do that. So, we devoted all the effort that we could to things that would help people get out of there before the Nazis killed them. SMITH: You tried to help relatives and friends to -- ROSE R.: -- to get to Israel, because they couldn't bring them into the United States. SMITH: Couldn't bring them to Israel, either. ROSE R.: Well, no, that was illegal, but as it turns out the unions influenced President Roosevelt not to allow the Jews to come into America. That's a bad thing in history. But we tried to get the relatives out and we could not bring them here on account of our financial statement -- SMITH: That was when you were with Hadassah, you say? ROSE R.: I became president -- well, I worked on Hadassah and then became a three-year president of it. That was a terrific experience. In that time Mrs. Linde used to work with Hadassah and one concert a year she supplied us with the artist and we sold the tickets for that. She was really wonderful to us. I think we did that for about five or six years. That's how come I really know Mrs. Linde. SMITH: We skipped over some area here, now, that I don't want to miss. One, Bob's birth. Bob was the only child, right? ROSE R.: Yeah. He was born on November 29, 1939. ROSENBERG: You're right. ROSE R.: We surely did skip him over, didn't we? SMITH: That was in -- ROSE R.: He was born here. ROSENBERG: At the old St. Joe's. SMITH: Over there on -- ROSENBERG: Fourth, wasn't it? ROSE R.: No. St. Joe's? I thought he was born in Good Sam's. ROSENBERG: No. He was born in St. Joe's, honey. SMITH: She was there. ROSE R.: I made a mistake then. ROSENBERG: She made a mistake. He was born in St. Joe's - the old St. Joe's before they moved. It was St. Joe's. ROSE R.: Okay. I know that Dr. Sharp wanted to take me to Good Sam. That's always stuck in my mind. But if you say St. Joe's, I'll say St. Joe's. ROSENBERG: It was St. Joe's. SMITH: Then tell us something about him, since he's your only. That should be easy rather than having to recite six children. ROSE R.: He was a cute little boy. SMITH: He went to A.S.U. ROSE R.: Uh-huh. He went to the Osborn School. First he went to the school over there on Fifth Avenue and -- ROSENBERG: Yeah. I can't remember what they used to call it. ROSE R.: I can't remember either. Anyhow, he graduated from Osborn School and then he went to West High. ROSENBERG: Yeah, and he got his associate degree at West High. I mean, he went to Phoenix College. ROSE R.: He got his associate degree and then he went over to A.S.U. and finished. ROSENBERG: That's right. He got his bachelor of science. SMITH: I remember when he was going to school over there. ROSENBERG: In the College of Business. SMITH: Let's see. What's he doing now? ROSE R.: He's working for AT & T. He's a technical consultant. ROSENBERG: Yeah, that's his title - technical consultant. ROSE R.: And they've given him a wonderful training. SMITH: Does he live here? ROSE R.: Yes, he does SMITH: I haven't seen him in a couple years. ROSENBERG: Well, they had him for six months back in New Jersey where Bell Labs was, and then they've sent him back several times since to MIT for two-week courses. But, he's here now. SMITH: He's married? ROSE R.: He's married, has a son 13. ROSENBERG: He's divorced. ROSE R.: You don't have to put that in, that he's divorced, do you? ROSENBERG: He's divorced, sure. No, you don't have to put it in, but I'm just telling Dean for his own information. SMITH: He has a son? ROSE R.: Yeah, Harold, who is 13 now. SMITH: You know, there are some people that are divorced. ROSE R.: Oh, but I don't think it needs to be in any records. That's private business. ROSENBERG: What do you mean, that's private business? That's public business. That's business of the state, Rosie. SMITH: Let's see now. Bob then is -- of course, I keep ________ (?) him all here and there, one thing or another. (?). ROSENBERG: Yeah. He's been very active in Mensa here for some years. SMITH: That means he's a brain. ROSENBERG: Yeah, he is a brain. SMITH: What other activities does he have that are important to him? ROSE R.: Well, he's been on the alumni board for about 12 years. He's off of it now. SMITH: Was he on the board? ROSE R.: Of the alumni. ROSENBERG: The Phoenix chapter of the alumni board. Then he was on -- yeah, he stayed very close to Don Dodds all the time. Then, he was on the advisory board for the College of Business. Then he had to resign from that because he -- I had lunch with Bill Seedman recently and he was telling me that he missed Bob and was sorry he was __. That's about it. SMITH: Let's see. It was nine years there before you had a family then? ROSE R.: Yeah. ROSENBERG: We were getting ready to adopt and then, all of a sudden, boom. SMITH: That happens so often. So what were you doing over in L.A.? ROSE R.: I was working in the drug store. SMITH: And here, too. ROSE R.: Uh-huh. I worked about eight years. Then one day my mother-in-law told me to quit, so I went upstairs to Allen's office and I said, "Honey, I quit." He said, "What do you mean, you quit? I can't afford you to quit. I can't replace you." ROSENBERG: I said I was paying her $18 a week and I said, "I can't anybody for $18 a week to do what you're doing." She says, "I know it." SMITH: I can imagine. ROSENBERG: And she quit - walked out and never came back. I thought I was going to talk her into it. SMITH: What were your interests in Phoenix when you first came over? Was that when you were working with Hadassah? ROSE R.: I was working at the drug store. I didn't have any outside -- SMITH: But you were also helping people to get out of Europe you said. ROSE R.: Oh, sure. We did a lot of that. SMITH: That would have been about that time that happened. Let's see. Hitler took over in '33. ROSE R.: In '33, yeah. SMITH: The next six years is when all that was going on. ROSE R.: Yes. But I didn't become president of Hadassah until about 1946. I was a member for -- SMITH: Well, that was after the war then that you did that. ROSE R.: Yeah. But during the war we did help -- I was still active in Hadassah before the war -- about 1939, I guess. But, before then, when the people would come over they'd try to get the Jewish people out of New York, as many as they could, so they would allocate people for this area and all over the other little cities that would take people. When they would come to the train I would go down to the train, meet them, and take them home, let them take showers and give them meals. we would take care of them for awhile and then Harry Rosenzweig would see that they had shelter and got them jobs and things like that. SMITH: Harry's done an awful lot, hasn't he? ROSE R.: Yes, he has. ROSENBERG: Sure has. ROSE R.: And doesn't tell anybody about it. ROSENBERG: He's a wonderful, wonderful person. ROSE R.: When the Jewish people would come to Phoenix through the National Council of Jewish Women, why, we would try and find them housing and work. If we couldn't do that for them and they were in broken down cars and wanted to get to Los Angeles, we would see that they had gasoline and food money to get from here to L.A. or San Diego or something like that. I did a lot of that kind of charity work on a person to person basis. ROSENBERG: During the war when they had so many Jewish boys out here at the camps, Rose used to work at the temple and they'd bring whole flocks of them in and they'd serve them dinner. ROSE R.: For the sedars. They brought them in at the rate of 200 a night and I had charge of those sedars. But then, we used to go out to the fields about every week - Ann Vera and I would take turns going to Luke Air Force Base and Williams Air Force Base and all of the Jewish boys would come in on Friday night. Things were rationed, so we used to buy whole salamis and grind them up, add celery and make sandwiches out of those, fix the sandwiches and take them out to the boys, because ... (end of tape). [end of transcript]