..inte: Dr. Michael Weiss ..intr: Barbara Chazan ..da: 1984 ..ca: ..ftxt: An Interview with Dr. Michael Weiss December 11, 1984 Transcriptionist: Carol Ruttan Interviewer: Barbara Chazan Arizona Jewish Historical Society Log For Dr. Michael Weiss Interview Pages 1 1921; parents married in Romania. Owned a restaurant. Migrated to Newark, New Jersey. 1 1927; came to America - Newark, New Jersey. 2 Suffered from arthritis. 1945; father wrote to Chamber of Commerce in Tucson, received curt letter re employment. 2 Drove by car to Arizona, southern route, arrived Tucson January '45. 2- 3 Slept in car; no accommodations. 3 Went to Florida. 3- 4 Hungarian Village Restaurant in Tucson 1946/47. Mother did cooking; father managed. Clientele mostly from East. Only dinners. 4 One of first customers was mother and father of Chief Justice Stan Feldman. 4 Why he was interested in dentistry; Ohio State College. 5 You're Jewish! Boarding house. 5 Gentile - class president; Jewish - vice president. Dental fraternity. No Jewish president of class. 6 Fifth in graduating class. 6 When he made application with Arizona, 4 Jewish dentists in the state; written and practical exam. 7 Practical exam - top performance. No dental college in Arizona; tested in a makeshift office. 1948; took state board at state capitol. 8 Must have state license to practice in state of Arizona. 8 Governor Osborn appointed Dr. Meyer Spitalny to oversee board (due to rumbling). 8 Description re light used in exam. 9 Cousin, Alexander Gristel, took board at same time. He passed, Weiss didn't. He passed because he promised board he would set up his office in Benson, Arizona. 9 Wait six months between boards. 9 Went to New Jersey and tested and passed. 9 Came back to Arizona. 10 1947; married classmate. 10-11 Small towns in central Arizona - Florence. Met Mr. Kay Mandell; asked if needed a dentist. Advised to see a Dr. Stewart, ask if prison could use a dentist. Called and met warden. 11- Still had no dental license for state of Arizona. 11 Warden Lonnie Walters promised to fix it up. Wanted him to start immediately. Hired as a guard at Arizona State Prison. Crude dental office (Middle Ages). 12 Insisted office be cleaned up. Assigned prisoner, Humphrey Bella Bogart, who did extractions before Dr. Weiss got there. 13 Wife still in New Jersey; journalist at Foster Publications. 13 Asked warden for a prisoner as a patient for state board (trustee). 13 State board at Glendale High School, Glendale, Arizona. Place was practice of one of the examiners, Dr. Roger K. Trueblood, Sr. 14 State car, guard and prisoner courtesy of state. Unshackled prisoner. 14 Asked Dr. Trueblood if he could continue job at prison. Advised to stop until he knew results of exam. 14-15 Dr. Greene had taken exam nine times; had nothing to do with skill - stress. 15 Jewish dentist from New York brought equipment into exam in a large Manischewitz Matzo box (large Mogen David). 16 Results in one week. He had passed. 16 Prisoner who was his patient at exam was paroled at next parole meeting for being so well behaved. 16 Called wife to come to Arizona. 16-17 Wanted parents to know. Fishing at Indian reservation in northern Arizona. 1948; had to give information to Indian who answered phone. Could not talk direct. Message twisted. 17 Find housing and office in Florence, Arizona. Florence Hotel; 4 small apartments in back of hotel. 18 On Main Street; bargain store offered for dental office. 18 Wife Connie, an only child. offered her choice after 5 years, if she didn't like Arizona could move back to New Jersey. 18 Went directly to Tucson Catalina Court; apartment was not ready. Arizona land of "Pasada Manyana" - day after tomorrow! 18-19 Apartment ready in Florence, Arizona. Also promised an office building. 19 Outside Florence was prisoner of war camp for German and Italian prisoners in WWII. Were going to lift one of those buildings from camp and bring to Main Street in Florence for office building. First floor would be Masonic Hall and second floor would be dental offices. 19-20 Description of first dental office. No air conditioning. 20 Directly across from apartment was Old Tavern run by Leo Block. 20 First customer was old cobbler who lost a crown. 20-21 Deputy sheriff would rest in dental office; gun and all in waiting room. 21 Hospital screen divided dental room and waiting room. All noises very vivid. 21-22 When foundation was put in, they brought in building. Building caught on fire. Florence, Arizona population 1,600; all volunteers. Had to use garden hoses; building burned to ground. 22 Wells Fargo abandoned stage coach building used as new offices. 22 Private practice growing, in addition to work at the prison. Building still standing. 23 Kay and Marjorie Mandell; dry goods store. Lived in Phoenix but commuted to Florence. 23 Weekends would come to Phoenix and stay at Los Olivos. 23-24 Jewish friends in Coolidge; Harrises and Fabricants. In Casa Grande; Mollie and Leon Segarik, cotton ranchers. 24 First child, Donna, in 1951 at old St. Joseph Hospital in Phoenix. 24 Sam and Rose Berkowitz, Connie's parents, moved from Elizabeth, New Jersey, to Arizona in 1950; Mesa and then to Phoenix; living in Coolidge at time. 24 Decided to move practice and home to Phoenix after 2 to 3 years in Florence. 24 Friends in Phoenix - Nona and Ralph Segal; Herman Lewkowitz, attorney. 25 Dr. Meyer Spitalny. 25 License; state of Arizona; set up office North 7th Avenue. 25-26 State Dental Association; meetings at Adams Hotel; could not refuse Jews. No Blacks at this time; most pressure from dental wives. When Blacks were finally accepted, Adams Hotel would not allow dental meetings; segregation state. 26-27 Offer appointment on state dental board, but never finalized. 27 1953; Korean War. Taken into army as first lieutenant, dental corps; 2 years. 27 Second child; David. Born before he went into service. 27 After service came back to Phoenix; set up practice 7th Avenue, then Central Avenue, then East Missouri Avenue. 27 Fifth Jewish dentist in state of Arizona. 28 Sizeable Jewish community. Wanted to form Alpha Omega; Jewish dental fraternity. Would join on one proviso: All Jewish dentists would go to Arizona Governor Howard Pyle and tell him re condition of Jewish dentists in state. They would not oblige so he would not join the fraternity. 29 Son, David, became a dentist. University of Pacific, San Francisco. In practice now with son. 29 Scottsdale, little town, Main Street and Brown; establishment, Pink Pony. Asked existing doctor if he could locate in Scottsdale. Advised that he would talk to founding fathers. Advised that they were not ready for a Jewish doctor. 29-30 Third child, Steven, 1956. Commercial photographer. 30 Blessed with grandchild, Bobbie Bauer, 2 years old. 30 1951; joined Temple Beth Israel. 30-31 Number 1 Jewish dentist was Dr. Frank Sitkin when Weiss arrived in Arizona; Number 2 - Dr. Leonard Weiner; Number 3 - Dr. Meyer Spitalny; Number 4 - Dr. Alexander Gristel, cousin; Number 5 - Dr. Michael Weiss. 31 Rumor re Dr. Sitkin; when first practicing had booth outside old Palace theater and did dentistry there. 31 Dr. Weiss started in general practice of dentistry. Ten years ago limited practice to problems with neuromuscular system and pain around head and neck. 31-32 1970; father and his brother went back to place of birth in Romania; went to grade school and looked at grade records (from 1800's) and that evening father died. Buried there in Romania; age 75. 32 1976; mother died; 78 years old; died in Tucson. 32-33 Parents had restaurant for approximately 12 years. Celebrities would eat there. Dr. Michael Weiss Interview This is Barbara Chazan. I have the pleasure of being at the home of Dr. and Mrs. Michael Weiss. Today is Tuesday, December 11, 1984. WEISS: I want to describe first of all the history of my parents and myself. I was born in Sieni, Romania in 1924. My parents were first cousins and they had to have a special dispensation from the rabbi of the region to get married. They had to go through various blood tests and so forth to do this and they were married in, I think it was, about 1921. My father and mother ran a restaurant in the small town of Sieni, Romania. My father was the type of individual that was very, very strong minded. About this point in time in history he felt that the non-Jewish population in this area were insulting him and he couldn't take that kind of thing so he decided to come to America. He left actually before I was born in 1924 and came over to America. He had a sister and brother-in-law here and this is where he came, to Newark, New Jersey. He accumulated enough money to bring the whole family over. He came back to Romania in 1927 and he brought us all back with him. I was going through some of my papers and I saw the paper that my uncle, Meyer, in Newark, New Jersey -- his sister's husband -- made out for us and he stood up for us to bring us over. So we came over in 1927. My father worked as a waiter in Newark and the two of them accumulated enough money to open up their own restaurant. He eventually, after Prohibition, opened up a tavern in Newark, New Jersey. After Prohibition to the time of after the war he was in that business. Unfortunately, our family suffers a great deal from arthritis and my father had quite a bit of problems with his legs in Newark, New Jersey. I guess he read about the dry climate in Arizona and he decided that this may be better for his health. This was in 1945. As I recall and as I understand, he wrote a letter to the Chamber of Commerce in Tucson, Arizona asking them to send him literature and so forth about Tucson. They wrote him a very, very curt letter back saying that if he was coming out here for work then he might as well stay in New Jersey. But he did not have that type of thing, he had accumulated enough money in the sale of his tavern so that he was quite well off. When he came out in 1945 I joined my mother and father and we drove out in my father's car and it took quite a long time to get across the country. There were no super highways or anything like that. I remember especially since it was in the winter we went the southern route and it was quite an ordeal to get to Arizona from New Jersey. We arrived in Tucson I think it was in January. We came in to Tucson about 4:00 in the afternoon as I recall, thinking that there would be no problem in getting accommodation, because across the country there was no problem. And for money you could not get accommodation in Tucson. The first night we were in Arizona we slept in the car, the three of us -- it was bitter cold -- outside of the railroad station because at least they had some facilities. This was not unusual for this type of thing. Many, many people would come in by train, stay in the Tucson railroad station for two or three days and then go home, because there was just no accommodation. We finally found a guest ranch somewhere outside in the Catalina foothills. of course, this was not a beautiful dude ranch, this was a very, very, very primitive type of accommodation but at least we stayed there. We stayed there about two or three weeks. I didn't want to stay. I was going to go back to Ohio or New Jersey, because this was not for me. I finally talked my mother and father into going to Florida because we had been there before and we had liked Florida, so we all piled into the car and we went to Florida. We went down to Miami and we got a very beautiful place in Miami and we stayed there for awhile. But my mother and father always wanted to go back to Tucson. One of the things we all had problems with in Tucson was there wasn't a decent restaurant. So my mother and father decided to go back and open up a Hungarian Village Restaurant. Now, can you imagine a cow town like Tucson and opening a large restaurant with a Hungarian motif and that was it? So they opened up the Hungarian Village Restaurant in Tucson in about 1946 or '47. CHAZAN: Was it previously a restaurant? WEISS: No, they built it up. They bought a piece of land on East Speedway and they put up a restaurant. And they did quite well; very, very strangely they did quite well. They worked like demons but my mother did the cooking and my father did the managing. They had a big Hungarian oven; they had an oven made back East shipped to them in Tucson where they kept the goulash and the Hungarian paprikash and so forth warm in the oven. It was quite a thing. They did quite well. They only had dinners. Most of their clientele were people coming in from the East; not the cowboys so much. Incidentally, it might be of interest and since he is making so many headlines now, one of the first customers were the mother and father of Chief Justice of the state, Stanley Feldman, who practically grew up in their restaurant. CHAZAN: That's very interesting. WEISS: So this is something in passing that they did do well. They did work very hard but they did do well. Now, let's go back into my background about dentistry. Number one, I became interested in dentistry because an uncle of mine was a dental laboratory technician in Newark, New Jersey. He had his own dental laboratory. As a kid I would hang around his lab and I became interested in dentistry. So that's how I became a dentist. Why did I go out to Ohio State? At the time that I was going to go into dental college, New Jersey didn't have a dental college or medical college. Since then it's changed but we didn't have a professional school at that time so I went to Ohio State. I took my pre-dental there. I had a cousin that was going to dental college at the time so that's why I picked Ohio State. Interestingly, at Ohio State this is where we came up with a little anti-Semitism. One boarding house that I tried to stay at, the landlady said, "Well, you're Jewish, aren't you?" I said, "Oh, yes." She said, "Well, I don't think that you would get along with the other fellows in the boarding house." So of course I was rejected from that boarding house. I was accepted at Ohio State University for the dental college. Before I matriculated in a dental college I had to go down to the dental school and fill out some papers. I went to the administration office and they called up somebody in the main building at the main campus and yes, I was accepted in dental college. The administrator in the dental college said, "By the way, what is your religion?" and I said, "I'm Jewish." "Oh" and that was the end of that. Of course, at Ohio State there was tremendous segregation as far as dental fraternities. There was a Jewish dental fraternity and there were two Gentile dental fraternities. In the class it was always understood that a member of one of the Gentile fraternities would be class president. The Jewish fraternity member would be vice president -- always that way. So they always had it set up that way. As far as a Jewish president of a class you could forget about it. So we encountered a little bit of anti-Semitism among the professors in the school, but that was okay too. Of course, at that time it was right after the Depression and there were a lot of Jewish students from New York, New Jersey and so forth. But when I was trying to get into dental college they were almost saying that only Ohio students could be accepted because at that time, of course, there were more applications. So that is the extent of the introduction of a little bit of anti-Semitism. it was not the first time, but it was a time when an individual was developing and it was very traumatic to me at that time. So we got through dental college. I was fifth in my class and we have to go out now and take state boards. Since my parents lived in Arizona I decided to take the Arizona state board. Of course they had heard of the problems that Jewish dentists had in passing it. But let me say this, that non-Jews had problems passing the state board. That was a known fact that they just didn't want to have too many dentists in the state so that was it. When I made application to the state board there were four Jewish dentists in the whole state. You have to understand too that Arizona at the time did not have, and still does not have a dental college. When a dentist takes a state board he must prove himself worthy of coming into the state. He must take a written exam and he must take what we call a practical. In other words, we have to show our skills as far as putting in fillings, making dentures and so forth to show the members of the state board that we are sufficiently adept in what we have to do. Incidentally, that is the only profession where they have to show their professional skill in that way. Podiatry, medicine, surgery does not have to show their skill, but dentistry does. I think that will show you a little bit more about what I'm going to say about this a little bit later in our conversation. So I came down with another dental student, one in my class; incidentally, he was a non-Jew. We came down together, we were going to take the state dental board. I was fifth out of my class so there would be no problem. I thought I could get by just with my knowledge and my standing in my class. We had to take our practical examination and understand what a practical examination is. One must be at their top performance; in other words, you must be able to show a superior restoration filling, so forth like that in order to do this. Now, since Arizona did not have a dental college we had to have a makeshift area; in other words, something to resemble a dental office. We had to bring all of our equipment in order to do these procedures at this non-dental office. I took my state board in 1948 at the State Capitol. This was at the Senators' desks. Now, we had to bring all of our dental equipment -- lights, drills, motors, everything in order to do these things. Incidentally, we had to find a patient too. I found a patient amongst the waitresses in my father's restaurant and I brought her up there to Phoenix to take the state board at the State Capitol. Now, there had been a great deal of complaints from the existing Jewish community, what little there were, of the fact that Jewish dentists were not being admitted to the state. Some of the Jewish dentists that were applying for entrance into the state -- they could not pass the dental board and either they went back to their own state or, if they needed this climate, they would go into other forms of business. Jarvis Weiss' father became an insurance man. There was a dentist who sold furniture, dentists who did other endeavors other than dentistry because they could not pass the state board, they or their family needed the climate and they could not get into the state. You must have a state license in order to practice here. All of this had been going on and there was quite a bit of rumblings to the then Governor Osborn. He appointed a Jewish dentist to oversee the board to make sure that things were going right. The name of the Jewish dentist was Dr. Meyer Spitalny. So he was there at the time that we were taking the state dental board. He was doing the observing, supposedly. To give you some idea of the horrors of this dental board, we all had to rig up our equipment. We have to have a light that shines in the mouth and I rigged a dead light on a pole. The patient held the pole in her lap in order for me to see in the mouth. Several times she would let the pole come down and the light would hit me in the head and burn me. This is the type of condition that one took a state board to show how good you were. Even with this, one or two of the members of the state board came up to me and praised me as to how wonderful and beautiful the restoration was. My cousin, Alexander Gristel, took the board at the same time. We all got our results. He passed; I failed. Why did he pass? He promised the board that if he was passed he would go to Benson, Arizona and set up his dental practice there. Now, you have to understand that a dental license says not Benson or Phoenix or Florence or anything else, it says for the state of Arizona. But he, as a Jew, promised that he would go to this little town of Benson, Arizona, practice there and serve the community. The next board to be taken, and this made me very angry that they had failed me, was to be given six months later. You had to wait six months between boards. So between that time and the next board I went back to New Jersey and I took my state dental board there and there was no problem. I passed it. I said I was going to come back to Arizona once more and try it again; if I failed then that was going to be the end if it. I also promised my bride that if I got through and she did not like Arizona, which she didn't particularly care for at the time, that I would give it five years and then I would go back to New Jersey. Because I had a New Jersey board, there was no problem. But I was bound and determined to go back to Arizona and try again. CHAZAN: Excuse me. When was your bride your bride? When did you get married? WEISS: We were married in 1947 in Newark, New Jersey. We had met out at Ohio State University and we were married in New Jersey. I met her at a fraternity dance. My cousin's wife grabbed me away from my studies for one night and I met my wife. She was from New Jersey; therefore, I got interested in her and I thought she would be a tremendous dancer. Because at that time I was a tremendous dancer. So the next fraternity party at Tau Epsilon Phi, which is a Jewish social fraternity, I invited her to the dance and she came down and both knees were skinned from slipping on the ice, so that dampened the dancing. The dancing was over for the night. But I had invited her afterwards and there was no problem. We finally got married. I came back to Arizona and this time I was not going to try to pass the board on whatever I thought my merits were. There had to be another way to do it. In the meantime, my cousin in Benson, Arizona decided that he wanted to practice in Tucson where his parents lived. This was before the board, before the next board. He didn't stay two or three years, in about three months he came into Tucson which was a little bit against what he told the board. But it was his perfect and legal right to practice anywhere in the state of Arizona he wanted to. With my father we went around to the various small towns in central Arizona and I went to Florence and I met a Mr. Kay Mandell, who was a Jewish merchant in Florence, Arizona. I asked him whether they needed a dentist in this town. He said yes, the existing dentist was getting very, very old and he told me to go to see a Dr. Stewart in Coolidge, Arizona, about ten miles away, and talk to him about whether or not the prison might need somebody. So I went to talk to Dr. Stewart and he was very, very cordial and he wanted me to come in right away to the prison because they had a dentist coming in but he was very irregular. He would come mostly for his paycheck and then would not take care of the inmates. He called up the warden and told me to go over to the prison, which my father and I did. We met the warden and the warden was very cordial too. He said that they needed somebody. So I said well, I do not have a license to practice in the state of Arizona. Of course, things were very, very loose at the state level; in the prison and the governor and so forth like that. So Warden Lonnie Walters, who was warden at that time said he'll fix it up. So he got in touch with me about three or four days later down in Tucson and he said, yes, he would like to have me come immediately. I said well, I can't be a dentist. He said , "We're going to sign you on as a guard." So I was signed on at the Arizona State Prison as a guard. I went into the prison and they had just built another hospital and they had a little dental office there. This was really, really crude. It was something that was back in the middle Ages. When I opened the drawers to look at the instruments there were extracted teeth among the instruments. I remember very, very well there was a young redheaded inmate in the hospital and his face was blown out three or four times the size. He was having a tremendous infection. Of course, you could understand that because there were old, dirty, filthy, infected teeth laying in the instruments. So I got him under penicillin and we cleared up his infection and I told the warden that I would not work there under those conditions. I said, "This office will have to be cleaned up before I will even come back." So they promised me they would clean it. They assigned me a prisoner to do it. He called himself Humphrey Bella Bogart. He was an old, old con and quite an old character. He was the dentist before I got there; he did the extractions. We had some very interesting talks together. I remember very vividly one of the things that he said. He had spent most of his life in prison, not only Arizona prisons but all over the country. He said, "Dr. Weiss, when I get out I'm going to use my brains. Instead of carrying a gun, I'm going to carry a Bible and when they pick me up I'm going to show them the Bible. They'll never send me back to prison." Of course, all these people had schemes when they were going to get out that they were going to outwit the law. They weren't going to go straight. These people were very intelligent people, incidentally, these inmates. If they had channeled their endeavors into something honest I'm sure they could have made it. CHAZAN: That is a proven fact, that they are very bright. WEISS: But I learned quite a bit; I gained quite a bit of experience in the prison. I worked at the prison for a period of four months commuting from Tucson where I lived with my parents to Florence, Arizona, usually by bus. Sometimes I would take my father's car up. I had to wait for the next state board and I worked in the prison. Things seemed to be going along very, very well. I reorganized the prison, the dental dispensary and everybody seemed to be happy with the work that was being done. Of course, I could not engage in any private practice because I did not have at that time a state license. I could only be listed as a guard at the Arizona State Prison. It came time for the board. Incidentally, my wife was in New Jersey all this time. She was working at Foster Publications in the capacity of a journalist, and I was in Arizona. It came time for the next board. I consulted with the warden and I asked him whether I could have a prisoner with the proper type of dental problems to take him up to the state board, because, again, we needed a patient. He said he would talk to the governor about it. I came in the next week and he said there was no problem, that I should select a trustee, one who was not a dangerous criminal and try to find the proper type of cavities to be filled and so forth like that up at the state board. Now, the state board at this time was being given at Glendale, Arizona: in the Glendale High School. This was the place of practice of one of the examiners, Dr. Roger K. Trueblood, Sr. I had found a prisoner with the proper types of cavities. of course, I had a tremendous amount of material to select from so it was no problem that way. Come time for the board I was loaded into a state car; a guard with a big gun on his side came along and the prisoner. The prisoner was handcuffed. So we went up to the state board in Glendale. Now, this was all courtesy of the state so they must have been really desperate to have a dentist to serve their needs at the Arizona State Prison. We walked into the examining room and the guard took his seat with his big gun at his side and I asked the guard if he would unshackle the prisoner because I didn't think that was proper. He did unshackle; he made the prisoner promise that he wouldn't try to run away and that was it. He was incidentally a very, very nice fellow, very fine fellow the prisoner who I took to examination. So I did my thing and I took my board and when the board was over I went up to Dr. Trueblood and I said well, as you know -- and he did know that I was working at the state prison -- I asked him whether I could continue to work at the prison. He says, "Well, I don't know; we'll have to let you know about this." I said, "That means that I don't work." He says, "Yeah, I think you'd better take off and wait for the results." There was a Dr. Greene from Tucson, Arizona and he had taken his board nine times. He was a very persistent individual. There is a casting procedure; I'll explain a little bit about that. One must make a gold inlay filling. One must cast gold into a mold. This dentist was so nervous that he forgot to put what we call a pattern into the mold. That is the pattern of the inlay. He cast without the pattern and of course he couldn't get another one going, so he flunked. That was the ninth time. This is just to give you some idea of how nervous an individual could be after nine times and it had nothing to do with his skill; it was just cantankerous. May I digress one minute. At this board, the first board -- I'll have to go back every once in a while. CHAZAN: That's perfectly all right. WEISS: When we were all setting our equipment out, a Jewish dentist from New York, I think it was, brought his equipment in in a big Manischewitz Matzo box. It had a big Mogen David on the outside and you can imagine what this did to the dental examiners. It was like waving a red flag in front of them. Here the governor at this first board had sent an observer, a Jewish dentist, to observe that everything was going right and here is a dentist bringing his equipment up to the state board in a Manischewitz Matzo box. So, that's just a digression and if you want to put it back in the first part, I have to have recall every once in a while. CHAZAN: That's all right. WEISS: Okay. Now, let's go back to the second board. As I say, I asked whether I could still work at the prison and I was told that I couldn't and that I would have to wait. I went back and I told the warden and the warden said that if that's what they say we had better not embroil the state board because there might be problems. So I didn't go back to the prison until I found the results and it came within one week. I had passed. Let me digress one minute again. The prisoner that I took up- at the next board of pardons he was pardoned; he was put on parole for acting so well at the state board. So that's a very interesting side. CHAZAN: Certainly is. WEISS: This made me feel very good and he was a nice guy. CHAZAN: I hope he never went back. WEISS: I hope he didn't. So I phoned Connie and of course we were all elated and I went back and got my wife. One more digression, okay? When I passed my New Jersey state board, and I think this will be very interesting, of course I was in New Jersey and I wanted to let my mother know. Because, you know, it was very discouraging flunking the first time and I wanted to let her know that at least I had passed the New Jersey state board. Now, my mother and father loved fishing and they were up in northern Arizona at the Indian reservation. I knew they were up there and I called up there to where they were staying at the lodge. Well, things were pretty primitive up there and I could not talk directly to my mother. I had to talk through an Indian. So, she asked for the message. I said, "I want you to tell my mother that her son passed the New Jersey board." And then she says, you know to confirm what I said, "Want to tell your mother that her son has passed away." I screamed into the phone, "No, that isn't it. Just tell her that I got by my New Jersey board." So that was the primitive condition that prevailed in 1948. You could not talk directly to an individual in Arizona up north; you had to talk to an Indian. Now, to continue the story, I went back to New Jersey to get my wife and bring her back to Arizona. But, before I went I wanted to make sure we had someplace to live in Florence. This is the way my thought processes went: I had passed, as a Jew, the Arizona state dental board. In order to make it easier for any fellow Jew to come and do the same thing that I had done, I had made up my mind that I am going to stay in Florence, Arizona for two or three years. I was going to do that. So I had to find a place to live and I had to find a dental office. The town of Florence was very eager to have a dentist come in because there was an old dentist; his name was Dr. Brock. He was probably in his 90's. He was the kind of man that if he extracted a tooth he would bury the tooth in his back yard. Now, why he wanted to bury teeth in his back yard I don't know, because teeth do not grow. They are not acorns. But this is one of the things that he did. He had a very, very, very antiquated office and the people of the town wanted to see a young dentist come in. So they were very, very eager to help me. First of all, I wanted to find someplace to live and there was a hotel, the Barnes Hotel, and at the time they were building four little apartments in back of the hotel. They were very nice little apartments, but they were sitting right on this main street. But that didn't seem to bother me, I just wanted to find a place for my bride and myself to live. So I rented that before I left. Also, I wanted to find an office and on the main street there was a little store, a bargain store, and they offered that to me for a dental office. So I left all that, packed myself up, went back to New Jersey. of course, it was very traumatic for my in-laws to see their little girl -- because Connie was the only child -- see their little girl leave for Arizona. But I told Connie that I would bring her back to New Jersey, that's where she was raised, after five years if she didn't like it. We went to Arizona with that premise. We packed our belongings, what little belongings we had, packed it into a car and came out to Arizona. The first night or two we went directly to Tucson and we stayed at a place in Tucson called the Catalina Courts. This establishment was very, very primitive and the cockroaches were very large. Connie used Lysol to clean out this place before we could even move in for the two or three days because our apartment up in Florence was not exactly ready. You have to understand what Arizona was at the time. Arizona, at that time, was the land of "Pasada Manyana". It isn't only manyana, but it's pasada manyana; the day after tomorrow. Everything would happen the day after tomorrow. So it was promised to us by the time we got back; it was not ready; we had to stay at the Catalina Courts in Tucson. Then finally we got moved into our little apartment. The town had also promised that they would have an office building for me, a nice office building sharing with a physician. Outside of Florence was the Florence prisoner of war camp. This is where they kept the German and Italian prisoners during World War II, right outside of Florence. They were going to lift one of these buildings up and bring it into town on the main street and put it down. It was also to act as a Masonic Hall as it had a second floor on it. But at first I had to go into this one building. So, the town got together and tried to help me set this dental office up because, of course, I was lacking funds. I had no money of my own. My father signed a note to purchase some secondhand equipment and I got some firsthand equipment later on through the GI bill. To give you some idea of what this dental office was like, it was a one-room bare cement whitewashed office with bare wires going to the lights. This was to be the dental office. Now, there was no separation; and, of course, one could not have a reception room and a dental operatory combined so the hospital loaned me a screen to put in between the operatory and the reception room. The barber loaned me some of his equipment and somewhere, I don't know where we picked it up, but we picked up an unvented heater, because the place had to be heated in the winter when we started. No air conditioning, this was something that was not even thought of in those days. We put the dental chair down, we put the dental equipment in. Incidentally, the plumber knew that we were Eastern dudes so he took us for a real ride as far as the plumbing cost goes. It was probably inflated three or four times. And everybody was asking when are you going to open. I had to get it together; my father came up from Tucson and helped me paint the place. And everybody was saying when are you going to open, Doc, we need you, we need you desperately. So I was going to open up one day and I put a sign in the door saying that I would be open at 9:00 in the morning, I think it was on a Monday or something. Our apartment was directly on the main street and across the way there was a tavern called the Old Tavern run by a Jew called Leo Block. He had been there for many, many years. It seemed that the night before there was quite a celebration on Main Street and of course we were right on Main Street. Our bedroom window was just one wall away from the street. So we didn't get to sleep very good that night and we woke up a little bit late. When I woke up and looked at the clock I said, "Oh, my God, they'll be all lined up and I won't be open." So I put on my clothes and I rushed down two or three blocks to the office and of course there was nobody there. I opened the doors and I sat there and I waited. All of these people who were begging me to open never showed up. There was an old cobbler who lost a crown and that was my first and only patient for the day. So that was the beginning. Now, the sheriff or the deputy sheriff had to have someplace in Florence to rest. He would come in with his big gun on his side and the big hat and the whole thing and the big badge, and sit in the waiting room. That was his place to sit. You have to understand that sometimes when you're extracting a tooth there's noises, like the crunching and the moaning a little bit. I happened to have, as I recall, a very difficult extraction to do and there were the moans and the crunches. There was somebody waiting for me, and you've got to understand that all I had between the reception room and the operatory was a little hospital screen. When I finished, I was getting ready for the next patient, I looked over the screen and the reception room was empty. They didn't like what they heard and that was the end of it. That went on for two or three months and I was very anxious to get into my new modern building with the physician and so forth. There was going to be the Masonic Hall and the old barrack. They had put the foundation down and they had dragged the building in and they were starting to put the building up. And the building caught on fire. Now, this is Florence, Arizona, a population of 2 or 3,000 -- 1,600. This is how the fire brigade came. The fire truck, or whatever truck it was, came along the main street and as it came along the volunteers would jump on the truck. And they picked up their firemen as they went along the street. They got to the building, they rolled out the hose and the nozzle was missing. So they could not put out the fire with that. So they got some garden hoses, tried to put that fire out; it did not go out, so the building burned down to the ground. CHAZAN: That was your new office. WEISS: That was my new office. So I was kind of discouraged and I told Connie, "If they don't get another one pretty quick, I'm just going to move out of here." But we reminded ourselves of our vow that we were going to stay in Florence, Arizona until two or three years and giving that kind of thing so that again, another Jewish dentist might have a chance at a small town. So the office, as I say, was very inadequate, but they had another place down the street. This was an old adobe building, an abandoned Wells Fargo stagecoach station. This was something that was way, way out; had very, very large rooms; very, very tall ceilings. In those days, of course, there was only the swamp cooler and the only way you could keep cool was to have a large room with a high ceiling because the heat rose and at least down below it was a little cooler. Well, that was very inadequate too, but at least we had a separation of the reception room and the operatory and we didn't lose patients through the sounds of the different dental procedures. I had built up quite a bit of a nice practice in Florence and I also had work at the prison at the same time. I was working at the prison and at my private practice in Florence. So we went along with that. Then they put another building on. This one they got through; we got into that office and it was quite nice and comfortable. That building, incidentally, is standing today. I've gone down there recently and the building is still standing. So we went in there and we practiced there. We got tired of our little apartment in Florence and, incidentally, in Florence we were very friendly with the Mandells, Kay and Marjorie Mandell. Kay Mandell had established this dry goods store many, many, many years before I got there and he brought his bride out to Arizona. They lived in Phoenix but they would commute down to Florence and he would live there and she would live in Phoenix. Kay Mandell has passed away but Marjorie is still living and we still have acquaintance with her. Coming from Newark, New Jersey, from a population of half a million to three-quarters of a million and moving to a town of 1,600 was quite a cultural shock for us, so we wanted to have some more involvement as far as culture. So we would come up to Phoenix on the weekends and stay at the Los Olivos on McDowell. That was very, very nice at the time, had a beautiful swimming pool and a nice restaurant. We would be very, very comfortable there and then we would go. Before we would leave the town we would want to fill up with gasoline in the car. We went into the station and the station attendant or the manager would say, "Going to Phoenix again, Doc? Why don't you spend your money in Florence?" Of course, we didn't pay too much attention, we wanted to do what we wanted to do. Let me say that we had Jewish friends in Coolidge; there were the Harrises, there were the Fabricants. We had especially nice friends in Casa Grande. There were Mollie and Leon Segorik; they were a Jewish couple who were cotton ranchers in Casa Grande for many, many years. We still maintain our relationship with the Segoriks to this day. We had our first child, Donna, in 1951. The delivery was done in the old St. Joseph's Hospital in Phoenix. Incidentally, before this Connie's parents had come out to Arizona, Sam and Rose Berkowitz. They came from Elizabeth, New Jersey in 1950 and they moved to Mesa, Arizona and then they moved to Phoenix, Arizona. Connie stayed with her parents and I commuted back and forth to Phoenix from Florence and Connie was delivered at the old St. Joseph Hospital. When she was walking into the hospital a mouse ran across the corridor; this is just a little incidental. We had been living in Coolidge at this time. That's about ten miles from Florence. We had rented a little house. We brought the baby back to Coolidge and I commuted from Coolidge to Florence to the practice and to the prison. After two or three years of Florence I decided that I had paid my debt and we decided that we were going to move into Phoenix. Incidentally, some of the people we had met in Phoenix were Ralph and Nona Segal; the former Nona Lewkowitz. We had met Herman Lewkowitz, a well known lawyer. He had defended Winnie Ruth Judd, a very famous case in Arizona - the trunk murder and so forth like that. He was a very, very prominent lawyer. of course, Burton and Jerry Lewkowitz we had known. The Segals had come down to Arizona. We had met Dr. Davis Arnal and his wife. He was an allergist in Phoenix and several others. When we let the Segals know that we intended coming to Phoenix -- of course, you understand that I had served two or three years-- we got word from a Jewish dentist in Phoenix, Arizona, Dr. Meyer Spitalny, that it would be a good idea if we would rent an apartment in Phoenix and come up there and commute. Now, this is the same Dr. Meyer Spitalny who was appointed by the governor of the state of Arizona at my first dental board to oversee the board. Again, you must understand that my license read the state of Arizona and I could go anyplace I wanted to at any time. So we moved to Phoenix and I looked for a dental office. I found an office on North 7th Avenue and established my practice here. After a time I was in the Arizona State Dental Association, a Central District Dental Society. We held meetings at the Adams Hotel. You have to understand that this organization did not refuse any Jews. They couldn't; this was part of the American Dental Association, so they could not do anything against Jews there. But there were no Blacks. Now, one or two Blacks that were in south Phoenix applied for membership. And all hell broke loose among the membership, and especially among the dental wives, because the dental wives had dances and so forth. They were questioning, "What if one of them came up and asked us to dance?" This would be horrible as far as they were concerned. They finally accepted them. When the Adams Hotel learned that a couple of Blacks were going to eat at their hotel, the hotel refused to have our meetings anymore. Of course, you have to understand that this was the time of segregation. So this is another interesting sideline about the Arizona scene at that time. It seemed that they started to have problems again about the rumbling that no more Jewish dentists were being allowed into the state. I was approached by Dr. Trueblood after one of our meetings. The first thing he asked, he said, "Dr. Weiss, do you have anything against the dental board?" And I said, "No." He said, "Do you feel that you were treated fairly?" I said, "Well" and he said, "The reason I'm asking you this is that we're thinking of appointing you on the state board and I wanted to feel out what your feelings were." This is probably in relation - soon after I started at the prison they began to have the state board down in Florence and I had helped to set up the dental board at the prison. The advantages were twofold; one, they had plenty of clinical material. They could use the prisoners as patients; and second of all, it was a more convenient place than the state capitol or the Glendale High School. So I had set that up. At one time I visited my setup and Dr. Trueblood asked me what I was doing there. I said, "What do you mean, what am I doing here? This is the place that I set up." Well, you know, it was made very uncomfortable for me for being there as if I had no right to be at their state dental board. But anyhow getting back to Phoenix. He said, "What is your feeling about the board?" I said, "There's one thing that I do not understand." He says, "What's that?" I said, "I took my first board and I failed. I went back to New Jersey, I took a board there and I passed." I said, "Why did I pass the second board?" He says, "Well, you did much better as far as your clinical work, the fillings and so forth." I said, "How come I did better? I didn't have practice between my first and second board." Well, I was never asked to be on the board again. So that was the end of my being on the state board and believe me when I say it was a relief, but that was it. So I practiced in Phoenix and then in 1953 the Korean situation was there and I was taken into the army as a first lieutenant, served in a dental corps for two years and when I finished in the army I came back to Phoenix to resume my practice. In the meantime we had developed quite a few acquaintances here. We had joined Temple Beth Israel. In 1953 we had our second child, David. We had him before I went into the army and then we went into service. I went up to Seattle, Washington and then down to Ft. Irwin in Barstow, California and we came back to Phoenix. I set up my practice. We went back to the 7th Avenue location. Then I went on Central Avenue and then I went on East Missouri Avenue. You've got to understand that I was the fifth Jewish dentist in the state. Then we started to get one or two. We got Dr. Louis Greenberg; we got Dr. Byron Butt; we got Leonard Karp and several others after that. Then Dr. Tauman came in. We developed a little sizeable Jewish community here as far as dentists. We would get together and have little meetings and so forth like that, after I came back from the army. They wanted to form Alpha Omega. This is a Jewish dental fraternity. Now in dental college I did not join a Jewish dental fraternity. I did belong to Tau Epsilon Phi in my pre-dent, but I felt that there was too much distraction at the Alpha Omega fraternity house and I felt that I would just rather not belong to it and I did my studies by myself and I could live in a separate house. Anyhow, the Jewish dentists wanted to form Alpha Omega. There were about five or six of us and I said okay, if you want to form a Jewish fraternity, of course I did not belong to one in college, but if you want to have me in it, I will make one proviso and I will join it. And that proviso is that all of us Jewish dentists would go down to the damn governor, it was Howard Pyle I think, and tell him the situation in this state among Jewish dentists. They would not do that so I did not join their fraternity. So that was the extent of that factor. I felt that I had contributed my part to try to get Jewish dentists in. And incidentally, Dr. Louis Greenberg promised that he would go to Globe, Arizona trying to get into this state. He passed his board and he did not go to Globe, Arizona; he came into Phoenix. So these are the things that happened way back then as far as the dental community. Let me say now that it is not that way. My son, David, became a dentist. He graduated from the University of Pacific in San Francisco and there is now what they call a western regional board. It is given in one of the dental colleges on the California coast at Loma Linda and they are judged by numbers. They are just judged strictly by their ability. My son had no problem in passing the state board and he is in practice with me now. Let me digress again. When I was looking for a location in the Phoenix area to come from Florence to Phoenix there was this little town of Scottsdale, Arizona. At that time it consisted of a main street and an intersection that is now Main and Brown. At the corner was an establishment called the Pink Pony. I wanted to know whether or not I would be accepted in Scottsdale, Arizona because, again, this was a very small community. It looked very promising and I thought I might set up a dental office in Scottsdale. I went to the physician, and I forget his name, who was practicing there and I asked him whether or not as a Jew I would be welcomed into the town. He said, "Well, let me talk to the city fathers and find out about it. I'll let you know next week." So the next week I went and discussed it with him again and he said, "Well, Dr. Weiss, the city fathers feel at this time that we're just not ready for a Jewish dentist." And that is the extent of my looking in Scottsdale and of course I never practiced in Scottsdale. Again, let me digress. We had another son in 1956, Steven, who is now a commercial photographer. We are blessed now with a grandchild, Bobbie Bauer. He is now 2 years old. In 1951 we joined Temple Beth Israel. At the time Rabbi Krohn was the rabbi and Cantor Chesler was the cantor. Rabbi Krohn was getting older so they brought in a new rabbi, Rabbi Fierman. He brought a little something else into the temple. I remember being at services on one of the high holy days and I was very thirsty and I wanted to get a drink of water. So I got up, walked back to the drinking fountain and as soon as I got up Rabbi Fierman stopped in the middle of what he was saying and stared on me icily. I went back, got my water and climbed back to my seat and he did not start until I sat down again. So this was a very, very embarrassing thing as far as I was concerned. The temple is much the same as it was back in 1951 structurally. of course, the congregation has grown. At one time on the high holy days we would be able to all sit in the main sanctuary and today it's being held in auditoriums to accommodate everybody. So it started out as a very small Jewish community. The community center was located on Camelback Road near 16th Street and when there were too many for that they built the present community center that's there now. The Jewish community where you would know everybody, absolutely everybody in the Jewish community, now it's very difficult to recognize anybody because of the growth, as everything has grown. I might mention about Dr. Sitkin. He was number one Jewish dentist in the state of Arizona when I got here. There was Dr. Sitkin in Phoenix. Number two was Dr. Leonard Weiner. Number three was Dr. Meyer Spitalny. Number four was Dr. Alexander Gristel, my cousin, and five was of course me. Let me digress a little bit about Dr. Sitkin. Now, I don't know this; this was just said at the time, but when he first started to practice he would set up a booth outside of the old Palace movie theater and do his dentistry out there. Of course, Phoenix must have been very, very small at the time. Let me say that I started out as a general practitioner and about ten years ago I limited my practice in dentistry to the problems of the neuromuscular system and the pain around head and neck problems. I have done that ever since. In 1970 my father and his brother went back together to the place of their birth in Matamoseya; that's in Romania. They went to their school and they looked at their grades. of course, this is the 1800's. That night my father died and he was buried in the Jewish cemetery in Matamoseya. This is a very interesting thing in that he returned home to die after coming here in 1927, knowing that there was trouble brewing for the Jews in Europe. He took his family out. This is way, way before -- many of our relatives, of course, in Romania and Hungary were lost in the Holocaust. CHAZAN: How old was your father when he died? WEISS: He was 71, between 71 and 75. I'm sorry, he was 75. I'm thinking of my uncle; he died when he was 71. CHAZAN: Even 75 is not old. WEISS: This is the thing. He was diabetic and he had heart problems and he died the night that he looked at his grades and they had looked back at their place that they started out in their restaurant and so forth like that. CHAZAN: And when did your mother die? WEISS: My mother died in 1976. She was 78 years old. She died in Tucson. The uncle that inspired me to become a dentist died in 1979 in San Diego, California. CHAZAN: Now, your parents: How long did they have the restaurant? WEISS: They had the restaurant approximately ten to twelve years. As I say, they did very, very well in it. They were well respected in their community and several famous people went through that restaurant. In fact, James Jones, the author of "From Here To Eternity', while they were making the film in Tucson would be eating in my father's restaurant. My father had his book and James Jones signed the flyleaf saying what a wonderful restaurant, that it was the best Hungarian food that he had ever eaten. So he had quite a few celebrities. He had grown up with a violinist, Joseph Segeti. They had grown up together and when Joseph Segeti was in Tucson in concert he got together with my father and they reminisced about old times in Hungary and this was a joy for my father of course. So they were well respected in Tucson. One more digression: The Jewish dentists who took the board over and over and over again -- and this was one of the reasons that I wanted to go to the governor with the Jewish dentists who already were in -- tried to sue the state dental board for a license. They went to Superior Court. And they couldn't get anywhere for the hook that we dentists have in the practical. They had passed the written; nobody can argue about the written because the questions and answers have to be the way they are and that's the way it is. But the problem that dentists have, of course, is the practical because if any of the examiners -- and at that time of course they knew who was the applicant, not like today where you get a number. But at that time they knew the applicant and they could pass or flunk him on the spot. They said that they did not pass the practical or the clinical portion of the examination. Of course the judge had to go along with that because they were the judgment. Of course, we always have to ask, who judges the judges you see. So, again, fortunately we are at a state where it isn't that way and let me emphasize that. It is not that way today and thank goodness for it. [end of transcript]