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MJ- ^zo — X- �P» 5 7--2^- fr-» ^ ^--7^>—^ —*-+&• -a^~ (7 /? �� Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Andrew Jackson Greene Collection Description An account of the resource The Andrew Jackson Greene Collection consists of more than 160 diaries written by Greene who describes Watauga County's education system, including Appalachian State Teachers College, cultural and religious life, and agriculture from 1906 to 1942. <br /><br /><strong>Biographical Note.</strong> Andrew Jackson Greene (March 2, 1883-August 12, 1942) was a life-long resident of Watauga County, North Carolina and instructor in several Watauga schools including Appalachian State Teachers College (A.S.T.C). Greene worked as a farmer, public school teacher, and college professor. Greene was an enthusiastic diarist maintaining regular entries from 1906 to the day before his death. He also recorded A.S.T.C. faculty meetings from January 9, 1915 to May 3, 1940. He married Polly Warren, and they had three children, Ralph, Maxie, and Lester. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Greene, Andrew Jackson, 1883-1942 Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://appstate-speccoll.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/190">AC.105: Andrew Jackson Greene Collection</a> Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1906-1942 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/NoC-US/1.0/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">No Copyright - United States</a> Document A resource containing textual data. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre text. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Diary of Andrew Jackson Greene, Volume 81 [July 10, 1931 - September 9, 1931] Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a title="Andrew Jackson Greene Collection, 1906-1942" href="https://appstate-speccoll.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/190" target="_blank">Andrew Jackson Greene Collection, 1906-1942</a> Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1931 Extent The size or duration of the resource. 81.1 MB 81 pages Language A language of the resource English Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context 105_081_1931_0710_1931_0909 Description An account of the resource From July 10 through September 9, 1931, Andrew Jackson Greene recorded this diary about his daily life. He wrote about the weather, the church and the community. At this point, his children were leaving home and he was realizing that it would be a struggle to keep his farm going. He was busy between the farm, the schoolwork, and being a minister. He knew he was aging and found it hard to finish work many days. He also wrote about the college. They reached the 700 mark. He wrote these things in addition to the smallest details of his everyday life. Subject The topic of the resource Watauga County (N.C.)--Social life and customs--20th century Baptists--Clergy--North Carolina--Watauga County Greene, Andrew Jackson, 1883-1942 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Greene, Andrew Jackson, 1883-1942 Type The nature or genre of the resource Text Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/NoC-US/1.0/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">No Copyright – United States</a> Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource Diaries Is Part Of A related resource in which the described resource is physically or logically included. <a title="Andrew Jackson "Greene collection" href="https://omeka.library.appstate.edu/collections/show/39" target="_blank"> Andrew Jackson Greene collection </a> Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant Watauga County (N.C.) Spatial Coverage Spatial characteristics of the resource. <a title="https://www.geonames.org/4497707/watauga-county.html" href="https://www.geonames.org/4497707/watauga-county.html" target="_blank"> https://www.geonames.org/4497707/watauga-county.html</a> Temporal Coverage Temporal characteristics of the resource. 1930s Appalachian State Teachers College B.B. Dougherty Black Bear Trail. Sam Atkins Boone Daniel Boone Trail Depression Elizabethton Elk Park farming Football H.R. 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For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Andrew Jackson Greene Collection Description An account of the resource The Andrew Jackson Greene Collection consists of more than 160 diaries written by Greene who describes Watauga County's education system, including Appalachian State Teachers College, cultural and religious life, and agriculture from 1906 to 1942. <br /><br /><strong>Biographical Note.</strong> Andrew Jackson Greene (March 2, 1883-August 12, 1942) was a life-long resident of Watauga County, North Carolina and instructor in several Watauga schools including Appalachian State Teachers College (A.S.T.C). Greene worked as a farmer, public school teacher, and college professor. Greene was an enthusiastic diarist maintaining regular entries from 1906 to the day before his death. He also recorded A.S.T.C. faculty meetings from January 9, 1915 to May 3, 1940. He married Polly Warren, and they had three children, Ralph, Maxie, and Lester. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Greene, Andrew Jackson, 1883-1942 Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://appstate-speccoll.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/190">AC.105: Andrew Jackson Greene Collection</a> Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1906-1942 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/NoC-US/1.0/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">No Copyright - United States</a> Document A resource containing textual data. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre text. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Diary of Andrew Jackson Greene, Volume 83 [November 8, 1931 - January 4, 1932] Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a title="Andrew Jackson Greene Collection, 1906-1942" href="https://appstate-speccoll.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/190" target="_blank">Andrew Jackson Greene Collection, 1906-1942</a> Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1931-1932 Extent The size or duration of the resource. 75.9 MB 77 pages Language A language of the resource English Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context 105_083_1931_1108_1932_0104 Description An account of the resource This diary was recorded from November 8, 1931 through January 4, 1932. Greene wrote his inner thoughts and feelings each day. He typically writes of his sorrows and gloom. Greene wrote he preferred to be alone to avoid trouble. He often provided information about the Appalachian State Normal School, the local churches, and his travels. Subject The topic of the resource Watauga County (N.C.)--Social life and customs--20th century Baptists--Clergy--North Carolina--Watauga County Greene, Andrew Jackson, 1883-1942 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Greene, Andrew Jackson, 1883-1942 Type The nature or genre of the resource Text Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/NoC-US/1.0/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">No Copyright – United States</a> Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource Diaries Is Part Of A related resource in which the described resource is physically or logically included. <a title="Andrew Jackson "Greene collection" href="https://omeka.library.appstate.edu/collections/show/39" target="_blank"> Andrew Jackson Greene collection </a> Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant Watauga County (N.C.) Spatial Coverage Spatial characteristics of the resource. <a title="https://www.geonames.org/4497707/watauga-county.html" href="https://www.geonames.org/4497707/watauga-county.html" target="_blank"> https://www.geonames.org/4497707/watauga-county.html</a> Temporal Coverage Temporal characteristics of the resource. 1930s Boone Bowden State College Brushy Fork Valley Concord State College of West Virginia Critcher Hotel Depression Dr. O.J. Chandler Football Greene Inn H.A. Greer Henry Brinkley J.H. Brendall Meat Camp Pastor E.C. Hodges Ralph Bingham Sunday School Tom Cushing Vilas W.J. Mast Will Walker Willowdale Winnie Heafner YWCA https://omeka-test.library.appstate.edu/files/original/db5bcaf0924d87be27234850012891d3.pdf eb9707e3cdc523327667d791b59c2c5f PDF Text Text In Nineteen Five I became alive and what I found around this town Was joy and tears for 50 years. I. Origins1 In 1799, my great-great grandfather [surname?] was a chicken farmer in the town of Pushalot, in the state of Lithuania, in the Soviet Union. It was a hard life in the town of Pushalot. The winters were nine months long and unendurably cold. The summers were hot and rainy. There were occasional pogroms or Russian Cossaks rampaging through the streets terrorizing the countryside, gypsies stealing everything in sight, including sometimes even children, and always there was the threat of Siberia. My ancestors, like most Jews, were very poor, hard working and suffering. My greatgreat grandfather bought eggs from all the chicken farmers, packed them carefully on a wagon, covered them with straw to keep them cool and fresh and rode many miles to Kovna, Vilna and Riga to sell the eggs at the big city markets. In 1825, my great grandfather served as a rabbi in Pushalot. In 1872, my grandfather opened a kretchma in Pushalot. A kretchma is a Russian inn somewhat like out modern motels, only they didn’t have swimming pools or air conditioning. It was a place travelers could stop for food or drink or spend the night. One day a Bolshevik on horseback stopped at the Inn and drank a lot of vodka. He got fresh with my grandmother, who I understand was a good looking girl in those days. My father, a teenage boy, picked up a piece of stove wood, hit him on the head and knocked him out. That was an awful crime in Russia for a Jewish boy. My grandfather made a temporary settlement with the Russian and gave him 50 rubles. My father thought that they may send him to jail or Siberia, so he stole his way across the border into Germany. He didn’t like Germany, so he left Germany and made his way to South Africa. He went to work as a house painter in Johannesburg. He became ill from the lead poisoning in the paint. There were no United Way or Federate Jewish Charities down there, but someone took pity on him and nursed him back to health. He sold cigarettes and sandwiches at a stock exchange and he finally opened a resturant. 1 Cite reference �In 1898, right before the English-Boer War, my father sold his resturant for gold coins, got a money belt, and went down to Cape Town. He had a cousin in Australia and a brother in Jacksonville, Florida. By a flip of a coin he came over to Jacksonville, Florida. In Jacksonville, Florida, he went to night school to learn to read and write English. Just Think . . . “Just think,” said Leo Finkelstein, pawnbroker extraordinary, to the writer yesterday, “but for the fall of a coin ‘heads up’ in South Africa nearly fifty years ago, I would be selling kangaroos today in Australia.” We looked at Leo, who was giving such a strange answer to an ordinary question as to the state of business, but he seemed to be in good health and there was nothing in his manner to indicate a sudden stroke or something. Then he continued: “yessir, when my father (Harry L. Finkelstein) was a young man, and many years before I was born, he was in business at Johannesburg, South Africa. He had been in England and was getting tired of South Africa, so when an Englishman came along and gave him (my father) the choice of going to Australia with him, or of visiting the United States, my father tossed up an English shilling: ‘heads for America, tails for Australia’. It came down with heads up, and that is why I am running a poor man’s bank in Asheville, instead of being a kangaroo millionaire in Australia”. Then Leo added the information that his father never regretted the fact that the coin fell for America. “He often told me as a boy”, said the young man, “that he would rather live in Asheville than any place on earth”. -from unknown newspaper dated 1935 The History of Macy Meisal Slott’s Family As Told By The Patriarch Himself Just in case you don’t recognize me, I am your grandfather patriarch, Zaida Macy Meisal. Some of you are named after me: all the Miltons, Michaels, Morrises, Mays, Michels, Melvins and Matthews . . . All named after me, and I am flattered that your parents held my memory in such high regard. My wife was named Faga and all of you Fannies, Fagas, Florences, Frances were named after her. Our parents made the Chiddach between Faga and me before we ever met each other. Boy, were we scared! But, little by little we became acquainted and we had eight children, four boys and four girls. Our first born was a girl. We named her Michla. She married a man named Itzic Schemer and they had eight children, four boys and four girls, Michla and Itzic did not leave Pushalot, our home shtetl. But many of their children did go to America. I am flattered and delighted to see here tonight descendents of their sons, Berra Hirsha, Fivah, Helman, and Velval, and their daughters, Faga Cohen and Malcha Rose. . . Many of Michla’s family live in Jacksonville and are well known to each other. It is especially wonderful to see so many from out-of-town: form Texas, Faga’s children- Ben Cohen and his wife Marjorie, Ely Cohen and his daughter Sandra, Frank Cohen (Fort Worth’s 1975 Physician of the Year) and his wife Sara, daughters, Ann Prenovitz and husband Jacob of Boston, Sary Zimmerman and husband Raymond of Texas. . . Will you all stand so the eyes of Jacksonville can gaze into the eyes of Texas. More of Michla’s out of town family through son Helman, Ben Schemer and his wife Helen, Ft. Lauderdale, FL Willaim Schemer and his wife Val, �Miami. Through son Fivah, all from Miami, all from Miami, Maurice Schemer and his wife Dorothy, Stephen Schemer and his wife Esther, Isadore Schemer and his wife Laura, Fannie Siegel and her husband Irvin. Through son Berra Hirsha Dorothy Legum and husband Irving and son Terry, Richmond, VA. Lynn Legum from Philadelphia, PA, Cheryl Lebeau and husband Jerry, Atlanta, GA, Lee Shemer and wife Lil, Newport News, VA. Through son Helman, Barbara Zwerin and husband Harley, Clearwater, FL. Through daughter Malcha Rose, Etta Drashin and husband Bob, St. Augustine, FL. The oldest descendant here tonight is Minnie Morgenstern, 86, who just beat Max Rose, 85. Our second child was also a girl and we named her Etta. She married Yudi Carmel. They brought their three boys and three girls to America in 1899. All of my children were wonderful but my Etta was an exceptional person. She was the most unselfish, charitable, kindliest, energetic person of her time. She brought many of our family to America. She provided for them in every way until they could help themselves. She shared her worldly goods and love with everyone. She was a regular saint, you should pardon the expression. Children of her daughter, Esther who is 94 and living in Baltimore, and daughter Fannie, who just passed away at the age of 96 and children of her son Frank, have come a long way to be with us tonight. From VA, Macy Carmel and his wife Rose, Melvin Carmel and his wife Sylvia, Percy Carmel, Miriam Carmel, Harriet Kirsner, Mildred Fox, Louis Richman and his wife Tznia and their three daughters. Helda Kirsner from Charlotte, NC. From Baltimore, MD, Harriet Hackerman, Dolly Hackerman Asbell, Milton Hackerman and his wife Mildred. We don’t know exactly how Melvin and Kay Zweig of Chevy Chase, MD and Lester and Eileen Gordon of St. Petersburg, FL fit into the family. If they are not Michpaucha, we certainly wish they were. . . .Will all please stand. My next child was Rossa. She was married to Sarya Sherman, and they had five boys and two girls. Rossa’s children came to this country but Rossa passed away in Pushalot as a very young woman. From Hallandale, FL, Ruth (Cissy) Serman Levy who is the daughter of Rossa’s son Harry and Her Husband Sam is here representing that branch of our family..... Please stand. Our fourth child, finally we had an ingelleh and could make a Bris. We called him Itzic. He had two boys and two girls, all of them came to this country and the families of his sons Harry and Abe and daughters Malcha Kramer and Faga Foor are represented here this evening. Irvin Slott and wife Lois from Bethesda, MD. William Foor and wife Carol, Miami, FL. Elise Foor Haas, husband Frank, Boynton Beach, FL, Renee Slott Montaigne, son Jeffrey, Atlanta, GA. Dr. Marvin Slott, Gainesville, FL. Please stand. Our next daughter we named Miriam and she married Mayer David Cohen. My, was I proud to have a Cahan in the family. They had four boys and four girls, and all came to live in America. Some of their family live here in Jacksonville, and others have travelled thousands of miles.. Sadie Cohen and Florence Levin, Baltimore, MD. Dr. Eileen Cohen, PA. Bessie Cohen Eisenstat and husband Berry from Atlanta, GA. Carl Proser and his wife Helen from Greenville, SC. Helen Sloat Samuel, Sacramento, CA. Lisa Sloat, Miami, FL. Please stand. Then we had another boy and we named him Herschel. He called himself Harry, and �Harry was some sport. He took the last name of Goldman when he came to this country. Our name in the old country was Zloty. It is a Lithuanian coin made of gold. All of our family took the name of Slott to make it more acceptable in America, but Harry took the last name of Goldman, represented by the gold coin. He came to Jacksonville, in 1887 because there was another Pushaloter family here named Finkelstein but they are not Mishpocha, just Landsleit. He [Harry Goldman?] built a big business, was a city councilman and very active in the local community. He brought and helped to establish many of our family to Jacksonville. He had two boys and two girls. His reputation and accomplishments earned him recognition and biographical history is on record in the Florida Archives in the History of the State of Florida. Our next child was Lippa. He called himself Lippman Slott in America and had three boys and five girls and lived in Chicago where he established a meat packing business that his descendants still operate. Our last child was also a boy whom we named Shopsal. He was everyone’s favorite. He came to America but returned to Pushlot to be with Faga and me. I needed him in the business. It is touching to think that we perhaps have family who still live in Lithuania now and are not known to you in America or maybe only the ones who have survived are you in America. You must certainly count your blessings and bless the memory of your parents who had the initiative and gedult to leave the tiny, familiar world of Pushalot to risk their lives and future to establish a new life and hope in America. It was a hard life in Mein Shtetle Pushalot, in a country then called Litta or Lithuania to you. The winters were nine months long and unendurably cold. The summers were extremely hot and rainy. The Goyim barely tolerated us and there were occasional pogroms, or Russian Cossaks rampaging through the countryside or Tzygainer, gypsies stealing everything in sight including sometimes even children, and always there was the threat of Siberia. Like most Jews, we were very poor, hard-working and suffering. My business, I bought eggs from the chicken farmers and packed them carefully in my wagon, covered them with straw to keep them cool and fresh and rode many viorts, miles to you, to Kovna, Vilna, Ponivis, and once in a while to Riga, to sell eggs in the big city markets. I hated the long horse drawn wagon ride and hated being away from my Fagalaand Kinderlach all week from Monday to Friday and often what life would be like, if I were a rich man! But we had good times too in Pushalot. We went to schul a lot. The kinder went to Cheder a lot, our wives benched a lot, we blessed after each meal, we sang songs a lot, we had Bar Mitzvahs and we had weddings. I’ll never forget the Chasinah of our first daughter Michla. What a wedding! After that wedding did we have trouble with our next two daughters, Etta and Rossa. They were so jealous that Michlas had a husband, they nagged us to consult the Shotchun to negotiate a Shiddach for them. I immediately had to set aside the Nadan, the dowry for those two and consult with the Yenta. �But my children were restless. . . They had heard geshichtes about in America. The land of milk and honey with streets paved with gold. No risks seemed too great to escape the agony of serving in the army of the Russian Tzar or the pogroms of the Cossaks. They would not be denied. No obstacles were too great to stop them. . not even the forged visas, not leaving home in the night stealing across unpatrolled borders, enduring the forty-five days rough ocean voyage in steerage class, subsisting on salted herring and black bread to arrive in America. Here in the land of milk and honey. This is the land of milk and honey This is the land of sun and song, And this is a world of good and plenty, Humble and proud and young and strong, And, this is the place where the hopes of the homeless, And the dreams of the lost combine. And, this lovely land is yours and mine. So my children and their children came to America, destitute but determined. They tasted and endured the bitterness of poverty, desperation, and disappointment with dignity, spirit, hopefulness and perseverance to seize the opportunities and glory in the freedom of Columbus’ Medina. . .Our America! Not all of my children could have biographical histories of their lives published in the archives of records, but everyone of them, Michla, Etta, Rossa, Itzic, Miriam, Harry, Lippa, and Shopsal have their accomplishments and noble characteristics inscribed in the hearts of the families and friends whose lives they touched. I am going to fade out of your sight. . .and leave you with just your memories. . . Origins of the Pawnshop The Pawnshop was originated in China 3,000 years ago. established in Bavaria in 1557[?] legally adopted by France during the 18th century London became enchanted with the money-making plan a few years later and it wasn’t long before Pope Leo IX publicly expressed his approval. Five Brothers Finkelstein Five brothers came to the United states at the beginning of the 20th Century and opened pawnshops: Louis Finkelstein at Florence, SC Moe Finkelstein at Columbia, SC Chas. Finkelstein at Wilmington, SC Neal Finkelstein at Jacksonville, FL My father, Harry Finkelstein at Asheville, NC. II. The Dawn of the Twentieth Century in Asheville �In 1900, my father became ill and the doctor in Jacksonville told him the only place to go to get cured would be the mountains. He came up to Asheville, and Doctor Smith told him he would die of anything except what they sent him to Asheville for, so that he might as well go back to Jacksonville. He like Asheville so much he decided to stay here. In 1903, he opened a pawn shop at 23 South Main Street (now Biltmore Avenue). He married Fanny Sherman from Newport News, Virginia, and they made their home in an apartment on Ashland Avenue. In 1905, my father became a citizen of the United States. Among the organizations he joined were the Asheville Board of Trade (now The Asheville Chamber of Commerce), the Fraternal Order of Eagles, Suez Temple of the Oramatic Order of Khorosson, Lodge #1401 BPO, Elks, Mt. Herman Masonic Lodge, Scottish Rite Masonic Lodge, Oasis Temple of Shriners, Congregation Bikur Cholim (now Beth Isreal), and Congregation Betha-Ha-Tephila. So, in Asheville, North Carolina, the Twentieth Century began with: -The pawnbroker named Finkelstein. -S. H. Friedman, who operated a furniture store. He came to Asheville from Maryland, where he peddled tinware. His son, Nat Friedman, later operated the Susquehana Antique Co. -A Jewish lawyer by the name of Goldstein. -A Jewish plumber by the name of A.J. Huvard. He married E.C. Goldberg’s sister. E.C. Goldberg ran a news stand next to the Imperial Theater on Patton Avenue for years. -A Jewish dentist by the name of I. Mitchell Mann. -Harry Blomberg’s father who came to Asheville in 1887. He operated the Racket Store on Biltmore Avenue for many years. -The Palais Royal Department Store operated by Morris Meyers for 40 years. He was a charter member of Congregation Beth-Ha-Tephila and he came to Asheville in 1887. -The Bon Marche Department Store operated by Solomon Lipinsky. -A Jewish postman who delivered mail by the name of Barney Seigle. I was particularly interested in Barney because he had a sister by the name of Ester, who was in my class in high school — a beautiful and affectionate student. -An industrialist named Seigfred Sternberg. -Dan Michalove, who worked at the first movie houses in town and finally advanced to Vice-President of Paramount Pictures and was put in charge of all their theaters in Australia. -Lou Pollock, who operated a shoe store at the corner of South Main and Eagle Streets. He once ran a shoe sale for $.98 a pair. -Leo Cadison, who came here for his health, operated a ladies clothing store on Pack Square, finally moved to Washington, D.C., and became an attorney by act of Congress. He was a speech writer for the Attorrney General of the United States. -An orthodox Rabbi by the name of Londow. -Morris Myers served as Exalted Ruler of the Old Elks Lodge #608. �In 1883 Jews were arriving to become pioneers in the Asheville community. Some came to make a better livelihood and for opportunity. The moderate climate and mountain air attracted others to Asheville, a growing medical haven for the sufferers of chronic respiratory diseases. Congregation Beth-Ha-Tephila August 23, 1891, twenty-seven men met in Lyceum Hall and adopted a constitution for Congregation Beth-Ha-Tephila. Among the charter members were the Blomberg, Lipinsky, and Zagier families. It is noted that the dues were $10 a year, payable in advance. Lyceum Hall was the first home of the Congregation. It was rented from a fraternal order for $75 a year. Congregation Bikur Cholim Rabbi Londow became the rabbi for Congregation Bikur Cholim whose articles of incorporation were filed in the Court Clerk’s office in February 1899. The incorporators were J.B. Schwartzberg, A. Blomberg, Sam Feinstein, S.H. Michalove, A. Shenbaum, M. Zuglier, and R.B. Zagier. Since the community could not pay Rabbi Londow a decent wage, he operated a Jewish grocery store on the side. He was a kindly old gentleman with a big beard, wore his hat around the grocery store at all times except when a lady called him on the telephone. He would remove the hat during the conversation and put it back on his head after the phone call. I remember a big barrel of herring in the center of the store. Plain herring were 5 cents each and milk herring ten cents. A newly married lady in the Congregation once called Rabbi Londow and complained that a duck she bought from him was old and too tough to eat. Rabbi Londow asked what she expected him to do --- look down the duck’s mouth and count its teeth! The first religious services of Bikur Cholim I remember attending were on the second floor of a building at the corner of Patton Avenue and Church Street. It was early in the life of Bikur Cholim that the congregation split up due to a big argument. Half of the members formed another congregation and called it Anshei Hashuron. They rented a second floor of an apartment house at the corner of Central Avenue and Woodfin Street. However, through the efforts of the impartial moderates, a compromise was reached and a permanent division averted. Nevertheless, the apartment was kept for a religious school. It was here I received my first Hebrew lesson. Rabbi Fox was teaching us the four questions to ask at our Passover meal. At this time my father would attend all the board meetings of Bikur Cholim. He would come home upset and nervous. Dr. Smith suggested he not attend any more Synagogue meetings due to his high blood pressure. Rabbi Fox was active on the 9th and 10th degrees of Scottish Rite Masonry. After his death I assumed his parts in these degrees and I am still on the degree teams. �Orthodox rules and Hebrew School 75 to 100 years ago there were two synagogues in Asheville. My family belonged to the orthodox. The orthodox had strict rules for obeying the Sabbath which began Friday at sundown and ended Saturday night. The members of Bikur Cholim who owned an automobile would put them in the garage on Friday evening to observe the Sabbath and wouldn’t take them out until Saturday after sun down. Most of the members lived within walking distance of the Synagogue. To obey the Sabbath correctly you were not allowed to operate a business, spend money, smoke, strike a match, work, cook and many other activities were forbidden. Remember this was about 100 years ago. You weren’t supposed to tear paper. Now if you had a bathroom with paper on a roll, you tore the paper off for Friday in case it may be needed for the Sabbath. The same rule applies to outhouses with old Sears Roebuck catalogues. As far as I know none of these rules are observed today. In 1911, erection of a house of worship was started on South Liberty Street for Congregation Bikur Cholin. Although it wasn’t completed until 1916, the Hebrew School moved there in 1912. When I was 11 years old I attended Hebrew school conducted by the rabbi on Saturday morning in the edifice of the synagogue. The sanctuary contained nothing but pews and a coal stove for heat. The basement was used for storage and rest rooms. In the winter time the rabbi fixed the stove for a fire Friday so that it could be lit Saturday morning to produce heat for the Hebrew class. Since the rabbi shouldn’t light a fire or spend money on the Sabbath, he arranged for a boy in the neighborhood to light the fire Saturday morning. He placed a dime under a prayer book Friday and told the boy where to get a dime after lighting the fire on Saturday. Even in those days educational institutions had trouble with rebelling students. One real cold morning the boy didn’t show up to light the fire. We were attending Hebrew class in sweaters, coats and overcoats and it was awful cold. I asked to be excused and coming up from the basement I reported to Rabbi Redunsky that the plumbing must have frozen as there was water leaking in several places. The Rabbi went to see about it. I advised the class that there were no broken pipes and suggested that we leave the building --- which we did --- not to return until warm weather. For your information, there was no water leaking. While my sisters Rosa and Hilda and I were still children and our parents were out of town for health reasons, Doctor Schandler’s father Dave Schandler, would invite us over to his house for meals, especially on Passover and other religious holy days. About this time when our house at 213 Broadway was being built, I was sliding down a �sloping board and got a big splinter in my rear end. My father couldn’t get it out so he took me to Dr. Mann, the dentist, and he got it out --- no charge. The building of the Synagogue was completed in 1916 and the day before the eve of Rosh-Hashonah a fire completely destroyed the building. Mrs. Rosenfeld had a Jewish Boarding House next door and she cried and complained that she had just cleaned her house for Yontiff and smoke had dirtied the place up. The Masonic Temple was offered to us to use for the High Holy Day Services and we accepted. After the fire that destroyed Bikur Cholim Synagogue on South Liberty Street the second floor of the Sondley Building on Broadway was rented for the use of the congregation. A member of the congregation, a young man, forgot he had made a date with a waitress in the Langren Hotel and attended the meeting of the congregation. The lady waited in front of the Masonic Temple with a gun and took a shot at him after the meeting when he was leaving the building. She missed. After going to Hebrew School in the building we would stop and examine the hole the bullet made in the front wall of the building. The Cemetery In those days Asheville was a place that offered a cure for tuberculosis. Many sanatoriums were located in the hills around town. A Jewish man died in one of the sanatoriums and had no money or family. No cemetery in town would bury him unless someone paid $100 for the grave. It was then that nine Jewish men formed the “West Asheville Hebrew Cemetery Association Inc.” My father was the first president. In their bylaws it was stated that anyone of Jewish faith could be buried there. The price of a grave was $100 and if there was no one to pay it there would be no charge. The cemetery changed it’s name some years later to “Mt. Sinai Cemetery” and sometime after to “The Lou Pollock Memorial Park.” After father died, Lou Pollock became president. After his death, I was the vice-president and assumed the duties of the president. I conferred with David Adler and set up a meeting between the directors of the cemetery and members of Beth Israel. The ownership of the cemetery was transferred to Beth Israel. The following names of the nine founders can be seen on a plaque at the entrance to the cemetery bearing the date 1916: Sam Feinstein, Isaac Michalove, Lou Pollock, S.W. Silverman, Sender Argentar, Rabbi Elias Fox, Dave Schundler, Barney Pearlman, Harry Finkelstein. Benevolent Societies Around this time my father felt that some homemade chicken soup would help the Jewish patients in the sanatoriums. A number of Jewish women set up a kitchen and once a week hot chicken soup was made available to the Jewish patients and to others who requested it. Rabbi Fox acquired business interests in Asheville and served as part-time Rabbi. He was associated with a local butcher who made kosher meat available. He would go by the homes of members and kill the chickens. In 1917, some of us young Jewish boys decided that we ought to have a YMHA or a Community Center in Asheville. Rabbi Fox met with us and suggested that we form a YMHA. �He said a community center was for the community only, but a bigger and better organization would be a YMHA because it extended from coast to coast. He told us a story about when he first came to this country and wanted to see the Brooklyn Bridge. He found a man who could talk Yiddish and after looking at the bridge he asked why they built the bridge with a lot of little cables instead of one big cable. The man explained to him that if one or two cables broke it would not harm the bridge, but if there was one big cable and it broke the bridge would fall in. Rabbi Fox said that therefore us boys should be little cables and hold up the YMHA we were going to form. Mr. Sternberg and Mr. Leavitt Seventy-five years ago there was no United Way in Asheville. There were many local charitable organizations sponsored by churches, synagogues, houses of worship, also the YMCA, the Salvation Army, the Elks Lodge and the Jewish Ladies Aid Society. Lion Joe Sternberg’s father was active in civic, religious, fraternal organizations in Asheville. At that time he was collecting donations for the “Ladies Aid Society” of Asheville. He went to see Mr. Leavitt who operated a ladies ready to wear store on South Main St. near Pack Square. He wouldn’t donate more than $5 and this didn’t please Mr. Sternberg. Mr. Sternberg was the owner of the building in which Mr. Leavitt operated his store. He found Mr. Leavitt violated the terms of his lease because he sublet a portion of the store for a shoe department. Mr. Sternberg told Mr. Leavitt that he would have to give the Ladies Aid Society a suitable donation or vacate the building because he had violated the terms of the lease. They selected three men to determine what amount Mr. Leavitt should give the Ladies Aid Society. It was agreed that the amount they decided would be satisfactory to Mr. Sternberg and Mr. Leavitt. Mr. Sternberg selected a man to represent himself. Also Mr. Leavitt picked out the second man. They needed a man to represent both of them and finally selected my father. The committee decided that Mr. Leavitt should donate $500 to the Ladies Aid Society. ------ In 1936, the movements in founding a Jewish Community Center and to organize Federated Jewish Charities in Asheville was started by Julius Levitch through B’nai B’rith. In 1947 a testimonial dinner was held for his outstanding service to the Jewish Community. ----- On July 25, 1923, the Emporium Department Store owned by Jack Blomberg at the corner of Pack Square and South Main Street was destroyed by a major fire. It was feared that the entire block of Eagle Street would be destroyed. Many of the Jewish merchants who operated clothing stores in the block brought their insurance polices and books to the pawnshop across the street and requested that we put them in our safes which were two of the largest moveable safes in town. These two safes are now located at 21 Broadway. My father and the Sheriff’s Department In the early days of the century, my father would give each member of the Buncombe County Sheriff’s department cuff links for a Christmas present. In appreciation, the Sheriff would always send my father a gallon of corn whiskey. We �always thanked the Sheriff for his gift even though none of my family drank corn whiskey. Flanders 20 About 75 years ago the Studebaker Corporation made two automobiles - the Flanders 20, 20 horsepower and the Emf. 30, 30 horsepower. My family owned a Flanders 20. To start the engine you used a hand crank in front of the auto. You lowered the spark control lever because if you didn’t, you might get a kickback on the crank and get your arm broken. If you had a flat tire, you had to raise the wheel with a hand jack, take the tire off and fix the inner tube with patches that you always carried with you. You had a hand pump to inflate the tire again. Some owners of the Flanders 20 bragged that sometimes they could drive up the hill on South Main Street (now Biltmore Ave.) from Depot St. to Pack Square in high gear and they didn’t have to shift to a second gear. There was a dirt road to Hendersonville. Some of it was red clay that would become slick when it rained. One small section of the road became very slick due to its location. There was a man there with a mule. For a small fee he would hitch the mule to the front of the auto and pull you out of the bad place with the help of the engine of the car. We were invited to a wedding in Hendersonville by Mr. Lewis whose sister, Rose, was getting married to a young attorney named Joe Patece. He practiced law in Asheville for many years. We took our Flanders 20 to the wedding with a couple of our friends. We had no trouble as it didn’t rain. Coming back to Asheville we got a flat tire near Skyland and stopped to fix it. We noticed a lot of berries growing near the road and we all began to eat them. A farmer saw us and accused us of stealing his berries. He took out a warrant for my father. The trial was to be heard by a Justice of Peace in Skyland. My father employed a young lawyer by the name of Bob Reynolds. Bob Reynolds in later years became a U.S. Senator. The Justice of Peace office was too small to hold the crowd that came to the trial so it was held under a large oak tree outdoors. I heard that Bob gave a great speech to the crowd and the Justice of the Peace ordered my father just to pay the farmer a small amount for the berries. The moral of this event is: Don’t eat wild berries beside an old road. You are liable to have more troubles than a stomach ache. Beginning to work When I was eight years old, I started selling newspapers. I wasn’t doing very good so my father gave me job in the pawnshop at 50 cents per week. I had to save 25 cents of it. I was to work when there was no school activity or important events pertaining to my education. I was given Saturday afternoon off to go fishing and Saturday morning to see a serial movie at the �Galaxy movie house on pack square. Many people left their musical instruments as collateral for loans I tried out my musical ability on a guitar, a ukulele, a violin and a saxophone. I took violin lessons from Mr. Popatards, piano lessons from Mrs. Cliphant. My mother insisted that I practice on the piano one hour a day. School In 1911, I started school at Montford Avenue Grammar School. In 1922, I went to UNC-Chapel Hill for 2 days, and had to come home to run the pawnshop. In the February 1922 graduating class in Asheville High School, there were 5 boys and 14 girls. Therefore, each boy was expected to take 3 girls to the Senior Class Dance of February 1922. Things were better when we had a dance for the entire school. There were three Jewish girls in the total 1922 class — Madeline Blomberg, Eva Sternberg, and Ester Seigle. I was the only student to take an automobile to school in 1922. It was a Paige make with a “bathtub back” model. I was the business manager of the “Hillbilly,” the school monthly magazine. I was given any study hall period off that I wanted to collect for ads that appeared in the magazine, so I would take my auto and a girl to help me from the study hall. After collecting for one ad we would ride over to the Charlotte Street Drug Store and participate in ice cream sodas for the balance of the study hall period. Asheville Dixie Jazz Band In 1921, Jr and a violin player from Lewis Funeral Home, Frank McCormiak, formed the first musical outfit Asheville High School ever had. Below is a poem from an issue of the 1921 school paper, “The Hillbilly.” The Dixie Jazz Band Boys and girls, have you heard the news, A new way to get lively without any booze, Just come around and give us your hand, We’re the members of the “Dixie Jazz Band.” We play and play and never get weary, We’ll jazz you up and make you cherry, We’ll make you dance and never set still You’ll have to shimmy, against your will The drummer is a drummer by trade, The fiddler is a musician, self-made, The flute is the best you’ve ever heard, The mandolin sounds like a mocking bird. Leo Finkelstein �Pisgah 1922 In reporting from my historical records on Lion Joe Sternberg, president of our club in 1960-61, I’ve talked about his father, old man Sternberg and Joe’s sister, Eva. I reported that Lion Joe and I were seniors in the 1922 class of Asheville High School. Now, Lion Joe’s mother, Mrs. Sternberg, phoned me and advised me that she was entertaining Joe and three other members of the 1922 class with a trip to the top of Mt. Pisgah. Eva graduated in 1921 but wanted to go with them. Her mother asked if I would like to go and look after Eva if she went, and I told her that I would be delighted. They all picked me up the next morning and Mrs. Sternberg drove us to the home of Mr. & Mrs. Rufus O’Kelly who lived at the base of Mt. Pisgah in her 7 passenger Mormon automobile. We had lunch of possum and sweet potatoes. There was one dirt road (one way) to the top of Mt. Pisgah, 5 miles long. An auto had to go up in the morning at daylight and was allowed to come down after 1 PM until dark. We hiked to a cleared section. Mr. O’Kelly chaperoned the trip and built us a large bonfire and was fixing something to eat. Eva was unpacking some things and I noticed a large bottle of Bromo-Seltzer. I asked if she expected someone to have a headache. She said, “No, I opened a pint bottle of father’s bottled whiskey, took half of it and filled the Bromo-Seltzer bottle. Now you and I can have a drink before we eat.” “That’s a good idea,” I said, “but what is your father going to say when he finds out?” She said, “no problem. I filled the empty half of the whiskey bottle with water.” At nighttime she and I sat around the fire drinking a few drinks of Bromo-Seltzer. ----- On Sundays in 1925, the Jewish crowd of teenagers and somewhat older boys and girls would gather at the home of the Sternbergs on Victoria Road. The Sternbergs had four children: Eva, Joe, Johanna, and Rose. One of the older girls in the crowd was named Jennie. One day I asked her how she managed to be so popular among the boys, and her answer was, “Well, I’m not so pretty, but I’m catchie”. ----- I dated Eva and one night I called at the house to take her out and her father yelled to us from the second floor of the house “Don’t you go to no road houses,” and Eva replied “What’s the matter papa --- you afraid we are going to find you there!” William Jennings Bryan On July 7, 1896, William Jennings Bryan delivered the “Cross of Gold” speech and won the Democratic party nomination for Vice President of the United States. In 1900 he was nominated again for Vice President. In 1908 he was nominated for President of the United States. Later in life he moved to Asheville and his home was at the corner of Evelyn place and Kimberly Avenue--just a few houses away from where Lion Jack Cole now lives. �Mr. Bryan asked by father to order him a special made double barrel Parker shot gun with 28" barrels modified and choke bores, and a 23/4 inch drop. After receiving the gun he wrote my father a letter of thanks. I had this letter in my historical files and it disappeared. Now I don’t know whether to blame it on the Democrats or Republicans. The Emporium Fire of 1923 On July 25, 1923, the Emporium Department store owned by Jack Blomberg at the corner of Pack Square and South Main Street was destroyed by a major fire. It was feared that the entire block of South Main Street (Biltmore Avenue) would be destroyed Many of the merchants who operated clothing stores in the block brought their insurance policies and books to Finkelstein ‘s pawnshop across the street and requested that we put them in our safes which were two of the largest moveable safes in town. The two safes are now located at 21 Broadway. Sewing Machine Mystery A sewing machine was brought in for a loan. The next day some ladies from a church walked in from a church society identified the machine and claimed it had been stolen from the church. The pawn ticket was hunted. “What’s the name on the record?” one of the women inquired. It was read off. “What!” Shrieked the group in unison. “That’s the name of our pastor!” And, the mystery was cleared up. The fact that someone else had pawned the machine giving the reverend’s name. III. Asheville in the 1930's Lions Club I remember when I became a member of the Asheville Lions Club in 1930. The club had 16 members and I was the 17th. Our meetings were held at the S.W. Cafeteria on Patton Ave. In a meeting room on the second floor. A good meal could be had at a cost of less than one dollar. I remember when the club’s membership reached 100 held a stag party at the ski club on top of Beaucatcher Mountain. Out of 100 members we had 97 attend. Three were absent on account of being out of town The club was operated by Boyd and Albertine Maxwell and their daughter was the hostess Albertine was a professional dancer and she did a ‘snake dance’ to entertain the party. Lion Dan Furr fixed us a special drink consisting of a assortment of fluids that we called “Scrape the bottom.” We had a big spaghetti dinner. The cast of the evening was $1.50 per member. The young lady who was hostess, in appreciation of me bringing the Lions Club there for a party, taught me to dance the “Charleston,” a new dance that had just started. I remember when I drove my new automobile to the Stag Party with Lion John Thayer. The automobile was an Terraplane Sedan that Lion Johnnie Groome sold me. It had an electric �gear shift controlled by buttons on the steering wheel. It also had a stick shift in front of the center of the front seat that could be used when the electric shift failed to work. Going down Beaucater Mountain in the Terraplain, Lion John Thayer who had drank a substantial amount of Scrape the bottom,” acted funny, yanked the gear shift stick loose and threw it out of the car into the woods of Beaucatcher mountain. The next day Lion John and I searched the woods, found the stick shift and replaced it. I remember when the club held a “womanless wedding” at a Ladies Night Banquet March 14, 1939 and Lion Dan Furr was the flower girl. I remember when in 1939 the club presented a pair of lions to the city zoo and a few weeks later a baby lion was born. It was named “Leo.” I remember when an alarm clock was placed at the speaker’s table at the club meetings set to alarm at 2 o’clock with a sign: OUR MEETING CLOSES A 2 O’CLOCK AND WE DO NOT APPRECIATE DIRTY JOKES. I remember when Jack Cole was president of the Asheville Lions Club. We held a ladies night banquet at the Battery Park Hotel. Lion Jack invited a U.S. Congressman, Lion Roy Taylor, to make a talk for the gathering. It took Lion Jack 20 minutes to introduce Congressman Taylor. Roy Taylor in response said that there must be a mistake. “It looks like Lion Jack Cole was to give the address and I should have introduced him.” I remember when City Manager Burdette announced to City Council that the police department’s new traffic bureau will begin operating and that ordinances will be strictly enforced. Mr. Burdette left no doubt in the minds of a Lion’s Club committee who called to complain about the parking problem. I remember when Lion Joe Dave announced that the club delivered five pigs to the Candler Pig Club in connection with the Chamber of Commerce’s plan for improvement of water in North Carolina’s livestock through cooperation of civic clubs. I remember when in 1938 at a Lions Club golf Tournament I promised to give a prize for the winner of the first flight. I wrote a check for $1,000 and since I won the first flight, I presented the check to myself. I remember when Lion Roy Phillips, advertising director of the Asheville Citizen-Times talked to me as President of the Lion’s Club and wanted the Club to sponsor a Turtle Race and buy a page ad in the newspaper. I told him to present it to the board of directors that I wouldn’t take the responsibility of investing in a turtle race. He told me I couldn’t be a good president of the club and let grass grow under my feet. I told him that he wasn’t talking to one of his advertising salesman that he was talking to me as President of the club and if he wanted a turtle race to present it to the board of directors at their regular meeting. There was no turtle race. I remember when I was dating a nice young lady in Asheville by the name of Pearl. Pearl was hostess in a restaurant I used to eat at. The Lions Club was giving a Ladies Night �dinner and Governor Hoey was to be our speaker. I was told that I couldn’t bring Pearl. Governor Hoey’s daughter was coming to the dinner and I’d have to set with her at the speaker’s table. It was an uneventful monotonous dinner and when it was over I told the governor’s daughter good night and I went to see Pearl. I remember when a member missed over two meetings Lion Charles Berryman who operated a funeral home would send his ambulance to bring the member to the meeting. I remember when a member missed over three meetings without an excuse. Lion Judge Sam Cathey would send a police car to present the member with the following summons: [City of Asheville etc etc] I remember when I had a phone call from my golf caddie named “Cris” on a Saturday and advised me that Lion Judge Cathey had given him 30 days in jail for fighting and that he wouldn’t be able to caddie for me Sunday. That was a disaster for without “Cris” I just couldn’t play a good game of golf. I called Lion Judge Cathey and advised him of the situation and he told me he would reduce Cris’s sentence from 30 days to one day and for me to go down to the jail and get him. I remember when I was invited to Lioness Hudson’s house for Thanksgiving dinner. She called me the day before and said that Lion Judge Cathey had put her cook in jail and she had no one to cook the dinner. I called Lion Judge Cathey again and told him about it. He arranged for Lion Hudson’s cook to cook over Thanksgiving dinner. I remember when Lion Judge Cathey was named the National Handicap Man of the Year and several of us Lions went to Washington with him receive the award from President Eisenhower. I remember when mimic political campaign speeches by members of the Lions Club were featured at the S.W. Cafeteria during their meeting. In the comic program, four members representing four political parties made “pleas” for support of their candidates for president. Lion Schorr urged the club to vote for Herbert Hoover, Lion Roy Phillips upheld Franklin D. Roosevelt, Lion Nat Friedman asked that William D. Upshaw be given the club’s support and I talked at length on Norman Thomas, socialist candidate. I remember when Lion Dan Stewart, Lion Charlie Miller and I went to Havana, Cuba for an International Convention. We drove to Miami and took the boat to Havana. After the convention - trying to get back to Miami we found it was going to be three days before we could get passage on the boat. I didn’t want to wait three days in Havana so I phoned my girl friend Reggie who was secretary to the Mayor of Miami Beach. She told me she would take care of the situation and for me to go down to the boat office and they would give me passage on the next boat to Miami. She told the boat office they needed me as a witness in a court case, so I spent the night in a big chair in the lounge of the boat that night going to Miami. Reggie and I met Lion Stewart and Lion Ch. Miller in a couple of days and took them fishing. �I remember when on July 10, 1940 the Lions club held a meeting which was described by Lion C.E. Hudson as “in truth the most gratifying gathering of all times in Asheville, of its kind.” It was described by the Asheville Citizen as the largest and most representative civic organization gathering in Asheville in recent years. It was an inter-club banquet and first annual award of the Asheville Lions Club to the most useful civic club member in the city of Asheville, 1939-1940. The idea of this banquet was presented to the Civic Club Union by Lion Jim Divelbiss and myself. They assisted the Lions Club and picked Robert Lee Ellis of the Coca-Cola bottling Company as Asheville’s most useful civic club member in the 1939-40 year. He received a bronze plaque from the Lions Club which he said he would cherish as long as he lived. More than 300 persons representing every civic organization in the city attended the banquet at the Battery Park Hotel. I got Gov. Sholtz of Flirda to make the principal address . Prohibition’s Waning Days It was in 1933, after Franklin Roosevelt was elected president of the United States, that the Volstead Act was repealed and it became legal to sell beer with an alcoholic content on October 1st. I was president of a mens social club, and it became my duty to get beer to serve to the members. This was a difficult job as none was available from distributors around Asheville. 1933 was the year of the Great Depression and Rabbi Goodkowitz bought a second hand truck from Harry Blomberg and was doing some hauling on the side to supplement his income from Bikur - Cholim. Rabbi Goodkowitz said he would go to Baltimore and get us a load of beer as he personally knew the owner of the Valley Forge Beer Company there. I gave him six hundred dollars of the club’s money and he left on a Monday to be back on Thursday. He didn’t show up, but came in the following Monday. The delay was due to the truck breaking down on the trip. Of course I was somewhat concerned but the club had a truck load of Valley Forge Beer available. Leo Cadison saw me and advised that he had talked to the United States Senator Robert R. Reynolds, and the members were starting a campaign to sell the beer before October lst. Captain Fred Jones of the Asheville Police Department and a member of the house committee said he would not recommend selling it before the legal date. At the club that week, I noted about 150 members were present instead of the usual 40. Under “good and welfare” Senator Reynolds, a great orator, spoke in favor of selling the beer and said that we were all brothers in a non-profit and charitable organization, and it would be legal to sell it. Others who spoke in favor of selling the beer were Judge Philip Cocke, State Senator; A. Hall Johnson, Superior Court Judge; Dan Hill, Postmaster; Marcus Erwin, U.S.Attorney; Zeb Mettles, Superior Court Judge; Charles McRae, local attorney; and Leo Cadison. Leo Cadison made a motion that we advise the House Manager to put the beer on ice so that we could drink it after the meting. I advised Mr. Cadison that I could not accept a motion �of an illegal nature but under Robert’s Rules of Parliamentary procedure he could appeal my decision. He appealed and I advised that the question to be voted on would be “Shall the decision of the chair stand” and there would be no discussion. The vote was unanimous against my decision (which suited me) and I instructed the secretary to take everything out of the minutes pertaining to beer, also to advise the house manager to put the beer on ice so we could have it after the meeting. He said that it was too late to advise him because the beer had been on ice for the past two hours. How to Finance a Pawnshop in a Depression It was the Depression of the 1930's. Our loans averaged $10 and we made them as low as 50 cents. The demand was great on loans on diamonds and jewelry. The top loan on a ½ carat diamond was $50 and $200 on a good grade carat. I was running out of money. I saw Perry at the Morris Plan Bank and we agreed to rent a lock box at the Wachovia Bank. Both of us would have a key to it. I would hypothecate the large size diamond and jewelry loans. The ways that worked is I would make the loan, get the cash from Perry on a 90 day note, and put the jewelry in the lock box as security. If the customer came to redeem his jewelry I advised him that jewelry was at the vault at the Wachovia for safekeeping and I would get it for him. This was working very well as the bank was making the legal rate of 6% on 90 day notes which were paid in 30 to 40 days with no refund for unearned interest. I was doing OK also. I charged interest at legal rates plus other expenses incident to the negotiations of the transactions. Then Mr. Wolcott comes to town. He took over the Morris Plan Bank and organized the Bank of Asheville. Perry, the new cashier at the Bank of Asheville, came to see me and said, “Mr. Wolcott advised that the bank wasn’t a pawnshop and to tell Finkelstein to pay off those 90 day notes.” It looked like I was going to have to stop making large jewelry loans and try to meet the 90 day note. But a miracle happened. A girlfriend of mine in the 1922 class of Asheville High School married a man from Milwaukee, Wisconsin, who later committed suicide. She came back to Asheville to live. She saw me and wanted to know if I could help her out. She said she was left a sizeable amount of life insurance and did I know of a safe place where she could invest some of it and get a decent return. I helped her out. Police Chief Beavers On the program of the Asheville Lions Club on July 8, 1992, Chief of Police Beavers talked about prostitution in Asheville and how the APD was trying to cut the activity down. I believe there may be a better way to cut the activity down. In the year 1900 Asheville had a population of 14,694. My historical records indicate at that time the red light district was known as the Eagle Terrace and was operated by a lady known �as “Queen Elizabeth.” There were no problems. The Banov family in Charleston, SC, are part of my kin folks. Doctor Banov was a health physician for Charleston County, SC for 35 years. That was the longest any county health physician stayed in office. In talking to him I found out that the red light district in Charleston, SC, was a large house known as the “Red Brick” on Bensford St. The prostitutes had to have a health certificate from a local doctor renewed every 90 days, frame it, and hang it on the wall by her bed. They had Police Protection. In 1933 I was president of a fraternal order in Asheville. I had a good friend, Lt. Frank Hagan of the local police dept. who was also a member. We decided to drive down to Charleston, SC, for a convention. While in Charleston he said that he would like to go to the “Red Brick” on Bensford Street and get information for the Asheville Police Dept. on how they operated. I asked him how he expected to get in the place. He said “Don’t worry, I’ll get us admitted.” We went down to the “Red Brick” and Frank knocked on the front door. A lady opened a peephole in the door to look at us and Frank said “Back again.” We were then admitted to a large living room with red curtains. We picked out two of the girls in the living room and invited them to have a seat with us and have a drink. The only drink available was a coca-cola and the cost was 25 cents per drink. We asked them if their services would be available to members of a convention and they said that they were. The cost of a short stay would be $3 and for $5 a client could spend the night. I gave the girls $3 each and advised them that all we wanted to do was talk and get information for the convention - they were completely satisfied. Now why don’t we get Chief Beavers to get someone like “Queen Elizabeth” to rent a place like a small hotel, or a large home with red curtains, or a place suitable for a whorehouse like the “Red Brick” in Charleston, SC. Serve soft drinks and ice cream at reasonable prices and furnish police protection. He might even get Lion Penland and me to open a pawnshop next door so that if a man didn’t have enough money to finance his trip to the place, he could pawn his watch or his gun. Don’t think all this would be legal, but its a thought anyway. Streetwalking A young lady friend of my family would pawn a diamond pen for $50.00. She was always months past due on the redemption of it. I felt sorry for her and I didn’t let her pay any interest or charges on any loan after her first loan. After pawning it several times, she came in for a loan on the pen. She asked for one hundred dollars. I told her that a hundred dollars was more than we could loan on it, that I would loan her $50.00 again. She said that she needed a hundred dollars and what was I trying to do, make a “street walker” out of her! �The Preacher and the Bible I helped a preacher financially conduct his Sunday’s services. Back in the depression days of the 1930s there was a preacher who pawned his Bible every Monday morning after Sunday’s services and redeemed it on the following Friday or Saturday for the next service on Sunday. I made the original loan of $10 and advised the preacher that he could get it out at a charge of $1 anytime in 30 days or if needed he could wait three months at no additional charge. In checking the records I found that he had pawned the Bible weekly on many occasions. On the next Friday morning when he came after his Bible I told him he didn’t owe anything on it that he had paid more carrying charges that the original loan. I told him to put that $10 bill he had next to the Ten Commandments in the Bible and the next time he needed $10 to take it out and put it back in the Bible after Sunday’s service. Just don’t bring the Bible back here for a loan. He didn’t. John I had a black man working for me by the name of “John”. There were street cars available to ride from his home to work. I was a law in Asheville that blacks had to ride in the back seats of the street car and the whites rode in the front seats. One day “John”n was riding in a front seat and wouldn’t move to the back of the bus. He was arrested by the Asheville Police Department. I sent my lawyer, Mr. Fortune, to the police court with him and he was fined the costs of the case. A man redeemed a large size radio he pawned. After taking it home he advised us that three of the tubes were missing. “John” kept the storage room where radio pledges were stored. I sent a police detective to John’s home advising him of the situation. He checked the numbers on John’s radio tubes and told “John” that the numbers on his radio tubes were the same as the numbers that were on the missing tubes of our customer’s radio. John admitted stealing the tubes. We supplied new tubes for our customer’s radio. “John was fired from his job at the pawnshop. I understood that he kept his usual custom of delivering sermons at his church on Sundays. I wanted to replace “John” so an employment agency sent me a young man named “George”. I put George in the storage area for guns that were left as collateral on loans. He stole a pistol and after an investigation, he returned it and I fired him. Overcoats During the depression of 1933 the pawnshop had 800 overcoats left at the beginning of the summer. The loans were from $3 to $7 each, and 80% of the loans were past due. There was a problem of moths. We put mothballs in the pockets of all overcoats and sprayed them with DDT. After the overcoats became more than 3 months past due we had them dry cleaned. We made a contract with the cleaners to pick up and return lots of twenty at 50 cents each. The owner of the cleaning company came in the shop and said that he wanted to buy an overcoat for his chauffeur. He tried on one and liked it so much that he said he would keep it for himself and give his to his chauffeur. �It was during 1933 that we had only male clerks working in the pawnshop. There were days when my father and I were both absent from the pawnshop due to health and other reasons. When the overcoat pledges were past due and ready for the cleaners they were hung in a room on the second floor of the pawnshop. Sometimes I would notice a couple of overcoats on the floor of the pawnshop. The electric lights went out on the second floor where the overcoats were. An electrician was called to correct the trouble. It was found that the clerks would invite street walkers to come up to the room at times when my father and I were absent. The electrician found a hole in the floor where the wires were broken. In fixing the broken wires, he pulled about 50 dirty handkerchiefs and other items that caused the trouble. Murders in Pawnshops and Helping Sheriff L. Brown You have probably read in the Citizen-Times about Mark Lane who was killed in a shooting during an armed robbery. His father, Ronald Lane, and he were co-owners of the Leicester Pawn Shop. In a former historical report I talked about Reggie, secretary to the Mayor of Miami Beach, who helped our delegation get faster transportation back to Florida from the International Lions Convention in Havana, Cuba. Lion C.A. Miller was on that trip. Later Reggie’s brother was killed in a holdup in his pawnshop on Flager Street in Miami. A lot of people classify a pawnbroker as a shylock. Those pawnbrokers I have known are kind people and are a asset to any community they operate in. Of course you can exclude me. In November 1934 Sheriff Lawrence Brown of Buncombe County came to see me and said that he needed help. Beacon Manufacturing Company at Swannanoa was having labor trouble and a group from South Carolina was coming up to prevent the employees from going to work. He wanted to rent twenty 12 gauge shotguns to be used by special deputies to guard the entrance to the plant. I rented him twenty 12 gauge Harrington, Richardson shotguns for $1 each. He was successful in guarding the plant and they never fired a shot. The sheriff phoned me and said that he wanted to bestow upon me the honor of being a deputy sheriff and to come over and bring a photo for an identification card. I told him I didn’t know anything about enforcing the law. He said that was okay, to come over and he would swear me in and take out insurance on me. I asked him if it was life insurance. He said, “No, it was liability insurance and if I did anything wrong as a deputy sheriff that they would furnish me legal assistance in court.” I was sworn in November 15, 1934. I got a phone call the next morning from Mr. Seely, Manager of the Grove Park Inn. He said that he needed a gun for his watchman, a 38 Saturday Night Special with a 4" barrel. Sheriff Brown told him I could supply what he wanted. I told him I had it in stock and he asked me to bring it out to the Inn. I got in my dilapidated Ford touring car, drove to the front entrance �of the Inn and started to go in, when the Bell Captain stopped me. He asked “What are you doing here?” I replied “I have a gun for your watchman and Mr. Seely asked me to bring it out to him.” “Well,” he said, “you take that gun to the back door. They have a barrel of money back there and they will pay you for it.” This was during the depression of the 30's and I had quoted Mr. Seely top price, and I was going to do anything legal to complete the sale so I went to the back door. Now I am happy to announce that at the present time I am allowed to go in the front entrance to the Inn. Guns and a Grandfather Clock A friend of mine had a valuable antique clock about 6 feet tall. He said that he was leaving home for a month and there was a lot of larceny going on. He would like to leave it with me for safekeeping. I told him to put it in the storage area on the second floor of the shop. A couple of days later a customer comes in and wants to buy a shotgun. It was summer time and since hunting season didn’t open until fall I wondered why he wanted a shotgun. My salesman said all the shotguns and shells were stored on the second floor and he would take the customer up there. A little later I heard a big loud bang from the second floor. The salesman came running down and said that the customer had committed suicide with a shotgun. I called the Police Department and Dr. Baer, the coroner. Will Hampton, solicitor of police court and the chief came over. I went to the second floor with them and we found the customer passed out on the floor. I didn’t see any blood and upon examination we found part of his clothing blown away under one arm and he wasn’t injured. It’s almost impossible to reach the trigger of a 31" barrel shotgun when you have the muzzle at your chest. Evidently the customer must have tried to reach the trigger and the muzzle slipped under his arm when the gun fired. I remembered the grandfather clock and found that the discharge from the gun blew some of the plaster out of the wall about a foot from the clock. The clock was okay. Dr. Baer asked for a pen. He said that he wanted to find out if the man really passed out. He jabbed him several times with a pen and the man didn’t move. He really passed out. The chief said that the man had violated a law and he would take charge of him. The lesson from this event is: Don’t try to commit suicide - if you do you are liable to get arrested. A secretary’s thoughts My name was Margaret Owen in 1936, when I was Leo Finkelstein’s secretary. It was �the first job I ever had and he really taught me how to be office help. It was an exciting time to work on Pack Square, which was the hub of Asheville’s business world at that time. I remember that Mr. Finkelstein would lend me out to do typing for some of the Jewish organizations he was participating with at that time. I worked for Lou Pollock when he was head of the Jewish Cemetery, and Mr. Gustav Lichtenfeld and Sigred Sternberg when they were working on getting Jewish people out of Germany. I wrote some of the letters which were instrumental in bringing some of the early German Jews to Asheville, who then went on to become very valuable citizens of Asheville, I know of Herbert Schiftan and his family, and Alfred and Irmgard Lichtenfels. There were probably others that Mr. Finkelstein was responsible for that he remembers, but I have forgotten. I was in the store when the internees of Germany and Japan who were billeted at Grove Park Inn came in, and Tom Wolfe came in to visit his friend, Bob Bunn. I was standing out front one day when General George Marshall walked by on is way to the City Hall which was the Air Force Headquarters as that time during World War II. We all were out front one day when President Franklin D. Roosevelt visited Asheville to dedicate the Great Smoky National Park. Mr. Finkelstein was more than a friend to many of the ethnic community of that time. I believe that he was the contact for visiting rabbis, Jewish transient people who needed help and communicated with them in Hebrew. All the employees learned to understand and communicate (somewhat) by talking to each other in Yiddish. Mr. Finkelstein played at least ten or twelve instruments, demonstrating in order to make a sale or loan. The Silver Shirts In the 1930's William Dudley Pelly operated the “Silver Shirts,” a Nazi like organization in a building across the street from the Jewish Community Center on Charlotte Street. He published the “Liberation Weekly,” anti-Semitic literature with a circulation of eight thousand. In a parade, I was playing the saxophone with the Asheville Shrine Club Marching Band, and William Rosenfelt was carrying the American Flag. Pelly in his “Liberation Weekly” published a story that we were disgraced by a Jew with a big nose carrying the American Flag. Pelly was arrested by the Buncombe County Sheriff’s Department in 1941 for selling unregistered stock. He was found guilty through the efforts of Julius Levitch, a young Jewish lawyer by the name of Alvin Kurtus, and a local attorney named R.R. Williams. Unnamed William Rothenberg was a patient at the V.A. Hospital in Oteen. He moved to Asheville to live, married Freda Gross. I gave him a job as salesman in the pawnshop. He would go back to Oteen for treatments but was asked to stop. He got to drinking and was separated from his wife. A railroad watch from our display board was missing. A Taxi driver told me that William Rothenberg went the watch to the other pawnshop in town by him and he pawned it there for $20.00. I checked the serial numbers on the watch and they were the same as the ones on our watch. I asked Rothenberg about it and he said that he won it in a poker game the night before �at the Langren Hotel. I checked with Fred Bradley, the night manager of the hotel and he advised me that there was no poker game in the hotel that night. Rothenberg got the drinking and Judge Cathey put him in jail with a sentence of 30 days. Judge Cathey released him from jail after I promised to send him to Miami, FL where his ex-wife was living. I bought him a bus ticket and told him not to return to Asheville. He did not return. IV. I Am A Dime I was born in the early part of the twentieth century at the United States Mint in Philadelphia, put in a roll with forty-nine other dimes and shipped to the Southern State Bank on Depot Street in Asheville, North Carolina, of which Mr. S. Sternberg was president. Mr. Sternberg had a son, Joseph, who later became president of the Asheville Lions Club. Mr. Sternberg took me and the forty-nine other dimes to his beautiful estate on Victoria Road in order to participate in a ten cent limit poker game with some of his friends. Someone tipped off the police that a game was going on. The home was raided and Mr. Sternberg gave the names of the players as Mr. Aleph, Mr. Baze, Mr. Gimmel, Mr. Dolad, Mr. Hay, Mr. Vove, Mr. Zion and Mr. Hess. The “Asheville Citizen” carried a story after the trial that an attorney appeared in Police Court for Mr. Aleph, Mr. Baze, Mr. Gimmel, Mr. Dolad, Mr. Hay, Mr. Vove, Mr. Zion and Mr. Hess and paid their fines. Very few people knew that Aleph, Baze, Gimmel, Dolad, Hay, Vove, Zion, and Hess are the first eight letters of the Hebrew Alphabet. I got separated from the other dimes that came to Asheville with me. I found myself in the pocket of Chief Bernard of the Asheville Police Department. It was in November, 1906, that the Chief phoned Uncle Harry, the pawnbroker, and said that ne needed firearms and ammunition to equip a posse of fifty men in order to hunt Will Harris, a desperado. Will Harris had shot and killed five men, of whom two were city policemen. Uncle Harry furnished the posse with guns and ammunition, taking only the names of those receiving firearms. It was reported that Will Harris spent the night in a barn in Buena Vista. The posse surrounded him in a field near Fletcher and killed him. His body was brought to an undertaking establishment at 21 South Main Street, and hung out of the second story window in the building in order to show the people that he had been killed and quieten them down. The next day, the Chief called Uncle Harry and asked if all the firearms had been returned. Uncle Harry said they had and commented that the people of Asheville were honest and good citizens. (Now, Thomas Wolfe, famous author and native of Asheville used this event for a story published in the Saturday Evening Post September 7, 1937. He also used it in a chapter in his book “The Child by Tiger.” 2 Bob Terrell, writer for the Citizen-Times talked about this event at one of our meetings. In 1968 the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms in Washington required a record of every pistol, rifle, revolver that we received and disposed of, as well as the model, caliber, serial number and manufacturer. I recently checked the shop that I retired from 25 years ago and they have records of 2 Move note here on Thomas Wolfe etc. �33,000 transactions since 1968 on hand.) The Chief took me to Mr. Pappa’s Cafe on South Main Street, bought his lunch which consisted of a ten cent bowl of soup, a good supply of free crackers and catsup. Mr. Pappa’s brother operated the “Candy Kitchen” on Haywood Street. They were making a lot of stick candy in the shape of walking sticks, colored red and white. The cafe owner bought a half dozen walking sticks from his brother, using me as part payment. He said that he was going to put the candy on his Christmas tree. The next day Mr. Pappas, who lived on North Main Street, was coming to town in a rain storm. North Main Street was paved but all side streets were not. They had stepping stones in order to get across. Mr. Pappas slipped on a stepping stone, getting his shoes all muddy. He stopped at the Pack Square Shoe Shine Parlor, got a shoe shine for five cents and gave the shine boy a five cent tip. The next thing I knew I was placed in a deposit for the Wachovia Bank and I stayed in their vault until the year 1913. Uncle Harry picked me up to use in his petty cash. His son asked for his weekly allowance and I was given to him with four other dimes. The son boarded a South Main Street streetcar on Pack Square with a fishing pole and a can of worms. He got off at the Swannanoa River and walked a hundred yards toward the French Broad. In a couple of house, he caught a nice string of hog suckers, horney heads and perch out of the beautiful clear waters of the Swannanoa River. On his way home, he gave me to the conductor, received five cents change and a transfer to the North Main streetcar in order to go home. The Conductor carried me around a few days and then gave me to a lady on the Riverside “open air” streetcar that ran to Riverside Park. Riverside Park was owned an operated by the Asheville Power and Light Co., the same people who owned the street car company that was finally gobbled up by Lion Smith’s Carolina Power and Light Co. This lady gave me to her husband who went down to the Elk’s Club and lost me in a rummy game to a distinguished looking attorney they called “Judge Cocke.” After the card game the “judge” sat around talking to brother Elks and drinking beer. He was famous for his knowledge of North Carolina, its people and places. He even talked about the house of ill repute in Asheville at the turn of the century known as the “Eagle Terrace” run by a lady called “Queen Elizabeth.” The next morning, Attorney Cocke defended a man in Police Court who was charged with stealing a pair of shoes and pawning them because he couldn’t wear them on account of being too small. The court ordered the man to leave town that day. The man said he was hungry and didn’t have any money. So Attorney Cocke gave me with other change to him. The man went down to the Asheville and East Tennessee Railway Company station at the corner of North Main and College Streets. They operated an electric vehicle between Asheville and Weaverville. The man smelled hot dogs cooking at D. Gross’s Hot Dog Stand next door, so he spent me for a hot dog and a coca-cola. Mr. Gross raised and educated a family of thirteen children from the money he earned at his hot dog stand. Mr. Gross carried me around until Saturday night when he went to Liggett’s Drug Store for some headache powders. He stopped in front of the drug store to listen to the Salvation Army band while they were having a preaching and musical session. He put me in a pot they were using to get donations for their annual Christmas party. �The Salvation Army bought a second-hand truck from Lion Fred Brown to be used in delivering food and clothing to the poor people in town. I was used in this transaction. Lion Brown took me to a Lions Club meeting, where he used me to pay the dime he was fined by the “Tail Twister” for falling asleep during the program. The Tail Twister’s wife took possession of me and bought some ribbon at the Palais Royal, a large department store on South Main Street, operated by Mr. Morris Myers. I circulated around Asheville until 1918, and again, found myself in possession of Mr. Sternberg. He had a large junk yard and warehouse on Depot Street that bought and sold hundreds of cowhides. On all of his advertisements he carried the slogan “We buy anything and sell everything.” A circus came to town and didn’t have enough money to leave. They applied to Mr. Sternberg who was president of the Southern States Bank on Depot Street for a loan of $200. Mr. Sternberg made the loan and took the elephant as collateral. He complained he was losing money on account of the elephant eating so much. Otto Buseck who owned Middlemont Gardens at that time raised his own flowers at a hot house in Candler. He helped Mr. Sternberg out with the elephant - he bought the manure from him. The next thing I recall was four o’clock on the morning of November 11, 1918. The fire bell started to ring at the firehouse. The Armistice of World War I had been signed. People gathered on Pack Square and built a huge bonfire. A fire truck came out of the firehouse to shine its spot light on the American flag flying at the top of the Pack Square flag pole. People were bringing their guns from home to the Square and shooting live ammunition into the air in celebration. The fellow who owned me brought a double-barrel shotgun to town and bought some black powder shells from Otis Green Hardware Store. (Mr. Green years later became Mayor of Asheville). The Chief of Police soon asked all stores selling ammunition to quit selling it as he was afraid someone would accidentally get shot. Mr. Green took me to the Southern Railway passenger station and bought a ticket to New York from Pat Mulvaney, ticket agent. Frank Mulvaney, a brother to Pat, was a chief clerk for the railroad. He later became councilman for the City of Asheville. Pat took me to the Union News Company’s news stand in the station and bought two five cent cigars. Later an engineer from the railroad bought a “Billboard” magazine, and I was given to him in change for a dollar. He took me to the Glen Rock Hotel across the street, and I was used in paying his bill. The clerk at the hotel bought some ice cream at Finley’s Drug Store next door. Mr. Finley gave me to his son, Bob, who took me to Montford Avenue School. Bob in later years became the Supreme Court Justice for the State of Washington. Bob, on leaving Montford Avenue School one day, took me to Mr. Book’s Grocery Store on Cherry Street and bought some cookies. The people across the street from Mr. Book’s Grocery Store had a lot of cherry trees on their land and they would pay boys from the school ten cents a quart to pick cherries. Lion Carol Rhinehart picked a quart of cherries and received me in payment. Lion Carl Rhinehart lost me in a marble game at school to Jack Roberts, who took me home to 219 North Main Street. A creek ran parallel to North Main Street and emptied into the French Broad. Jack found muskrats were running up and down the creek, so he recruited some of the neighborhood boys who acquired steel traps and caught and sold the muskrat hides to St. �Penick and Company, at the corner of North Main and Lexington. The next thing I recall I was in the pants pocket of Lion Bill Michalove, who took me to the Galaxy Theater on Pack Square in order to see a serial movie called “The Black Hand.” Bill’s brother, Dan, was manager of the Asheville Theaters, and he finally became Vice President of Paramount Pictures, with headquarters in Australia. Since Bill had an “in” at the theaters in town, he would, on occasion, take his teen-age boy friends back stage at the Majestic Theater, located at the corner of College and Market Streets, to view the chorus girls at close range. Tommy Elkins, the stage manager, would keep a close watch on the boys in order to see that they behaved themselves. It was in 1922 when I was used as part payment for a second hand Jeffery automobile bought by Harry Blomberg. Harry took his Jeffery Auto to Asheville High School on Oak Street. Someone dropped me on Market Street and I rolled down a storm sewer. I stayed there for a long time and one day a man from the city’s water department found me and used me in a donation to the Democratic Party of Buncombe County. The chairman of the Party put me in a 10 cents slot machine at a social club. The player who won me at the slot machine would always put me back, hoping to win more. I circulated in and out of the slot machine until 1950, when Lion Dr. Feldman won me. Dr. Feldman had a reputation of never buying anything unless he could get it wholesale. Dr. Feldman put me in the zipper change section of his pocketbook, and now I haven’t seen the light of day for twenty years. V. Jewish Jitter Bugs3 A bug is an insect. A Jitter Bug is an insect that jumps from place to place. A Jewish Jitter Bug is a professional bum, claiming Jewish faith— jumping around from city to city — living off the sympathy of his misinformed brothers - other Jews. For twenty years, I have seen this bunch of crooks take from $300 to $400 a year out of my community. I have learned their stories, their approach, their methods, and in fact, I can tell one just by the sight of him. I have seem them go north in the summer-time, and south in the wintertime. I have been awakened at all hours of the night by them, tracked down on Sundays and holidays. I have to put up with them coming in my place of business, with no courtesy to me, or respect for my customers. I have to watch them go away most always with a dissatisfied growl for what help they get, and seldom do I hear a “Thank You”. I have to battle their high-powered maneuvers of artistic chiseling without the help or appreciation of the Jewish Community in which I live. Who are these people? Why, they are Jews — sure, they are a bunch of professional racketeers that cost the Jewish public about one million dollars per year. If a Jew gets to a city and is broke - why, the other Jews are supposed to help him out. What he is or what he does or where he comes from - don’t make any difference - as long as he is a Jew that is all that is necessary. That is what you might think — but I don’t! There is not one Jewish transient in five hundred worthy of any help at all. They travel from place to place using the fact that they are Jews to prey upon other Jews. Many of them are ex-convicts, 3 Cite reference �some just ordinary bums, and all of them liars. In this army of rogues, you will not find one who has a friend or relative who they could obtain help from. I have offered to wire to any person for hundreds of them, but they will tell ;you that all their friends or relatives are broke, or that they wouldn’t think of asking any of them for money. Common sense will tell you that, if a transient is worthy, there must be someone in this world who will help him to some extent. I am sure if any of you gentlemen were to find yourself broke in some far off place, that you would have at least one friend or relative to whom you could wire for help. These swindlers don’t want to get help from friends or relatives. They are just traveling around, enjoying life in a peculiar way, and living on the Jewish public, their so-called brothers. So, when these Jewish Brothers of ours come to town, what are we supposed to do with them? The only sensible thing we can do is to get rid of them as quickly and as cheaply as possible. The most common type of transient is the ordinary bum who claims that he has a job in a nearby city. All he wants from you is a couple of meals in a good restaurant, a room with a bath in a clean hotel, transportation to the place he is going, and maybe a pair of shoes, a couple of shirts and an overcoat. In order to get rid of this man quickly you must start talking before he does. So when I spot one, I start talking first. I ask him if he wants some help, and as soon as he says “Yes” I hand him a half-dollar, a meal ticket to a nearby restaurant, and tell him to get the hell out of town as fast as he can. Most of them will take this and leave because they know, through their grapevine system, that this is all they can get. This system even informs them where to go to when you get to a town, and that is why nobody see the majority of these people, except myself. Some of them insist that they have a special story to tell you about their hard luck, and that they re different from the rest. These stories would make some of you break down and weep, but to me these stories are just a bunch of fabricated lies. Then, we have the group of transients who are physically disabled. Some are partially blind and crippled. They will claim to have tuberculosis, nervous indigestion, high blood pressure or what-not. Some will claim to have a combination or complication of diseases, or an assortment of ailments. If I am convinced that the transient is really ill, then I buy him transportation to the nearest point, and get him out of town as fast as I can. These people are never given cash for their transportation. A check is written to the Bus Station for their ticket, and the Bus Station has instructions to issue a ticket stamped “No Refund”. This method was adopted after I found out some cashed their tickets back in, in order to get cash, and bummed rides out on the highway to get to where they were going. A decent looking, elderly lady once appealed to me for help. She stated that she was almost blind, and was traveling with her son who was so crippled he couldn’t walk. She told me that she and her son had come in on a bus late the night before, and were at a small hotel near the bus station. She advised me that her son was ill in bed, that she was out of funds, could not pay her hotel bill, had nothing to eat, and no way to get to a nearby city where her son was going to enter a hospital. “A worthy case, at last!” I thought. I took her name, and ask her to come back in an hour, and I would see what I could do for her. I inquired at the hotel, and found that nobody by the name she gave me was there. I asked her about this when she returned, and she said that she did not use her real name since it was Jewish, and she didn’t want people to think she was Jewish. I called the hotel again and inquired about the new name she had given me, and the hotel informed me that the two of there were register there, but that her son seemed healthy, and was in and out of the hotel all day long. Asking her about this, she explained that her son went out only when he had to go to the drug store for medicine. It was cold and raining outside, so I called the hotel, and told them I would pay their bill, gave her enough for food, bought her two bus tickets, and gave her instructions to get out of town, by night without fail. It wasn’t long before I received a phone call from a Jewish person in town stating that this old lady had called on him, and pe proceeded to cuss me out for not giving her any help. To make a long story short--she called on three more persons in the city with the same story - that I would not help her. A couple of hours later I went by the hotel where she was staying and found that she had checked out and left in her room many pieces of clothing that had been given to her by these people she had called on in the city. �Then we have the rabbis. They are a wonderful type of transient to deal with. They usually get to town on Friday, so you have to keep them over “shabbos”. That means an expense of two nights lodging and meals for a whole day. In fact, all the transients who arrive on Friday are “very religious” and won’t travel on Friday night or Saturday. I’ve had many rabbis promise to send me back the money I gave them, and never yet has one of them sent back a penny. In fact, of the hundreds of promises that I’ve had from all kinds of transients to return money given them, never has one kept his promise. The president of the orthodox congregation once phoned me, and told me that a rabbi was at this house m and that this rabbi was a very fine person, a scholar, and a gentleman, a man is in need, and suggested that I give him $5. I was just ready to leave my house, and I informed the president that I did not have time to interview the rabbi myself, but that if he thought the man was worthy, to give him $5, and I would return that amount to him later. I happened to pass by the president’s house just as the rabbi was leaving there, and I took a good look at him. The next morning, the same rabbi was at my place of business, wanting to know if I took care of the Jewish transients. He wasn’t a rabbi anymore, and he had changed his name. I told him to come along with me, and I would take him to the man who could help him. He got into the front seat of my automobile, and wanted to know where we were going, and when I told him we were going to see the president of the orthodox congregation, he jumped out and ran. I ran after him, and caught him on Patton Avenue. He started yelling like I was going to murder him, and a crowd started to gather, so I let him go, and he ran away again. I haven’t seen him since. Another Rabbi once appealed to me for help, and he claimed to be a brother-in-law of the rabbi in Greenville, SC. Knowing the rabbi in Greenville personally, I didn’t believe he would send a brother-inlaw of his out of the state to chisel the public, so I phoned long distance to inquire about the man. The rabbi in Greenville informed me that this transient had worried the community there a couple of days before, that he was no relation of his, but claimed to be a brother-in-law of the rabbi in Columbia. This man’s system was to claim relationship to a rabbi in a nearby city, in order to get help. I gave him $.50 and a meal ticket, and told him to get out of town before dark. He didn’t leave, instead he called on other Jews in the city with the same story, and collected around $5 by noon the next day. I finally contacted him, and told him again to get out of town, which he refused to do. So, I had the police department pick him up, and put him in jail. In about an hour, I went over, and talked to him in jail, and he changed his tune quite a bit. He was ready to leave town, so we let him out and this time I gave him fifteen minutes to disappear--and he did! Another rabbi once called on me, and stated that he was a representative of a Jewish institution somewhere in Europe, and wanted a donation for it. I explained to him that we had a Federated Jewish charities here to help him, and he would have to make his request through them. He kept insisting that I give him a donation personally, and I kept refusing him. He finally gave up, proceeded to cut me out in Yiddish, in a extremely loud voice — and this wasn’t all — he spit on the floor, slammed the door as hard as he could as he went out. I felt like killing him, and I think it would have been justifiable homicide. I could tell you many tales of my experiences with these human vultures, but one I remember in particular, was the time when a local judge phoned me, and told me that he would have to try a young boy by the name of Goldberg for vagrancy. He asked me to recommend to him what to do with the boy. I went over to see the defendant, and he happened to be one of the transients I had helped a few days before. He had ordered a sandwich at a small restaurant on the outskirts of town, refused to pay for it, so the restaurant man had him arrested. I told the judge of my experiences with the Jewish transients and asked him to make an example out of this boy, so he gave him thirty days on the road. In sentencing the boy, the judge told him that from now on every Jewish transient that was brought before him would get a road sentence. Then I really got criticized by the Jewish community for putting Jewish Boys on the Chain-gang. I was shown a copy of his criminal record from the FBI a few days later. He had been convicted of all kinds of offenses from stealing a bicycle to highway robbery. After the boy got out, he came to see me again, and feeling sorry for him, I bought him a ticket to Charlotte, and informed him that I would see that every transient from now on coming into Asheville would get a road sentence. Before that time, we had from ten to thirty transients per month appealing for help. It was interesting to note that �we didn’t have another transient come into Asheville, for six weeks after the boy left, and for a long time after that, appeals for help were 50% of what they had been before that. It is my sincere recommendation that every Jewish transient, coming into Asheville, be put in jail for a certain length of time. This is the only way to cure this evil. Of course, the Jewish community wouldn’t stand for anything like that, they would rather give these damned hoodlums a few hundred dollars every year. Then, we have the transients coming through in family groups. These groups consist of a mother and father, with one or more children. They usually arrive in a dilapidated old automobile. Most of the time, the automobile needs some repairs before they can leave town in it; it never has any gasoline and usually needs a couple of quarts of oil. These parties are expensive and hard to handle, because you can hardly send small children on their way without a night’s sleep and proper food. Of course, I have some deserving cases, but I don’t class these with the transients. For instance, a man once came in to see me, with the story that he had tuberculosis, and he had come down here from Detroit as his doctor had recommended this climate to him. He expected to get a job as an elevator boy, or something of the sort, and he was under the impression that the climate here would cure him while he worked. Well, the man was broke, and was waiting for some financial help from his brother whom he had written a few days before. I gave the man $4 and he promised to pay me back as soon as he heard from his brother. He came back the next day. He had heard from his brother. He showed me the letter and his brother enclosed $10 which was all that he could send. He told me that he was unable to find work, and was going to start back for Detroit. He offered me the $4 I had given him. I asked him how he expected to get back to Detroit on $7, and he told me that he would have to hitch-hike. I told him to keep the $4, and wish him the best of luck, and while I am not a doctor, I was under the opinion from his looks that his health would never permit him to hitch-hike back home and get there alive. So for twenty years, I have dealt with the bunch of beggars, coming from North, South, East, and West. They have become a part of my life, and if I could get out of this job right now, I am sure I would miss this horde of gangsters that hop around from place to place like a bunch of grasshoppers in a clover patch. VI. War Years4 Pilot on 023 On admission to the Air Force in 1943 I was interviewed as to what activity I had in a business or profession, also what experience I had in religious, fraternal or civic affairs. I told them I was just a clerk in a pawnshop. I didn’t tell them that I once: was president of a cemetery. was an owner of a company that built floats and decorated the town for the first Rhododendron Festival in Asheville. supplied the Asheville Police Dept. and the Sheriff’s Dept. with guns and ammunition. 4 . A more complete account of Leo Finkelstein’s experiences during World War II is found in his Letters from Leo: Letters to the Asheville Lion’s Club (Center for Appalachian Studies: Appalachian State University, Boone, NC, 1996) �I didn’t tell them anything about my civic, fraternal, religious or social activities. I was sent to Tishomingo, Oklahoma for training in the Oklahoma State College for Agriculture to be an air force clerk in engineering. After graduating from the clerk’s school in Tishomingo, I felt I would have an easy life in the Air Force being an engineering clerk. But my duties from Tishomingo to the islands in the South Pacific were: kitchen police mess hall fireman mess hall garbage director cleaning chickens policing grounds digging ditches hauling poles hauling fire wood hauling coal fighting forest fires assorting merchandise at warehouse assorting salvage merchandise smashing tin cans hauling water finance clerk detail clerk runner for headquarters stacking lumber cleaning rifles and machine guns building roads repairing bridges laying concrete operating gasoline pump telephone operator making inventories of supplies acting C. Q. pulling weeds and grass watering trees loading and unloading trucks loading and unloading freight cars loading barracks bags on boats and trucks cleaning hatches on boats latrine orderly painting machinery communications clerk and finally engineering clerk for the 394th Squadron, 5th bomb group of the 13th Air Force. Getting a good grade on my education at Tishomingo and experience in travel to the South Pacific I thought I was ready to do my job. �My first difficulty was when A pilot comes in to see me after a combat mission on a B-24 Bomber number 023 and said that he failed to put on his reporting form #Y that the tachometer indicator occilates excessively, would I please write it in the form for him. I told him I would. You know, I didn’t know what the h--- he was talking about and I couldn’t even spell it. Tokyo Rose Tokyo Rose was an American girl broadcasting from a radio station in Japan during World War II. Her broadcast was received by the 13th Air Force in the Admiralty Islands located in the South Pacific area. She played recorded American music in her broadcast. She advised us that our wives and sweethearts were dating the 4 F’s - the men who stayed out of military service and they would go to drive inns for hamburgers and coca-colas. She also said that the Japanese would be waiting for our B-24 bombers scheduled for a mission in the morning with anti-aircraft guns and fighter planes. Radios were scarce on the island. I wanted to listen to Tokyo Rose so I wrote home and requested a small radio to be shipped to me. They advised that the smallest radio weighed too much to be shipped overseas by parcel post but they would take it apart and ship it in two packages which was acceptable at the post office. The radio department of the 5th Bomb Group said they would be glad to put the radio together for me. When I received the shipment in two packages I gave it to them. They repaired it the best they could. I found that when I turned it on it would work for about a minute and then quit receiving. They couldn’t find the trouble. One day I took a screw driver, tightened all the screws and thought I found the trouble. I put the radio on the table in the tent, started it receiving and in one minute it stopped. I was disgusted - I hit the radio, knocked it off the table. It hit the floor, bounced about 2 feet and started playing. It was okay from then on. In about a week Captain Gardner in the engineering department sent word that he wanted to see me as soon as possible. I thought I had fouled up on keeping his engineering records but he had this to say: Corporal Finkelstein we are having trouble repairing the radio on airplane No. 022 and we understand that you are the only one in the 394th Squadron that can solve our problem. Will you help us? I forgot what I said, but I couldn’t figure out how to knock an airplane off the table. Topless Women �Now if you read the morning paper, you noticed headlines on the front page: “Topless Night Club Opens in Asheville.” Well, you didn’t need a night club to see topless women on those South Pacific Islands during WWII. The trouble was they would move all the women to another island close by the island we occupied. We built a motor boat made of two airplane belly tanks and a small power unit so that we could go over and see the women at another island. I didn’t go over to see the women. I wasn’t afraid of them, but I was afraid the boat might sink. Sergeant Joe In 1944, Sergeant Joe, the mess sergeant in my outfit in the 13th Air Force located in the South Pacific during World War II, received a shipment of canned corn. Instead of using it for chow, he built a still in a fox hole and made corn whiskey out of it. Joe ran a road house in Greenville, South Carolina before the war and in a neighborly spirit he invited me to drink what I wanted of the corn whiskey and he helped me trade watch bands for coca-cola syrup and ice cream from a Navy C.B. outfit located near by. After the war, he operated his road house in Greenville again. He came to see me and advised that they had arrested his partner for hauling whiskey in Buncombe County and wanted to know if I could help him. I told him that I knew the Chief of Police and Sheriff Brown and I would be glad to see what the situation was. He told me they couldn’t help as it was the Federal authorities that arrested his partner. Thinking of how to get him a light sentence I asked Joe if his partner was in the armed forces and he said that they had turned him down because he has a heart murmur. I told Joe to send him to Dr. Feldman and I’d get the report from him as to his heart murmur. Dr. Feldman told me he had a heart murmur and as Federal Physician he would advise Judge Warlick about in federal court. At the trial Joe’s partner went scott free. Later he came to see me with a roll of hundred dollar bills and wanted to pay me for getting him off. I refused the money and told him that Joe had helped me out during the war and what I did was a favor to Joe. Later he brought me six fifths of Scotch for a present, which I kept. While overseas, besides having corn whiskey made by Joe and medical alcohol diluted 50% by water and flavored with burnt sugar, we were able to buy bonded whiskey from the flying personnel who didn’t drink their ration. Price was $60 per fifth. They were looking for souvenirs so I wrote Lion Nat Friedman to send me a Japanese hare-kari knife from his antique store. He sent me a similar one. It was a circular shape Turkish knife with Turkish letters on it. My cost was $4. It looked like a hare-kari knife. I gave it to Sergeant Joe and asked him to see if he could trade for a Fifth of bonded whiskey. He reported later that he couldn’t get a fifth of whiskey for it but he did get two fifths for it. Sgt. Smokey Joe’s home is just a little bit south of Asheville, NC. He was mess sergeant for the 394th squadron, a good guy, and a GI who could sympathize with all the other GI’s who had to eat the food he prepared. �Before the war Smokey Joe owned a road house on the highway going south from Asheville and after talking to him I found that I had patronized his institution on numerous occasions during my younger years. Since we were practically neighbors in civilian life, we felt that we should continue over there as good neighbors and so we were. There is no better friend in the army than a cook because when you get hungry, he is the only man who can help you out. In passing I might mention that Smokey Joe, Starvin Marvin and I have on numerous instances enjoyed eating surplus stocks of food from the Mess Hall. Smokey Joe told me about Sheriff Brown, in Asheville, taking his automobile away from him once because the sheriff had found some whiskey in it that he was transporting to his road house. Now Smokey is fighting to get his freedom - his freedom to go home and dodge Sheriff Brown some more, and there is Starvin Marvin who wants to go home and see his wife and two year old boy, a child that he has never seen, and so it is with me - I want to go home - I just want to go home. WWII Diary I had nothing to do while recovering from a recent surgery so I found my WWII diary and read the following: Before the war, I thought being the army would be a thrilling adventure - but now I know Sherman was right. Before the war, I thought the Air Force was a mechanized force - but now I wonder what the Hell I’m marching for. Before the war, I thought the Asheville Citizen was a volten newspaper - but now I enjoy reading one four days old. Before the war, I would drink a cocktail before dinner but now I drink milk with my dinner. Before the war, I would sometimes go to be at 4 am but now I get up at 4 am. Before the war, I was particular about what girl I took out - but now I’m not so particular. Before the war I struggled over a golf course - but now I struggle over an obsticle course. Before the war, I used to shine at a dance - but now I shine my shoes. Before the war, I cussed at a golf ball - but now a sergeant cusses at me for not being on the ball. �Before the war, I didn’t have much religion - but now I pray for a furlough. ... Soon after a prayer for a furlough, the Red Cross advised me that a business associate of mine had committed suicide and I had been granted a two weeks emergency furlough for a trip home. VII. After the War Sgt. Smokey Joe After the war Smokey Joe opened his road house again near Greenville, SC. He came to see me and advised that they had arrested his partner for hauling whiskey in Buncombe County and wanted to know if I could help him out. I told him I knew the Chief of Police and Sheriff Brown and I would be glad to see what the situation was. He told me they couldn’t help as it was the Federal Authorities that arrested his partner. Thinking of how to get him a light sentence, I asked Joe if his partner was in the armed forces and he said that they had turned him down because he had a heart murmur. I told Joe to send his partner to Lion Dr. Feldman who was Federal Physician and I would get a report from him as to his heart murmur. Lion Dr. Feldman told me he had a heart murmur and as a Federal Physician he would advise Judge Warlick about it in Federal Court. At the trial, Joe’s partner got a suspended sentence. Later he came to see me with a roll of hundred dollar bills and wanted to pay me for getting him off. I refused the money and told him that Joe had helped me out during the war and what I did was a favor to Joe. Later he brought me six fifths of scotch for a present which I kept. Corn Whiskey at Road House Before the war, road houses would hide the corn whiskey they served their guests in a container under a bed. When the sheriff’s dept. would raid the joint, they usually wouldn’t look for it there. One night they found it and an article appeared in the Asheville Citizen that the sheriff’s dept. confiscated a gallon of whiskey hid in a container at a road house. J im Dwelbiss and Beaver Lake Returning home from World War II, I was interested in building a house to live in. Jim Dwelbiss, president of the Asheville Lions Club 1941-1942, said that he had a lot across the street from his home on Westwood Road in Lakeview Park and if I would build a one story house so he could see Beaver Lake over the roof of my house, he would give me a good deal. I acquired the lot and built the house. He told me that as a resident of Lakeview Park I should take on some activity for the benefit of the park. He took me to the annual meeting of the property owners and I was elected as one of the three commissioners - no salary. When I met with the other two commissioners they told me I �had charge of the lake and fishing and they would back me up in anything I wanted to do. I got phone calls. I got a phone call from a resident and he says “Stop the fishing, the fish are diseased.” I contacted the game warden from the NC Wildlife Resources Commission and we found a service station by the creek that furnished the lake with water that had put old oil from automobiles in it and it had killed a few fish. I get a phone call from a lady that an awful looking man wearing overalls was fishing. I asked her did she expect him to wear a tuxedo. I get a call advising that two women indecently dressed were near the dam of the lake. I found them to be the wives of the two commissioners sun bathing. I found two men swimming in the lake, which was against the rules. They told me they would swim and that I couldn’t stop them. I told them to swim if they wanted to and that a sewer line had broken and was emptying in the lake and would probably get typhoid fever - they stopped swimming. I found a group of women in bathing suits at the lake near Glenn Falls Road with a photographer. I found them to be local beauticians getting their picture with the lake in the background. They were using the picture on a cover of a program for a State Convention of Beauticians in Asheville. Fishing in the lake was allowed for licensed property owners only. I saw a man standing at the edge of the lake for 30 minutes just looking. On investigation I found he had a line tied to his belt that ran down the inside of his pants leg over his shoe into the lake. On the line he had a float and a baited hook. When the fish would bite and pull the float under he would kick his leg, hang the fish, pull it in and nobody would know he was fishing. I appreciated what Lion Dwelbiss had done by getting me elected to be fish commissioner of Beaver Lake. But I got a call that I was going to be elected president of Congregation Beth-Ha-Tephila and that construction would be started soon on a temple at Liberty and Broad Streets. I thought I could use some religion so I didn’t run again for commissioner of Lakeview Park and I took up my duties as president of Beth-Ha-Tephila. I completed the building of financing of the new temple in two years. I was tired out and hoped that maybe I could get some rest by being fish commissioner again at Beaver Lake. Sternberg Hunting Rats �Joe Sternberg was president of the Lion’s Club in 1960-61. His father Seigfred Sternberg, came over to the U.S. at the turn of the century, procured a horse and wagon, drove around western North Carolina buying cowhides and junk. He finally opened a junk yard on Depot Street and became one of the largest cowhide dealers in the United States. Lion Joe was my classmate in the A.H.S. class of 1922. He would rent a freight car on the local freight train to Murphy and buy cowhides at the stations where the train stopped. I was watch inspector for the Southern Railway and would travel on the same train, give the employees a certificate that in my opinion the watch they had wouldn’t vary over 30 seconds a week. Going west you could go as far as Waynesville by auto and then by train to Murphy. Lion Joe Dave, president of the club in 1932, was construction engineer for the Sternberg Co. who supplied steel for the construction of buildings. Later he organized the Dave Steel Co. Old man Sternberg did well financially and became president of the Southern State Bank on Depot St. He became active in civic, religious and fraternal affairs in Asheville. He built a big home on Victoria Drive. He didn’t like the help he was getting in Asheville so he imported a young beautiful maid from Germany. The maid went down to get an item at the garage and found Mr. Sternberg there. Mr. Sternberg got fresh with the maid, the maid picked up a 22 caliber rifle that I sold him and shot him. The wound wasn’t serious. The next morning a news item appeared in the Asheville Citizen with the head line: “Sternberg Wounded While Hunting Rats in the Garage.” Irving S. Cobb and Grove Park Inn About sixty years ago my friend Fred Bradley was night clerk at Grove Park Inn. He would tell me about the operation of the Inn. A guest would find his home town newspaper at his breakfast table. If he paid for anything, what change, if needed, would be given to him in uncirculated money. The only entrance to the Inn’s grounds was a large gate off of Macon Ave. The gate was closed at 10 PM as the noise from any automobile going in and out would disturb the guests. Irving S. Cobb, famous humorist, was spending a couple of days at the Inn. A little after ten o’clock one night he tried to get his auto into the Inn’s grounds. He found the gate locked. He had to park his car on Macon Avenue. He walked to the Inn and complained loudly about it. He was advised that the Inn didn’t welcome any unusual noises after 10 PM. In a little while he came down to the lobby from his room carrying his shoes, nothing on his feet but his socks, walked very quietly to Fred Bradley, the night clerk, and whispered to him “I want to check out.” �In a couple of days a news item appeared in the Asheville Citizen written by Irving Cobb with the headline: “The Bunk of Buncombe.” Read news article from Citizen-Times on suicide This reminded me of a historical event years ago when I was selling guns. A customer said he wanted an inexpensive pistol to keep in his home and he just obtained a permit to buy it. I sold him a 22 cal. Iver Johnson pistol. This type gun was later known as a “Saturday Night Special.” When I completed the sale I said “Thank you mister.” He said “Don’t call me mister, I’m a doctor. You call me doctor.” I said, “Thank you doctor.” He took the gun home and committed suicide with it. Now: I got to thinking if he bought the gun today he would have to make application to get a permit and wait two or three days for the permit to be issued. Maybe if he had to wait that long for a permit, he might have changed his mind about the suicide. Then: As a doctor I wondered why he didn’t write a prescription for some high powered sleeping pills, take several of them and just go to sleep and not wake up. I think I got an explanation. If any of you had to buy prescription drugs today, you know now expensive they are. And if they were that expensive back then when this happened, I guess the doctor felt he could save money by committing suicide with a “Saturday Night Special.” Problems in Water and Sewer Systems If you’ve read the newspapers lately, you know that the city of Asheville has problems in their water and sewer systems. I had some personal problems, so I phoned doctor #1. The lady answering the phone said that she would advise his nurse. His nurse was busy with a patient and the nurse would phone me later. The nurse phones me in about an hour. I asked the nurse if I was supposed to talk to her in a dignified way or call everything by its right name. She said to do what I think best, so I tell her what’s troubling me and that it had the color of Coca-Cola or Pepsi-Cola, I don’t know which. She said she would talk to the doctor and call me back. She calls back and says I ought to see doctor #2 who is a specialist with my troubles. He has a Rotto Rutter. I found out a Rotto Rutter is a gadget used by plumbers on home work. I see doctor #2 and he advises that he can’t find anything of a serious nature wrong. I go back to doctor #1. He makes several tests. He tells me to go back to doctor #2, that he is going to advise him of what he found and would ask him to make a complete examination. Back in doctor #2's office, an assistant brings in a machine for examination. He tells me that this machine is a new one, and it don’t hurt like the old one. After the examination, the �doctor makes an appointment for me to go to the hospital for a I.V.P. examination and bring the x-rays back to him. I take the x-rays back to doctor #2's office and the doctor says that they look pretty good, that all I need would be surgery and a 2 to 3 days stay in the hospital or it may be 6 days. I go back to the hospital for pre-admission tests and they do all the same tests that were done two or three times before and the nurse asked me a lot of personal questions. She asked if I had a BM. I knew that AM meant from midnight to noon and PM meant the time from noon to midnight. So I figured out the BM meant a BAD MORNING, so I told the nurse that I had a BM for about a week. I was told to report for surgery the next Wednesday at 6:30 AM, somewhat earlier than I usually get up. I get a phone call from doctor #2's nurse Tuesday night advising that the doctor is ill and would be unable to do the surgery and it would be postponed. Later I get a phone call that the surgery had been rescheduled for March 2nd at 1 PM. I had 5 days to review the situation and I think I was mentally, physically, and maybe financially ready for surgery. End of Report. I now feel good. SINS OF THE SANCTIMONOUS SUMMIT, OR Shall I live and laugh or cry and die with a prayer, or Laugh and live or cry and die Sylvia dn I decided to go into the Summit, a retirement home, for our golden years of life. We soon found out that the golden years of life are just gold plated- the gold wears off and you find yourself in a situation of assorted problems. I was in the WWII battle in the South Pacific but I found that it was a cinch compared to the “old age” battle in the Summit. Some of the residents here are physically disabled and some are mentally disabled. I am 92 years old and I find that all the residents over 90 years of age are both mentally and physically disabled. In moving to apartment #108, I asked if I could bring my piano. I was advised that my apartment had sound proof walls and it would be OK. A femal resident in an apartment near me said that she enjoyed listening to me practising but please don’t play before eight o’clock in the morning-- “it’s liable to disturb my sleeping.” The Summit was described to me as a “country club” retirement home with beautiful grounds, good entertainment and delicious food. In the so-called “country club retirement home,” I am still looking for the golf course and a swimming pool. �The department serving food is the best outfit here. The meals are delicious but I’ve never been offered a cocktail before dnner. The strongest drink I’ve ever had here has been ice tea. Some day maybe we will have an entree of a Maine Lobster or a wild duck on toast. I couldn’t figure out my monthly bill. I was told that the adding machine I had was an antique and what I needed was a calculator and computer to get the correct amount. I was advised that the easiest thing for me to do was to write a check for the amount listed as BALANCE on my statement. That would be satisfactory with the Summit. I never worry about paying my bills to the Summit-I’ll let them worry. If I go broke, I’ll just go next door to the Veteran’s Hospital where I can get in any time since I have a disability discharge from WWII. The 1997 elections are over and I’m glad I’m a Democrat because I don’t like what the Republicans will do with my benefits I get form Medicare and other government agencies to help pay the Summit. The Democrats are not so hot either. They lowered interest rates so much on my government bonds so now I have to cash them in order to have enough money to buy drugs. Memory My memory is getting worse. In leaving, my apartment I find the following has happened: #1 I forgot to turn the water off in the kitchen and the floor was flooded with water. #2 I forgot to turn the stove off and the coffee pot was melted. #3 I forgot to turn the lights off. #4 I forgot to take my hearing aid with me. #5 I forgot to take my walking cane with me. #6 I forgot to take my reading glasses with me. #7 I forgot to take my teeth. #8 I forgot to go to the bathroom--for my pills. I put a sign by the door where I leave the apartment listing the eight things I am supposed to do before leaving. Most times, I forget to look at the sign. Surgery payment My doctor advised me that I needed major surgery and that he would like to talk to me in his office. He wanted to know how I was going to pay my bill. I told him that a former doctor in his establishment would accept Medicare, also other Insurance benefits and send me a bill for what he didn’t collect. I would then send him a check. �He advised that there were deductions on my insurance during the first part of the year and wanted to know if I had considered them. I told him I didn’t know, but I would write him a check now if he wanted it. “Oh no,” he said. “I’ll take the check after the surgery.” I answered, “I think you are making a mistake. If you take my insurance payments you will get paid in thirty days. If you wait??? take my check and I die, it will take you a year to collect from my estate. He said, “You are wrong. I’m not going to let you die.” So now, I’m looking forward to the future with many years of fears and tears. Suffering from: Memory loss, over-reacting, trouble with eating, sleeping and weeping, co-ordination, irritation, and constipation. Prayer, or Humor, or What? I wondered what the most beneficial to me - PRAYER, or HUMOR, or WHAT? Is it time for me to laugh, cry or die? I sent copies of my WWII Diary [page ???] to two preachers that responded as follows: From preacher #1: Dear Leo: Thanks for the great piece. I enjoyed it! My best to you and Sylvia. From preacher #2: Thank you so much for that great “letter home from WWII.” It’s very funny! Actually it really made my day after shoveling snow. I too could use a furlough. All my best to you and Sylvia. Later both preachers asked for permission to use my thoughts in sermons. Maybe I should have been a preacher instead of a pawnbroker. Finis I had the honor of serving as president of Beth-Ha-Temphila in 1948 and 1949 during the building and financing of the new temple at Liberty and Broad Streets. I was Master of Ceremonies for the 50th Anniversary Banquet program of Beth-HaTehphila in 1941. I also presided at the 75th Anniversary Banquet in 1966. I have put in my application to preside at the 100th in 1991. Unless we are Indians, our ancestors came from Foreign Lands. I am thankful they did �what they did so that I could have the privilege of growing up in a city like Asheville, enjoy this great country of ours---a land of religious freedom and opportunity. GLOSSARY FOR THE GOYIM brisgoyim- � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Leo Finkelstein Papers Description An account of the resource This collection contains materials relating to Leo Finkelstein, resident of Asheville, North Carolina, the Asheville Lions Club, and the Beth Ha-Tephila Cemetery in Asheville. It contains computer discs, notes, scrapbooks, book drafts, correspondence, photographs, programs, fliers, and other materials related Leo Finkelstein, his wife Sylvia, and the Lions Club, Elks Club, and Jewish Community in Asheville, North Carolina. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Finkelstein, Leo, 1905-1998 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Leo Finkelstein: Personal History Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1998-01-30 Language A language of the resource English Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context 107_01_LeoKathy Subject The topic of the resource Finkelstein, Leo, 1905-1998--Family Finkelstein, Leo, 1905-1998--Anecdotes Jews--North Carolina--Asheville--History Description An account of the resource Leo Finkelstein provides an account of his family's past, starting in 1799 in Lithuania and ending with his life in Asheville. Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a title=" In Copyright - Rights-holder(s) Unlocatable or Unidentifiable" href="http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC-RUU/1.0//" target="_blank"> In Copyright - Rights-holder(s) Unlocatable or Unidentifiable </a> Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource PDF Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a title="AC.107 Leo Finkelstein Papers" href="https://appstate-speccoll.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/192" target="_blank"> AC.107 Leo Finkelstein Papers </a> Is Part Of A related resource in which the described resource is physically or logically included. <a title=" Leo Finkelstein Papers" href="https://omeka.library.appstate.edu/collections/show/27" target="_blank"> Leo Finkelstein Papers </a> Type The nature or genre of the resource Text Extent The size or duration of the resource. 42 pages Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant Asheville (N.C.) Spatial Coverage Spatial characteristics of the resource. https://www.geonames.org/4453066/asheville.html Temporal Coverage Temporal characteristics of the resource. 1990s America ancestors Asheville autobiography Depression Flanders goyim Jews Lithuania pawn shop Pisgah Prohibition World War II https://omeka-test.library.appstate.edu/files/original/d7c7ac7c778387364efa612ed109077e.pdf 5461277badfa5745b489f3e66b9782bc PDF Text Text In Nineteen Five I became alive and what I found around this town Was joy and tears for 50 years. I.Origins1 In 1799, my great-great grandfather was a chicken farmer in the town of Pushalot, in the state of Lithuania, in the Soviet Union. It was a hard life in the town of Pushalot. The winters were nine months long and unendurably cold. The summers were hot and rainy. There were occasional pogroms or Russian Cossaks rampaging through the streets terrorizing the countryside, gypsies stealing everything in sight, including sometimes even children, and always there was the threat of Siberia. My ancestors, like most Jews, were very poor, hard working and suffering. My greatgreat grandfather bought eggs from all the chicken farmers, packed them carefully on a wagon, covered them with straw to keep them cool and fresh and rode many miles to Kovna, Vilna and Riga to sell the eggs at the big city markets. In 1825, my great grandfather served as a rabbi in Pushalot. In 1872, my grandfather opened a kretchma in Pushalot. A kretchma is a Russian inn somewhat like out modern motels, only they didn’t have swimming pools or air conditioning. It was a place travelers could stop for food or drink or spend the night. One day a Bolshevik on horseback stopped at the Inn and drank a lot of vodka. He got fresh with my grandmother, who I understand was a good looking girl in those days. My father, a teenage boy, picked up a piece of stove wood, hit him on the head and knocked him out. That was an awful crime in Russia for a Jewish boy. My grandfather made a temporary settlement with the Russian and gave him 50 rubles. My father thought that they may send him to jail or Siberia, so he stole his way across the border into Germany. He didn’t like Germany, so he left Germany and made his way to South Africa. He went to work as a house painter in Johannesburg. He became ill from the lead poisoning in the paint. There were no United Way or Federate Jewish Charities down there, but someone took pity on him and nursed him back to health. He sold cigarettes and sandwiches at a 1 Cite reference �stock exchange and he finally opened a resturant. In 1898, right before the English-Boer War, my father sold his resturant for gold coins, got a money belt, and went down to Cape Town. He had a cousin in Australia and a brother in Jacksonville, Florida. By a flip of a coin he came over to Jacksonville, Florida. In Jacksonville, Florida, he went to night school to learn to read and write English. II. The Dawn of the Twnetieth Century in Asheville In 1900, my father became ill and the doctor in Jacksonville told him the only place to go to get cured would be the mountains. He came up to Asheville, and Doctor Smith told him he would die of anything except what they sent him to Asheville for, so that he might as well go back to Jacksonville. He like Asheville so much he decided to stay here. In 1903, he opened a pawn shop at 23 South Main Street (now Biltmore Avenue). He married Fanny Sherman from Newport News, Virginia, and they made their home in an apartment on Ashland Avenue. In 1905, my father became a citizen of the United States. Among the organizations he joined were the Asheville Board of Trade (now The Asheville Chamber of Commerce), the Fraternal Order of Eagles, Suez Temple of the Oramatic Order of Khorosson, Lodge #1401 BPO, Elks, Mt. Herman Masonic Lodge, Scottish Rite Masonic Lodge, Oasis Temple of Shriners, Congregation Bikur Cholim (now Beth Isreal), and Congregation Betha-Ha-Tephila. So, in Asheville, North Carolina, the Twentieth Century began with: -The pawnbroker named Finkelstein. -S.H. Friedman, who operated a furniture store. He came to Asheville from Maryland, where he peddled tinware. His son, Nat Friedman, later operated the Susquehana Antique Co. -A Jewish lawyer by the name of Goldstein. -A Jewish plumber by the name of A.J. Huvard. He married E.C. Goldberg’s sister. E.C. Goldberg ran a news stand next to the Imperial Theater on Patton Avenue for years. -A Jewish dentist by the name of I. Mitchell Mann. -Harry Blomberg’s father who came to Asheville in 1887. He operated the Racket Store on Biltmore Avenue for many years. -The Palais Royal Department Store operated by Morris Meyers for 40 years. He was a charter member of Congregation Beth-Ha-Tephila and he came to Asheville in 1887. -The Bon Marche Department Store operated by Solomon Lipinsky. -A Jewish postman who delivered mail by the name of Barney Seigle. I was particularly interested in Barney because he had a sister by the name of Ester, who was in my class in �high school — a beautiful and affectionate student. -An industrialist named Seigfred Sternberg. -Dan Michalove, who worked at the first movie houses in town and finally advanced to Vice-President of Paramount Pictures and was put in charge of all their theaters in Australia. -Lou Pollock, who operated a shoe store at the corner of South Main and Eagle Streets. He once ran a shoe sale for $.98 a pair. -Leo Cadison, who came here for his health, operated a ladies clothing store on Pack Square, finally moved to Washington, D.C., and became an attorney by act of Congress. He was a speech writer for the Attorrney General of the United States. -An orthodox Rabbi by the name of Londow. -Morris Myers served as Exalted Ruler of the Old Elks Lodge #608. In 1883 Jews were arriving to become pioneers in the Asheville community. Some came to make a better livelihood and for opportunity. The moderate climate and mountain air attracted others to Asheville, a growing medical haven for the sufferers of chronic respiratory diseases. Congregation Beth-Ha-Tephila August 23, 1891, twenty-seven men met in Lyceum Hall and adopted a constitution for Congregation Beth-Ha-Tephila. Among the charter members were the Blomberg, Lipinsky, and Zagier families. It is noted that the dues were $10 a year, payable in advance. Lyceum Hall was the first home of the Congregation. It was rented from a fraternal order for $75 a year. Congregation Bikur Cholim Rabbi Londow became the rabbi for Congregation Bikur Cholim whose articles of incorporation were filed in the Court Clerk’s office in February 1899. The incorporators were J.B. Schwartzberg, A. Blomberg, Sam Feinstein, S.H. Michalove, A. Shenbaum, M. Zuglier, and R.B. Zagier. Since the community could not pay Rabbi Londow a decent wage, he operated a Jewish grocery store on the side. He was a kindly old gentleman with a big beard, wore his hat around the grocery store at all times except when a lady called him on the telephone. He would remove the hat during the conversation and put it back on his head after the phone call. I remember a big barrel of herring in the center of the store. Plain herring were 5 cents each and milk herring ten cents. A newly married lady in the Congregation once called Rabbi Londow and complained that a duck she bought from him was old and too tough to eat. Rabbi Londow asked what she expected him to do --- look down the duck’s mouth and count its teeth! The first religious services of Bikur Cholim I remember attending were on the second floor of a building at the corner of Patton Avenue and Church Street. It was early in the life of Bikur Cholim that the congregation split up due to a big argument. Half of the members formed another congregation and called it Anshei Hashuron. They rented a second floor of an apartment �house at the corner of Central Avenue and Woodfin Street. However, through the efforts of the impartial moderates, a compromise was reached and a permanent division averted. Nevertheless, the apartment was kept for a religious school. It was here I received my first Hebrew lesson. Rabbi Fox was teaching us the four questions to ask at our Passover meal. At this time my father would attend all the board meetings of Bikur Cholim. He would come home upset and nervous. Dr. Smith suggested he not attend any more Synagogue meetings due to his high blood pressure. Rabbi Fox was active on the 9th and 10th degrees of Scottish Rite Masonry. After his death I assumed his parts in these degrees and I am still on the degree teams. Orthodox rules and Hebrew School 75 to 100 years ago there were two synagogues in Asheville. My family belonged to the orthodox. The orthodox had strict rules for obeying the Sabbath which began Friday at sundown and ended Saturday night. The members of Bikur Cholim who owned an automobile would put them in the garage on Friday evening to observe the Sabbath and wouldn’t take them out until Saturday after sun down. Most of the members lived within walking distance of the Synagogue. To obey the Sabbath correctly you were not allowed to operate a business, spend money, smoke, strike a match, work, cook and many other activities were forbidden. Remember this was about 100 years ago. You weren’t supposed to tear paper. Now if you had a bathroom with paper on a roll, you tore the paper off for Friday in case it may be needed for the Sabbath. The same rule applies to outhouses with old Sears Roebuck catalogues. As far as I know none of these rules are observed today. In 1911, erection of a house of worship was started on South Liberty Street for Congregation Bikur Cholin. Although it wasn’t completed until 1916, the Hebrew School moved there in 1912. When I was 11 years old I attended Hebrew school conducted by the rabbi on Saturday morning in the edifice of the synagogue. The sanctuary contained nothing but pews and a coal stove for heat. The basement was used for storage and rest rooms. In the winter time the rabbi fixed the stove for a fire Friday so that it could be lit Saturday morning to produce heat for the Hebrew class. Since the rabbi shouldn’t light a fire or spend money on the Sabbath, he arranged for a boy in the neighborhood to light the fire Saturday morning. He placed a dime under a prayer book Friday and told the boy where to get a dime after lighting the fire on Saturday. Even in those days educational institutions had trouble with rebelling students. One real �cold morning the boy didn’t show up to light the fire. We were attending Hebrew class in sweaters, coats and overcoats and it was awful cold. I asked to be excused and coming up from the basement I reported to Rabbi Redunsky that the plumbing must have frozen as there was water leaking in several places. The Rabbi went to see about it. I advised the class that there were no broken pipes and suggested that we leave the building --- which we did --- not to return until warm weather. For your information, there was no water leaking. While my sisters Rosa and Hilda and I were still children and our parents were out of town for health reasons, Doctor Schandler’s father Dave Schandler, would invite us over to his house for meals, especially on Passover and other religious holy days. About this time when our house at 213 Broadway was being built, I was sliding down a sloping board and got a big splinter in my rear end. My father couldn’t get it out so he took me to Dr. Mann, the dentist, and he got it out --- no charge. The building of the Synagogue was completed in 1916 and the day before the eve of Rosh-Hashonah a fire completely destroyed the building. Mrs. Rosenfeld had a Jewish Boarding House next door and she cried and complained that she had just cleaned her house for Yontiff and smoke had dirtied the place up. The Masonic Temple was offered to us to use for the High Holy Day Services and we accepted. After the fire that destroyed Bikur Cholim Synagogue on South Liberty Street the second floor of the Sondley Building on Broadway was rented for the use of the congregation. A member of the congregation, a young man, forgot he had made a date with a waitress in the Langren Hotel and attended the meeting of the congregation. The lady waited in front of the Masonic Temple with a gun and took a shot at him after the meeting when he was leaving the building. She missed. After going to Hebrew School in the building we would stop and examine the hole the bullet made in the front wall of the building. The Cemetery In those days Asheville was a place that offered a cure for tuberculosis. Many sanatoriums were located in the hills around town. A Jewish man died in one of the sanatoriums and had no money or family. No cemetery in town would bury him unless someone paid $100 for the grave. It was then that nine Jewish men formed the “West Asheville Hebrew Cemetery Association Inc.” My father was the first president. In their bylaws it was stated that anyone of Jewish faith could be buried there. The price of a grave was $100 and if there was no one to pay it there would be no charge. The cemetery changed it’s name some years later to “Mt. Sinai Cemetery” and sometime after to “The Lou Pollock Memorial Park.” After father died, Lou Pollock became president. After his death, I was the vice-president and assumed the duties of the president. I conferred with David Adler and set up a meeting between the directors of the cemetery and members of Beth Israel. The ownership of the cemetery was transferred to Beth Israel. �The following names of the nine founders can be seen on a plaque at the entrance to the cemetery bearing the date 1916: Sam Feinstein, Isaac Michalove, Lou Pollock, S.W. Silverman, Sender Argentar, Rabbi Elias Fox, Dave Schundler, Barney Pearlman, Harry Finkelstein. Benevolent Societies Around this time my father felt that some homemade chicken soup would help the Jewish patients in the sanatoriums. A number of Jewish women set up a kitchen and once a week hot chicken soup was made available to the Jewish patients and to others who requested it. Rabbi Fox acquired business interests in Asheville and served as part-time Rabbi. He was associated with a local butcher who made kosher meat available. He would go by the homes of members and kill the chickens. In 1917, some of us young Jewish boys decided that we ought to have a YMHA or a Community Center in Asheville. Rabbi Fox met with us and suggested that we form a YMHA. He said a community center was for the community only, but a bigger and better organization would be a YMHA because it extended from coast to coast. He told us a story about when he first came to this country and wanted to see the Brooklyn Bridge. He found a man who could talk Yiddish and after looking at the bridge he asked why they built the bridge with a lot of little cables instead of one big cable. The man explained to him that if one or two cables broke it would not harm the bridge, but if there was one big cable and it broke the bridge would fall in. Rabbi Fox said that therefore us boys should be little cables and hold up the YMHA we were going to form. Mr. Sternberg and Mr. Leavitt Seventy-five years ago there was no United Way in Asheville. There were many local charitable organizations sponsored by churches, synagogues, houses of worship, also the YMCA, the Salvation Army, the Elks Lodge and the Jewish Ladies Aid Society. Lion Joe Sternberg’s father was active in civic, religious, fraternal organizations in Asheville. At that time he was collecting donations for the “Ladies Aid Society” of Asheville. He went to see Mr. Leavitt who operated a ladies ready to wear store on South Main St. near Pack Square. He wouldn’t donate more than $5 and this didn’t please Mr. Sternberg. Mr. Sternberg was the owner of the building in which Mr. Leavitt operated his store. He found Mr. Leavitt violated the terms of his lease because he sublet a portion of the store for a shoe department. Mr. Sternberg told Mr. Leavitt that he would have to give the Ladies Aid Society a suitable donation or vacate the building because he had violated the terms of the lease. They selected three men to determine what amount Mr. Leavitt should give the Ladies Aid Society. It was agreed that the amount they decided would be satisfactory to Mr. Sternberg and Mr. Leavitt. Mr. Sternberg selected a man to represent himself. Also Mr. Leavitt picked out the second man. They needed a man to represent both of them and finally selected my father. The committee decided that Mr. Leavitt should donate $500 to the Ladies Aid Society. �------ In 1936, the movements in founding a Jewish Community Center and to organize Federated Jewish Charities in Asheville was started by Julius Levitch through B’nai B’rith. In 1947 a testimonial dinner was held for his outstanding service to the Jewish Community. ----- On July 25, 1923, the Emporium Department Store owned by Jack Blomberg at the corner of Pack Square and South Main Street was destroyed by a major fire. It was feared that the entire block of Eagle Street would be destroyed. Many of the Jewish merchants who operated clothing stores in the block brought their insurance polices and books to the pawnshop across the street and requested that we put them in our safes which were two of the largest moveable safes in town. These two safes are now located at 21 Broadway. Flanders 20 About 75 years ago the Studebaker Corporation made two automobiles - the Flanders 20, 20 horsepower and the Emf. 30, 30 horsepower. My family owned a Flanders 20. To start the engine you used a hand crank in front of the auto. You lowered the spark control lever because if you didn’t, you might get a kickback on the crank and get your arm broken. If you had a flat tire, you had to raise the wheel with a hand jack, take the tire off and fix the inner tube with patches that you always carried with you. You had a hand pump to inflate the tire again. Some owners of the Flanders 20 bragged that sometimes they could drive up the hill on South Main Street (now Biltmore Ave.) from Depot St. to Pack Square in high gear and they didn’t have to shift to a second gear. There was a dirt road to Hendersonville. Some of it was red clay that would become slick when it rained. One small section of the road became very slick due to its location. There was a man there with a mule. For a small fee he would hitch the mule to the front of the auto and pull you out of the bad place with the help of the engine of the car. We were invited to a wedding in Hendersonville by Mr. Lewis whose sister, Rose, was getting married to a young attorney named Joe Patece. He practiced law in Asheville for many years. We took our Flanders 20 to the wedding with a couple of our friends. We had no trouble as it didn’t rain. Coming back to Asheville we got a flat tire near Skyland and stopped to fix it. We noticed a lot of berries growing near the road and we all began to eat them. A farmer saw us and accused us of stealing his berries. He took out a warrant for my father. The trial was to be heard by a Justice of Peace in Skyland. My father employed a young lawyer by the name of Bob Reynolds. Bob Reynolds in later years became a U.S. Senator. The Justice of Peace office was too small to hold the crowd that came to the trial so it was held under a large oak tree outdoors. I heard that Bob gave a great speech to the crowd and the Justice of the Peace ordered my father just to pay the farmer a small amount for the berries. �The moral of this event is: Don’t eat wild berries beside an old road. You are liable to have more troubles than a stomach ache. School In 1911, I started school at Montford Avenue Grammar School. In 1922, I went to UNC-Chapel Hill for 2 days, and had to come home to run the pawnshop. In the February 1922 graduating class in Asheville High School, there were 5 boys and 14 girls. Therefore, each boy was expected to take 3 girls to the Senior Class Dance of February 1922. Things were better when we had a dance for the entire school. There were three Jewish girls in the total 1922 class — Madeline Blomberg, Eva Sternberg, and Ester Seigle. I was the only student to take an automobile to school in 1922. It was a Paige make with a “bathtub back” model. I was the business manager of the “Hillbilly,” the school monthly magazine. I was given any study hall period off that I wanted to collect for ads that appeared in the magazine, so I would take my auto and a girl to help me from the study hall. After collecting for one ad we would ride over to the Charlotte Street Drug Store and participate in ice cream sodas for the balance of the study hall period. Pisgah 1922 In reporting from my historical records on Lion Joe Sternberg, president of our club in 1960-61, I’ve talked about his father, old man Sternberg and Joe’s sister, Eva. I reported that Lion Joe and I were seniors in the 1922 class of Asheville High School. Now, Lion Joe’s mother, Mrs. Sternberg, phoned me and advised me that she was entertaining Joe and three other members of the 1922 class with a trip to the top of Mt. Pisgah. Eva graduated in 1921 but wanted to go with them. Her mother asked if I would like to go and look after Eva if she went, and I told her that I would be delighted. They all picked me up the next morning and Mrs. Sternberg drove us to the home of Mr. & Mrs. Rufus O’Kelly who lived at the base of Mt. Pisgah in her 7 passenger Mormon automobile. We had lunch of possum and sweet potatoes. There was one dirt road (one way) to the top of Mt. Pisgah, 5 miles long. An auto had to go up in the morning at daylight and was allowed to come down after 1 PM until dark. We hiked to a cleared section. Mr. O’Kelly chaperoned the trip and built us a large bonfire and was fixing something to eat. Eva was unpacking some things and I noticed a large bottle of Bromo-Seltzer. I asked if she expected someone to have a headache. She said, “No, I opened a pint bottle of father’s bottled whiskey, took half of it and filled the Bromo-Seltzer bottle. Now you and I can have a drink before we eat.” �“That’s a good idea,” I said, “but what is your father going to say when he finds out?” She said, “no problem. I filled the empty half of the whiskey bottle with water.” At nighttime she and I sat around the fire drinking a few drinks of Bromo-Seltzer. ----- On Sundays in 1925, the Jewish crowd of teenagers and somewhat older boys and girls would gather at the home of the Sternbergs on Victoria Road. The Sternbergs had four children: Eva, Joe, Johanna, and Rose. One of the older girls in the crowd was named Jennie. One day I asked her how she managed to be so popular among the boys, and her answer was, “Well, I’m not so pretty, but I’m catchie”. ----- I dated Eva and one night I called at the house to take her out and her father yelled to us from the second floor of the house “Don’t you go to no road houses,” and Eva replied “What’s the matter papa --- you afraid we are going to find you there!” William Jennings Bryan On July 7, 1896, William Jennings Bryan delivered the “Cross of Gold” speech and won the Democratic party nomination for Vice President of the United States. In 1900 he was nominated again for Vice President. In 1908 he was nominated for President of the United States. Later in life he moved to Asheville and his home was at the corner of Evelyn place and Kimberly Avenue--just a few houses away from where Lion Jack Cole now lives. Mr. Bryan asked by father to order him a special made double barrel Parker shot gun with 28" barrels modified and choke bores, and a 23/4 inch drop. After receiving the gun he wrote my father a letter of thanks. I had this letter in my historical files and it disappeared. Now I don’t know whether to blame it on the Democrats or Republicans. III. Asheville in the 1930's Prohibition’s Waning Days It was in 1933, after Franklin Roosevelt was elected president of the United States, that the Volstead Act was repealed and it became legal to sell beer with an alcoholic content on October 1st. I was president of a mens social club, and it became my duty to get beer to serve to the members. This was a difficult job as none was available from distributors around Asheville. 1933 was the year of the Great Depression and Rabbi Goodkowitz bought a second hand truck from Harry Blomberg and was doing some hauling on the side to supplement his income from Bikur - Cholim. Rabbi Goodkowitz said he would go to Baltimore and get us a load of beer as he personally knew the owner of the Valley Forge Beer Company there. I gave him six hundred dollars of the club’s money and he left on a Monday to be back on Thursday. He didn’t show up, but came in the following Monday. The delay was due to the truck breaking down on the trip. Of course I was somewhat concerned but the club had a truck load of Valley Forge Beer �available. Leo Cadison saw me and advised that he had talked to the United States Senator Robert R. Reynolds, and the members were starting a campaign to sell the beer before October lst. Captain Fred Jones of the Asheville Police Department and a member of the house committee said he would not recommend selling it before the legal date. At the club that week, I noted about 150 members were present instead of the usual 40. Under “good and welfare” Senator Reynolds, a great orator, spoke in favor of selling the beer and said that we were all brothers in a non-profit and charitable organization, and it would be legal to sell it. Others who spoke in favor of selling the beer were Judge Philip Cocke, State Senator; A. Hall Johnson, Superior Court Judge; Dan Hill, Postmaster; Marcus Erwin, U.S.Attorney; Zeb Mettles, Superior Court Judge; Charles McRae, local attorney; and Leo Cadison. Leo Cadison made a motion that we advise the House Manager to put the beer on ice so that we could drink it after the meting. I advised Mr. Cadison that I could not accept a motion of an illegal nature but under Robert’s Rules of Parliamentary procedure he could appeal my decision. He appealed and I advised that the question to be voted on would be “Shall the decision of the chair stand” and there would be no discussion. The vote was unanimous against my decision (which suited me) and I instructed the secretary to take everything out of the minutes pertaining to beer, also to advise the house manager to put the beer on ice so we could have it after the meeting. He said that it was too late to advise him because the beer had been on ice for the past two hours. How to Finance a Pawnshop in a Depression It was the Depression of the 1930's. Our loans averaged $10 and we made them as low as 50 cents. The demand was great on loans on diamonds and jewelry. The top loan on a ½ carat diamond was $50 and $200 on a good grade carat. I was running out of money. I saw Perry at the Morris Plan Bank and we agreed to rent a lock box at the Wachovia Bank. Both of us would have a key to it. I would hypothecate the large size diamond and jewelry loans. The ways that worked is I would make the loan, get the cash from Perry on a 90 day note, and put the jewelry in the lock box as security. If the customer came to redeem his jewelry I advised him that jewelry was at the vault at the Wachovia for safekeeping and I would get it for him. This was working very well as the bank was making the legal rate of 6% on 90 day notes which were paid in 30 to 40 days with no refund for unearned interest. I was doing OK also. I charged interest at legal rates plus other expenses incident to the negotiations of the transactions. Then Mr. Wolcott comes to town. He took over the Morris Plan Bank and organized the Bank of Asheville. Perry, the new cashier at the Bank of Asheville, came to see me and said, “Mr. Wolcott advised that the bank wasn’t a pawnshop and to tell Finkelstein to pay off those 90 day notes.” It ooked like I was going to have to stop making large jewelry loans and try to meet the 90 day note. �But a miracle happened. A girlfriend of mine in the 1922 class of Asheville High School married a man from Milwaukee, Wisconsin, who later committed suicide. She came back to Asheville to live. She saw me and wanted to know if I could help her out. She said she was left a sizeable amount of life insurance and did I know of a safe place where she could invest some of it and get a decent return. I helped her out. Police Chief Beavers On the program of the Asheville Lions Club on July 8, 1992, Chief of Police Beavers talked about prostitution in Asheville and how the APD was trying to cut the activity down. I believe there may be a better way to cut the activity down. In the year 1900 Asheville had a population of 14,694. My historical records indicate at that time the red light district was known as the Eagle Terrace and was operated by a lady known as “Queen Elizabeth.” There were no problems. The Banov family in Charleston, SC, are part of my kin folks. Doctor Banov was a health physician for Charleston County, SC for 35 years. That was the longest any county health physician stayed in office. In talking to him I found out that the red light district in Charleston, SC, was a large house known as the “Red Brick” on Bensford St. The prostitutes had to have a health certificate from a local doctor renewed every 90 days, frame it, and hang it on the wall by her bed. They had Police Protection. In 1933 I was president of a fraternal order in Asheville. I had a good friend, Lt. Frank Hagan of the local police dept. who was also a member. We decided to drive down to Charleston, SC, for a convention. While in Charleston he said that he would like to go to the “Red Brick” on Bensford Street and get information for the Asheville Police Dept. on how they operated. I asked him how he expected to get in the place. He said “Don’t worry, I’ll get us admitted.” We went down to the “Red Brick” and Frank knocked on the front door. A lady opened a peephole in the door to look at us and Frank said “Back again.” We were then admitted to a large living room with red curtains. We picked out two of the girls in the living room and invited them to have a seat with us and have a drink. The only drink available was a coca-cola and the cost was 25 cents per drink. We asked them if their services would be available to members of a convention and they said that they were. The cost of a short stay would be $3 and for $5 a client could spend the night. I gave the girls $3 each and advised them that all we wanted to do was talk and get information for the convention - they were completely satisfied. �Now why don’t we get Chief Beavers to get someone like “Queen Elizabeth” to rent a place like a small hotel, or a large home with red curtains, or a place suitable for a whorehouse like the “Red Brick” in Charleston, SC. Serve soft drinks and ice cream at reasonable prices and furnish police protection. He might even get Lion Penland and me to open a pawnshop next door so that if a man didn’t have enough money to finance his trip to the place, he could pawn his watch or his gun. Don’t think all this would be legal, but its a thought anyway. The Preacher and the Bible Back in the depression days of the 1930s there was a preacher who pawned his Bible every Monday morning after Sunday’s services and redeemed it on the following Friday or Saturday for the next service on Sunday. I made the original loan of $10 and advised the preacher that he could get it out at a charge of $1 anytime in 30 days or if needed he could wait three months at no additional charge. In checking the records I found that he had pawned the Bible weekly on many occasions. On the next Friday morning when he came after his Bible I told him he didn’t owe anything on it that he had paid more carrying charges that the original loan. I told him to put that $10 bill he had next to the Ten Commandments in the Bible and the next time he needed $10 to take it out and put it back in the Bible after Sunday’s service. Just don’t bring the Bible back here for a loan. He didn’t. Overcoats During the depression of 1933 the pawnshop had 800 overcoats left at the beginning of the summer. The loans were from $3 to $7 each, and 80% of the loans were past due. There was a problem of moths. We put mothballs in the pockets of all overcoats and sprayed them with DDT. After the overcoats became more than 3 months past due we had them dry cleaned. We made a contract with the cleaners to pick up and return lots of twenty at 50 cents each. The owner of the cleaning company came in the shop and said that he wanted to buy an overcoat for his chauffeur. He tried on one and liked it so much that he said he would keep it for himself and give his to his chauffeur. Murders in Pawnshops and Helping Sheriff L. Brown You have probably read in the Citizen-Times about Mark Lane who was killed in a shooting during an armed robbery. His father, Ronald Lane, and he were co-owners of the Leicester Pawn Shop. In a former historical report I talked about Reggie, secretary to the Mayor of Miami Beach, who helped our delegation get faster transportation back to Florida from the International Lions Convention in Havana, Cuba. Lion C.A. Miller was on that trip. Later Reggie’s brother was killed in a holdup in his pawnshop on Flager Street in Miami. A lot of people classify a pawnbroker as a shylock. Those pawnbrokers I have known are kind people and are a asset to �any community they operate in. Of course you can exclude me. In November 1934 Sheriff Lawrence Brown of Buncombe County came to see me and said that he needed help. Beacon Manufacturing Company at Swannanoa was having labor trouble and a group from South Carolina was coming up to prevent the employees from going to work. He wanted to rent twenty 12 gauge shotguns to be used by special deputies to guard the entrance to the plant. I rented him twenty 12 gauge Harrington, Richardson shotguns for $1 each. He was successful in guarding the plant and they never fired a shot. The sheriff phoned me and said that he wanted to bestow upon me the honor of being a deputy sheriff and to come over and bring a photo for an identification card. I told him I didn’t know anything about enforcing the law. He said that was okay, to come over and he would swear me in and take out insurance on me. I asked him if it was life insurance. He said, “No, it was liability insurance and if I did anything wrong as a deputy sheriff that they would furnish me legal assistance in court.” I was sworn in November 15, 1934. I got a phone call the next morning from Mr. Seely, Manager of the Grove Park Inn. He said that he needed a gun for his watchman, a 38 Saturday Night Special with a 4" barrel. Sheriff Brown told him I could supply what he wanted. I told him I had it in stock and he asked me to bring it out to the Inn. I got in my dilapidated Ford touring car, drove to the front entrance of the Inn and started to go in, when the Bell Captain stopped me. He asked “What are you doing here?” I replied “I have a gun for your watchman and Mr. Seely asked me to bring it out to him.” “Well,” he said, “you take that gun to the back door. They have a barrel of money back there and they will pay you for it.” This was during the depression of the 30's and I had quoted Mr. Seely top price, and I was going to do anything legal to complete the sale so I went to the back door. Now I am happy to announce that at the present time I am allowed to go in the front entrance to the Inn. Guns and a Grandfather Clock A friend of mine had a valuable antique clock about 6 feet tall. He said that he was leaving home for a month and there was a lot of larceny going on. He would like to leave it with me for safekeeping. I told him to put it in the storage area on the second floor of the shop. A couple of days later a customer comes in and wants to buy a shotgun. It was summer �time and since hunting season didn’t open until fall I wondered why he wanted a shotgun. My salesman said all the shotguns and shells were stored on the second floor and he would take the customer up there. A little later I heard a big loud bang from the second floor. The salesman came running down and said that the customer had committed suicide with a shotgun. I called the Police Department and Dr. Baer, the coroner. Will Hampton, solicitor of police court and the chief came over. I went to the second floor with them and we found the customer passed out on the floor. I didn’t see any blood and upon examination we found part of his clothing blown away under one arm and he wasn’t injured. It’s almost impossible to reach the trigger of a 31" barrel shotgun when you have the muzzle at your chest. Evidently the customer must have tried to reach the trigger and the muzzle slipped under his arm when the gun fired. I remembered the grandfather clock and found that the discharge from the gun blew some of the plaster out of the wall about a foot from the clock. The clock was okay. Dr. Baer asked for a pen. He said that he wanted to find out if the man really passed out. He jabbed him several times with a pen and the man didn’t move. He really passed out. The chief said that the man had violated a law and he would take charge of him. The lesson from this event is: Don’t try to commit suicide - if you do you are liable to get arrested. The Silver Shirts In the 1930's William Dudley Pelly operated the “Silver Shirts,” a Nazi like organization in a building across the street from the Jewish Community Center on Charlotte Street. He published the “Liberation Weekly,” anti-Semitic literature with a circulation of eight thousand. In a parade, I was playing the saxaphone with the Asheville Shrine Club Marching Band, and William Rosenfelt was carrying the American Flag. Pelly in his “Liberation Weekly” published a story that we were disgraced by a Jew with a big nose carrying the American Flag. Pelly was arrested by the Buncombe County Sheriff’s Department in 1941 for selling unregistered stock. He was found guilty through the efforts of Julius Levitch, a young Jewish lawyer by the name of Alvin Kurtus, and a local attorney named R.R. Williams. IV. I Am A Dime I was born in the early part of the twentieth century at the United States Mint in Philadelphia, put in a roll with forty-nine other dimes and shipped to the Southern State Bank on Depot Street in Asheville, North Carolina, of which Mr. S. Sternberg was president. Mr. Sternberg had a son, Joseph, who later became president of the Asheville Lions Club. Mr. Sternberg took me and the forty-nine other dimes to his beautiful estate on Victoria Road in order to participate in a ten cent limit poker game with some of his friends. Someone �tipped off the police that a game was going on. The home was raided and Mr. Sternberg gave the names of the players as Mr. Aleph, Mr. Baze, Mr. Gimmel, Mr. Dolad, Mr. Hay, Mr. Vove, Mr. Zion and Mr. Hess. The “Asheville Citizen” carried a story after the trial that an attorney appeared in Police Court for Mr. Aleph, Mr. Baze, Mr. Gimmel, Mr. Dolad, Mr. Hay, Mr. Vove, Mr. Zion and Mr. Hess and paid their fines. Very few people knew that Aleph, Baze, Gimmel, Dolad, Hay, Vove, Zion, and Hess are the first eight letters of the Hebrew Alphabet. I got separated from the other dimes that came to Asheville with me. I found myself in the pocket of Chief Bernard of the Asheville Police Department. It was in November, 1906, that the Chief phoned Uncle Harry, the pawnbroker, and said that ne needed firearms and ammunition to equip a posse of fifty men in order to hunt Will Harris, a desperado. Will Harris had shot and killed five men, of whom two were city policemen. Uncle Harry furnished the posse with guns and ammunition, taking only the names of those receiving firearms. It was reported that Will Harris spent the night in a barn in Buena Vista. The posse surrounded him in a field near Fletcher and killed him. His body was brought to an undertaking establishment at 21 South Main Street, and hung out of the second story window in the building in order to show the people that he had been killed and quieten them down. The next day, the Chief called Uncle Harry and asked if all the firearms had been returned. Uncle Harry said they had and commented that the people of Asheville were honest and good citizens. (Now, Thomas Wolfe, famous author and native of Asheville used this event for a story published in the Saturday Evening Post September 7, 1937. He also used it in a chapter in his book “The Child by Tiger.” 2 Bob Terrell, writer for the Citizen-Times talked about this event at one of our meetings. In 1968 the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms in Washington required a record of every pistol, rifle, revolver that we received and disposed of, as well as the model, caliber, serial number and manufacturer. I recently checked the shop that I retired from 25 years ago and they have records of 33,000 transactions since 1968 on hand.) The Chief took me to Mr. Pappa’s Cafe on South Main Street, bought his lunch which consisted of a ten cent bowl of soup, a good supply of free crackers and catsup. Mr. Pappa’s brother operated the “Candy Kitchen” on Haywood Street. They were making a lot of stick candy in the shape of walking sticks, colored red and white. The cafe owner bought a half dozen walking sticks from his brother, using me as part payment. He said that he was going to put the candy on his Christmas tree. The next day Mr. Pappas, who lived on North Main Street, was coming to town in a rain storm. North Main Street was paved but all side streets were not. They had stepping stones in order to get across. Mr. Pappas slipped on a stepping stone, getting his shoes all muddy. He stopped at the Pack Square Shoe Shine Parlor, got a shoe shine for five cents and gave the shine boy a five cent tip. The next thing I knew I was placed in a deposit for the Wachovia Bank and I stayed in their vault until the year 1913. Uncle Harry picked me up to use in his petty cash. His son asked for his weekly allowance and I was given to him with four other dimes. The son boarded a South Main Street streetcar on Pack Square with a fishing pole and a can of worms. He got off 2 Move note here on Thomas Wolfe etc. �at the Swannanoa River and walked a hundred yards toward the French Broad. In a couple of house, he caught a nice string of hog suckers, horney heads and perch out of the beautiful clear waters of the Swannanoa River. On his way home, he gave me to the conductor, received five cents change and a transfer to the North Main streetcar in order to go home. The Conductor carried me around a few days and then gave me to a lady on the Riverside “open air” streetcar that ran to Riverside Park. Riverside Park was owned an operated by the Asheville Power and Light Co., the same people who owned the street car company that was finally gobbled up by Lion Smith’s Carolina Power and Light Co. This lady gave me to her husband who went down to the Elk’s Club and lost me in a rummy game to a distinguished looking attorney they called “Judge Cocke.” After the card game the “judge” sat around talking to brother Elks and drinking beer. He was famous for his knowledge of North Carolina, its people and places. He even talked about the house of ill repute in Asheville at the turn of the century known as the “Eagle Terrace” run by a lady called “Queen Elizabeth.” The next morning, Attorney Cocke defended a man in Police Court who was charged with stealing a pair of shoes and pawning them because he couldn’t wear them on account of being too small. The court ordered the man to leave town that day. The man said he was hungry and didn’t have any money. So Attorney Cocke gave me with other change to him. The man went down to the Asheville and East Tennessee Railway Company station at the corner of North Main and College Streets. They operated an electric vehicle between Asheville and Weaverville. The man smelled hot dogs cooking at D. Gross’s Hot Dog Stand next door, so he spent me for a hot dog and a coca-cola. Mr. Gross raised and educated a family of thirteen children from the money he earned at his hot dog stand. Mr. Gross carried me around until Saturday night when he went to Liggett’s Drug Store for some headache powders. He stopped in front of the drug store to listen to the Salvation Army band while they were having a preaching and musical session. He put me in a pot they were using to get donations for their annual Christmas party. The Salvation Army bought a second-hand truck from Lion Fred Brown to be used in delivering food and clothing to the poor people in town. I was used in this transaction. Lion Brown took me to a Lions Club meeting, where he used me to pay the dime he was fined by the “Tail Twister” for falling asleep during the program. The Tail Twister’s wife took possession of me and bought some ribbon at the Palais Royal, a large department store on South Main Street, operated by Mr. Morris Myers. I circulated around Asheville until 1918, and again, found myself in possession of Mr. Sternberg. He had a large junk yard and warehouse on Depot Street that bought and sold hundreds of cowhides. On all of his advertisements he carried the slogan “We buy anything and sell everything.” A circus came to town and didn’t have enough money to leave. They applied to Mr. Sternberg who was president of the Southern States Bank on Depot Street for a loan of $200. Mr. Sternberg made the loan and took the elephant as collateral. He complained he was losing money on account of the elephant eating so much. Otto Buseck who owned Middlemont Gardens at that time raised his own flowers at a hot house in Candler. He helped Mr. Sternberg out with the elephant - he bought the manure from him. The next thing I recall was four o’clock on the morning of November 11, 1918. The fire bell started to ring at the firehouse. The Armistice of World War I had been signed. People �gathered on Pack Square and built a huge bonfire. A fire truck came out of the firehouse to shine its spot light on the American flag flying at the top of the Pack Square flag pole. People were bringing their guns from home to the Square and shooting live ammunition into the air in celebration. The fellow who owned me brought a double-barrel shotgun to town and bought some black powder shells from Otis Green Hardware Store. (Mr. Green years later became Mayor of Asheville). The Chief of Police soon asked all stores selling ammunition to quit selling it as he was afraid someone would accidentally get shot. Mr. Green took me to the Southern Railway passenger station and bought a ticket to New York from Pat Mulvaney, ticket agent. Frank Mulvaney, a brother to Pat, was a chief clerk for the railroad. He later became councilman for the City of Asheville. Pat took me to the Union News Company’s news stand in the station and bought two five cent cigars. Later an engineer from the railroad bought a “Billboard” magazine, and I was given to him in change for a dollar. He took me to the Glen Rock Hotel across the street, and I was used in paying his bill. The clerk at the hotel bought some ice cream at Finley’s Drug Store next door. Mr. Finley gave me to his son, Bob, who took me to Montford Avenue School. Bob in later years became the Supreme Court Justice for the State of Washington. Bob, on leaving Montford Avenue School one day, took me to Mr. Book’s Grocery Store on Cherry Street and bought some cookies. The people across the street from Mr. Book’s Grocery Store had a lot of cherry trees on their land and they would pay boys from the school ten cents a quart to pick cherries. Lion Carol Rhinehart picked a quart of cherries and received me in payment. Lion Carl Rhinehart lost me in a marble game at school to Jack Roberts, who took me home to 219 North Main Street. A creek ran parallel to North Main Street and emptied into the French Broad. Jack found muskrats were running up and down the creek, so he recruited some of the neighborhood boys who acquired steel traps and caught and sold the muskrat hides to St. Penick and Company, at the corner of North Main and Lexington. The next thing I recall I was in the pants pocket of Lion Bill Michalove, who took me to the Galaxy Theater on Pack Square in order to see a serial movie called “The Black Hand.” Bill’s brother, Dan, was manager of the Asheville Theaters, and he finally became Vice President of Paramount Pictures, with headquarters in Australia. Since Bill had an “in” at the theaters in town, he would, on occasion, take his teen-age boy friends back stage at the Majestic Theater, located at the corner of College and Market Streets, to view the chorus girls at close range. Tommy Elkins, the stage manager, would keep a close watch on the boys in order to see that they behaved themselves. It was in 1922 when I was used as part payment for a second hand Jeffery automobile bought by Harry Blomberg. Harry took his Jeffery Auto to Asheville High School on Oak Street. Someone dropped me on Market Street and I rolled down a storm sewer. I stayed there for a long time and one day a man from the city’s water department found me and used me in a donation to the Democratic Party of Buncombe County. The chairman of the Party put me in a 10 cents slot machine at a social club. �The player who won me at the slot machine would always put me back, hoping to win more. I circulated in and out of the slot machine until 1950, when Lion Dr. Feldman won me. Dr. Feldman had a reputation of never buying anything unless he could get it wholesale. Dr. Feldman put me in the zipper change section of his pocketbook, and now I haven’t seen the light of day for twenty years. V. Jewish Jitter Bugs3 A bug is an insect. A Jitter Bug is an insect that jumps from place to place. A Jewish Jitter Bug is a professional bum, claiming Jewish faith— jumping around from city to city — living off the sympathy of his misinformed brothers - other Jews. For twenty years, I have seen this bunch of crooks take from $300 to $400 a year out of my community. I have learned their stories, their approach, their methods, and in fact, I can tell one just by the sight of him. I have seem them go north in the summer-time, and south in the wintertime. I have been awakened at all hours of the night by them, tracked down on Sundays and holidays. I have to put up with them coming in my place of business, with no courtesy to me, or respect for my customers. I have to watch them go away most always with a dissatisfied growl for what help they get, and seldom do I hear a “Thank You”. I have to battle their high-powered maneuvers of artistic chiseling without the help or appreciation of the Jewish Community in which I live. Who are these people? Why, they are Jews — sure, they are a bunch of professional racketeers that cost the Jewish public about one million dollars per year. If a Jew gets to a city and is broke - why, the other Jews are supposed to help him out. What he is or what he does or where he comes from - don’t make any difference - as long as he is a Jew that is all that is necessary. That is what you might think — but I don’t! There is not one Jewish transient in five hundred worthy of any help at all. They travel from place to place using the fact that they are Jews to prey upon other Jews. Many of them are ex-convicts, some just ordinary bums, and all of them liars. In this army of rogues, you will not find one who has a friend or relative who they could obtain help from. I have offered to wire to any person for hundreds of them, but they will tell ;you that all their friends or relatives are broke, or that they wouldn’t think of asking any of them for money. Common sense will tell you that, if a transient is worthy, there must be someone in this world who will help him to some extent. I am sure if any of you gentlemen were to find yourself broke in some far off place, that you would have at least one friend or relative to whom you could wire for help. These swindlers don’t want to get help from friends or relatives. They are just traveling around, enjoying life in a peculiar way, and living on the Jewish public, their so-called brothers. So, when these Jewish Brothers of ours come to town, what are we supposed to do with them? The only sensible thing we can do is to get rid of them as quickly and as cheaply as possible. The most common type of transient is the ordinary bum who claims that he has a job in a nearby city. All he wants from you is a couple of meals in a good restaurant, a room with a bath in a clean hotel, transportation to the place he is going, and maybe a pair of shoes, a couple of shirts and an overcoat. In order to get rid of this man quickly you must start talking before he does. So when I spot one, I start talking first. I ask him if he wants some help, and as soon as he says “Yes” I hand him a half-dollar, a meal ticket to a nearby restaurant, and tell him to get the hell out of town as fast as he can. Most of them will take this and leave because they know, through their grapevine system, that this is all they can get. 3 Cite reference �This system even informs them where to go to when you get to a town, and that is why nobody see the majority of these people, except myself. Some of them insist that they have a special story to tell you about their hard luck, and that they re different from the rest. These stories would make some of you break down and weep, but to me these stories are just a bunch of fabricated lies. Then, we have the group of transients who are physically disabled. Some are partially blind and crippled. They will claim to have tuberculosis, nervous indigestion, high blood pressure or what-not. Some will claim to have a combination or complication of diseases, or an assortment of ailments. If I am convinced that the transient is really ill, then I buy him transportation to the nearest point, and get him out of town as fast as I can. These people are never given cash for their transportation. A check is written to the Bus Station for their ticket, and the Bus Station has instructions to issue a ticket stamped “No Refund”. This method was adopted after I found out some cashed their tickets back in, in order to get cash, and bummed rides out on the highway to get to where they were going. A decent looking, elderly lady once appealed to me for help. She stated that she was almost blind, and was traveling with her son who was so crippled he couldn’t walk. She told me that she and her son had come in on a bus late the night before, and were at a small hotel near the bus station. She advised me that her son was ill in bed, that she was out of funds, could not pay her hotel bill, had nothing to eat, and no way to get to a nearby city where her son was going to enter a hospital. “A worthy case, at last!” I thought. I took her name, and ask her to come back in an hour, and I would see what I could do for her. I inquired at the hotel, and found that nobody by the name she gave me was there. I asked her about this when she returned, and she said that she did not use her real name since it was Jewish, and she didn’t want people to think she was Jewish. I called the hotel again and inquired about the new name she had given me, and the hotel informed me that the two of there were register there, but that her son seemed healthy, and was in and out of the hotel all day long. Asking her about this, she explained that her son went out only when he had to go to the drug store for medicine. It was cold and raining outside, so I called the hotel, and told them I would pay their bill, gave her enough for food, bought her two bus tickets, and gave her instructions to get out of town, by night without fail. It wasn’t long before I received a phone call from a Jewish person in town stating that this old lady had called on him, and pe proceeded to cuss me out for not giving her any help. To make a long story short--she called on three more persons in the city with the same story - that I would not help her. A couple of hours later I went by the hotel where she was staying and found that she had checked out and left in her room many pieces of clothing that had been given to her by these people she had called on in the city. Then we have the rabbis. They are a wonderful type of transient to deal with. They usually get to town on Friday, so you have to keep them over “shabbos”. That means an expense of two nights lodging and meals for a whole day. In fact, all the transients who arrive on Friday are “very religious” and won’t travel on Friday night or Saturday. I’ve had many rabbis promise to send me back the money I gave them, and never yet has one of them sent back a penny. In fact, of the hundreds of promises that I’ve had from all kinds of transients to return money given them, never has one kept his promise. The president of the orthodox congregation once phoned me, and told me that a rabbi was at this house m and that this rabbi was a very fine person, a scholar, and a gentleman, a man is in need, and suggested that I give him $5. I was just ready to leave my house, and I informed the president that I did not have time to interview the rabbi myself, but that if he thought the man was worthy, to give him $5, and I would return that amount to him later. I happened to pass by the president’s house just as the rabbi was leaving there, and I took a good look at him. The next morning, the same rabbi was at my place of business, wanting to know if I took care of the Jewish transients. He wasn’t a rabbi anymore, and he had changed his name. I told him to come along with me, and I would take him to the man who could help him. He got into the front seat of my automobile, and wanted to know where we were going, and when I told him we were going to see the president of the orthodox congregation, he jumped out and ran. I ran after him, and caught him on Patton Avenue. He started yelling like I was going to murder him, and a crowd started to gather, so I let him go, and he ran away again. I haven’t seen him since. �Another Rabbi once appealed to me for help, and he claimed to be a brother-in-law of the rabbi in Greenville, SC. Knowing the rabbi in Greenville personally, I didn’t believe he would send a brotherin-law of his out of the state to chisel the public, so I phoned long distance to inquire about the man. The rabbi in Greenville informed me that this transient had worried the community there a couple of days before, that he was no relation of his, but claimed to be a brother-in-law of the rabbi in Columbia. This man’s system was to claim relationship to a rabbi in a nearby city, in order to get help. I gave him $.50 and a meal ticket, and told him to get out of town before dark. He didn’t leave, instead he called on other Jews in the city with the same story, and collected around $5 by noon the next day. I finally contacted him, and told him again to get out of town, which he refused to do. So, I had the police department pick him up, and put him in jail. In about an hour, I went over, and talked to him in jail, and he changed his tune quite a bit. He was ready to leave town, so we let him out and this time I gave him fifteen minutes to disappear--and he did! Another rabbi once called on me, and stated that he was a representative of a Jewish institution somewhere in Europe, and wanted a donation for it. I explained to him that we had a Federated Jewish charities here to help him, and he would have to make his request through them. He kept insisting that I give him a donation personally, and I kept refusing him. He finally gave up, proceeded to cut me out in Yiddish, in a extremely loud voice — and this wasn’t all — he spit on the floor, slammed the door as hard as he could as he went out. I felt like killing him, and I think it would have been justifiable homicide. I could tell you many tales of my experiences with these human vultures, but one I remember in particular, was the time when a local judge phoned me, and told me that he would have to try a young boy by the name of Goldberg for vagrancy. He asked me to recommend to him what to do with the boy. I went over to see the defendant, and he happened to be one of the transients I had helped a few days before. He had ordered a sandwich at a small restaurant on the outskirts of town, refused to pay for it, so the restaurant man had him arrested. I told the judge of my experiences with the Jewish transients and asked him to make an example out of this boy, so he gave him thirty days on the road. In sentencing the boy, the judge told him that from now on every Jewish transient that was brought before him would get a road sentence. Then I really got criticized by the Jewish community for putting Jewish Boys on the Chain-gang. I was shown a copy of his criminal record from the FBI a few days later. He had been convicted of all kinds of offenses from stealing a bicycle to highway robbery. After the boy got out, he came to see me again, and feeling sorry for him, I bought him a ticket to Charlotte, and informed him that I would see that every transient from now on coming into Asheville would get a road sentence. Before that time, we had from ten to thirty transients per month appealing for help. It was interesting to note that we didn’t have another transient come into Asheville, for six weeks after the boy left, and for a long time after that, appeals for help were 50% of what they had been before that. It is my sincere recommendation that every Jewish transient, coming into Asheville, be put in jail for a certain length of time. This is the only way to cure this evil. Of course, the Jewish community wouldn’t stand for anything like that, they would rather give these damned hoodlums a few hundred dollars every year. Then, we have the transients coming through in family groups. These groups consist of a mother and father, with one or more children. They usually arrive in a dilapidated old automobile. Most of the time, the automobile needs some repairs before they can leave town in it; it never has any gasoline and usually needs a couple of quarts of oil. These parties are expensive and hard to handle, because you can hardly send small children on their way without a night’s sleep and proper food. Of course, I have some deserving cases, but I don’t class these with the transients. For instance, a man once came in to see me, with the story that he had tuberculosis, and he had come down here from Detroit as his doctor had recommended this climate to him. He expected to get a job as an elevator boy, or something of the sort, and he was under the impression that the climate here would cure him while he worked. Well, the man was broke, and was waiting for some financial help from his brother whom he had written a few days before. I gave the man $4 and he promised to pay me back as soon as he heard �from his brother. He came back the next day. He had heard from his brother. He showed me the letter and his brother enclosed $10 which was all that he could send. He told me that he was unable to find work, and was going to start back for Detroit. He offered me the $4 I had given him. I asked him how he expected to get back to Detroit on $7, and he told me that he would have to hitch-hike. I told him to keep the $4, and wish him the best of luck, and while I am not a doctor, I was under the opinion from his looks that his health would never permit him to hitch-hike back home and get there alive. So for twenty years, I have dealt with the bunch of beggars, coming from North, South, East, and West. They have become a part of my life, and if I could get out of this job right now, I am sure I would miss this horde of gangsters that hop around from place to place like a bunch of grasshoppers in a clover patch. VI. War Years4 Pilot on 023 On admission to the Air Force in 1943 I was interviewed as to what activity I had in a business or profession, also what experience I had in religious, fraternal or civic affairs. I told them I was just a clerk in a pawnshop. I didn’t tell them that I once: was president of a cemetery. was an owner of a company that built floats and decorated the town for the first Rhododendron Festival in Asheville. supplied the Asheville Police Dept. and the Sheriff’s Dept. with guns and ammunition. I didn’t tell them anything about my civic, fraternal, religious or social activities. I was sent to Tishomingo, Oklahoma for training in the Oklahoma State College for Agriculture to be an air force clerk in engineering. After graduating from the clerk’s school in Tishomingo, I felt I would have an easy life in the Air Force being an engineering clerk. But my duties from Tishomingo to the islands in the South Pacific were: kitchen police mess hall fireman mess hall garbage director cleaning chickens policing grounds digging ditches hauling poles hauling fire wood hauling coal fighting forest fires 4 . A more complete account of Leo Finkelstein’s experiences during World War II is found in his Letters from Leo: Letters to the Asheivlle Lion’s Club (Center for Appalachian Studies: Appalachian State University, Boone, NC, 1996) �assorting merchandise at warehouse assorting salvage merchandise smashing tin cans hauling water finance clerk detail clerk runner for headquarters stacking lumber cleaning rifles and machine guns building roads repairing bridges laying concrete operating gasoline pump telephone operator making inventories of supplies acting C.Q. pulling weeds and grass watering trees loading and unloading trucks loading and unloading freight cars loading barracks bags on boats and trucks cleaning hatches on boats latrine orderly painting machinery communications clerk and finally engineering clerk for the 394th Squadron, 5th bomb group of the 13th Air Force. Getting a good grade on my education at Tishomingo and experience in travel to the South Pacific I thought I was ready to do my job. My first difficulty was when A pilot comes in to see me after a combat mission on a B-24 Bomber number 023 and said that he failed to put on his reporting form #Y that the tachometer indicator occilates excessively, would I please write it in the form for him. I told him I would. You know, I didn’t know what the h--- he was talking about and I couldn’t even spell it. Tokyo Rose Tokyo Rose was an American girl broadcasting from a radio station in Japan during World War II. Her broadcast was received by the 13th Air Force in the Admiralty Islands located �in the South Pacific area. She played recorded American music in her broadcast. She advised us that our wives and sweethearts were dating the 4 F’s - the men who stayed out of military service and they would go to drive inns for hamburgers and coca-colas. She also said that the Japanese would be waiting for our B-24 bombers scheduled for a mission in the morning with anti-aircraft guns and fighter planes. Radios were scarce on the island. I wanted to listen to Tokyo Rose so I wrote home and requested a small radio to be shipped to me. They advised that the smallest radio weighed too much to be shipped overseas by parcel post but they would take it apart and ship it in two packages which was acceptable at the post office. The radio department of the 5th Bomb Group said they would be glad to put the radio together for me. When I received the shipment in two packages I gave it to them. They repaired it the best they could. I found that when I turned it on it would work for about a minute and then quit receiving. They couldn’t find the trouble. One day I took a screw driver, tightened all the screws and thought I found the trouble. I put the radio on the table in the tent, started it receiving and in one minute it stopped. I was disgusted - I hit the radio, knocked it off the table. It hit the floor, bounced about 2 feet and started playing. It was okay from then on. In about a week Captain Gardner in the engineering department sent word that he wanted to see me as soon as possible. I thought I had fouled up on keeping his engineering records but he had this to say: Corporal Finkelstein we are having trouble repairing the radio on airplane No. 022 and we understand that you are the only one in the 394th Squadron that can solve our problem. Will you help us? I forgot what I said, but I couldn’t figure out how to knock an airplane off the table. Topless Women Now if you read the morning paper, you noticed headlines on the front page: “Topless Night Club Opens in Asheville.” Well, you didn’t need a night club to see topless women on those South Pacific Islands during WWII. The trouble was they would move all the women to another island close by the island we occupied. We built a motor boat made of two airplane belly tanks and a small power unit so that we could go over and see the women at another island. I didn’t go over to see the women. I wasn’t afraid of them, but I was afraid the boat might sink. �Sergeant Joe In 1944, Sergeant Joe, the mess sergeant in my outfit in the 13th Air Force located in the South Pacific during World War II, received a shipment of canned corn. Instead of using it for chow, he built a still in a fox hole and made corn whiskey out of it. Joe ran a road house in Greenville, South Carolina before the war and in a neighborly spirit he invited me to drink what I wanted of the corn whiskey and he helped me trade watch bands for coca-cola syrup and ice cream from a Navy C.B. outfit located near by. After the war, he operated his road house in Greenville again. He came to see me and advised that they had arrested his partner for hauling whiskey in Buncombe County and wanted to know if I could help him. I told him that I knew the Chief of Police and Sheriff Brown and I would be glad to see what the situation was. He told me they couldn’t help as it was the Federal authorities that arrested his partner. Thinking of how to get him a light sentence I asked Joe if his partner was in the armed forces and he said that they had turned him down because he has a heart murmur. I told Joe to send him to Dr. Feldman and I’d get the report from him as to his heart murmur. Dr. Feldman told me he had a heart murmur and as Federal Physician he would advise Judge Warlick about in federal court. At the trial Joe’s partner went scott free. Later he came to see me with a roll of hundred dollar bills and wanted to pay me for getting him off. I refused the money and told him that Joe had helped me out during the war and what I did was a favor to Joe. Later he brought me six fifths of Scotch for a present, which I kept. While overseas, besides having corn whiskey made by Joe and medical alcohol diluted 50% by water and flavored with burnt sugar, we were able to buy bonded whiskey from the flying personnel who didn’t drink their ration. Price was $60 per fifth. They were looking for souvenirs so I wrote Nat Friedman to send me a Japanese hare-kari knife from his antique store. He sent me a similar one. It was a circular shape Turkish knife with Turkish letters on it. My cost was $4. It looked like a hare-kari knife. I gave it to Sergeant Joe and asked him to see if he could trade for a Fifth of bonded whiskey. He reported later that he got two fifths for it. Sgt. Smokey Joe’s home is just a little bit south of Asheville, NC. He was mess sergeant for the 394th squadron, a good guy, and a GI who could sympathize with all the other GI’s who had to eat the food he prepared. Before the war Smokey Joe owned a road house on the highway going south from Asheville and after talking to him I found that I had patronized his institution on numerous occasions during my younger years. Since we were practically neighbors in civilian life, we felt that we should continue over there as good neighbors and so we were. There is no better friend in the army than a cook because when you get hungry, he is the only man who can help you out. In passing I might mention that Smokey Joe, Starvin Marvin and I have on numerous instances enjoyed eating surplus stocks of food from the Mess Hall. Smokey Joe told me about Sheriff Brown, in Asheville, taking his automobile away from him once because the sheriff had found some whiskey in it that he was transporting to his road house. �Now Smokey is fighting to get his freedom - his freedom to go home and dodge Sheriff Brown some more, and there is Starvin Marvin who wants to go home and see his wife and two year old boy, a child that he has never seen, and so it is with me - I want to go home - I just want to go home. VII. After the War Sgt. Smokey Joe After the war Smokey Joe opened his road house again near Greenville, SC. He came to see me and advised that they had arrested his partner for hauling whiskey in Buncombe County and wanted to know if I could help him out. I told him I knew the Chief of Police and Sheriff Brown and I would be glad to see what the situation was. He told me they couldn’t help as it was the Federal Authorities that arrested his partner. Thinking of how to get him a light sentence, I asked Joe if his partner was in the armed forces and he said that they had turned him down because he had a heart murmur. I told Joe to send his partner to Lion Dr. Feldman who was Federal Physician and I would get a report from him as to his heart murmur. Lion Dr. Feldman told me he had a heart murmur and as a Federal Physician he would advise Judge Warlick about it in Federal Court. At the trial, Joe’s partner got a suspended sentence. Later he came to see me with a roll of hundred dollar bills and wanted to pay me for getting him off. I refused the money and told him that Joe had helped me out during the war and what I did was a favor to Joe. Later he brought me six fifths of scotch for a present which I kept. Corn Whiskey at Road House Before the war, road houses would hide the corn whiskey they served their guests in a container under a bed. When the sheriff’s dept. would raid the joint, they usually wouldn’t look for it there. One night they found it and an article appeared in the Asheville Citizen that the sheriff’s dept. confiscated a gallon of whiskey hid in a container at a road house. J im Dwelbiss and Beaver Lake Returning home from World War II, I was interested in building a house to live in. Jim Dwelbiss, president of the Asheville Lions Club 1941-1942, said that he had a lot across the street from his home on Westwood Road in Lakeview Park and if I would build a one story house so he could see Beaver Lake over the roof of my house, he would give me a good deal. I acquired the lot and built the house. He told me that as a resident of Lakeview Park I should take on some activity for the benefit of the park. He took me to the annual meeting of the property owners and I was elected as one of the three commissioners - no salary. When I met with the other two commissioners they told me I �had charge of the lake and fishing and they would back me up in anything I wanted to do. I got phone calls. I got a phone call from a resident and he says “Stop the fishing, the fish are diseased.” I contacted the game warden from the NC Wildlife Resources Commission and we found a service station by the creek that furnished the lake with water that had put old oil from automobiles in it and it had killed a few fish. I get a phone call from a lady that an awful looking man wearing overalls was fishing. I asked her did she expect him to wear a tuxedo. I get a call advising that two women indecently dressed were near the dam of the lake. I found them to be the wives of the two commissioners sun bathing. I found two men swimming in the lake, which was against the rules. They told me they would swim and that I couldn’t stop them. I told them to swim if they wanted to and that a sewer line had broken and was emptying in the lake and would probably get typhoid fever - they stopped swimming. I found a group of women in bathing suits at the lake near Glenn Falls Road with a photographer. I found them to be local beauticians getting their picture with the lake in the background. They were using the picture on a cover of a program for a State Convention of Beauticians in Asheville. Fishing in the lake was allowed for licensed property owners only. I saw a man standing at the edge of the lake for 30 minutes just looking. On investigation I found he had a line tied to his belt that ran down the inside of his pants leg over his shoe into the lake. On the line he had a float and a baited hook. When the fish would bite and pull the float under he would kick his leg, hang the fish, pull it in and nobody would know he was fishing. I appreciated what Lion Dwelbiss had done by getting me elected to be fish commissioner of Beaver Lake. But I got a call that I was going to be elected president of Congregation Beth-Ha-Tephila and that construction would be started soon on a temple at Liberty and Broad Sts. I thought I could use some religion so I didn’t run again for commissioner of Lakeview Park and I took up my duties as president of Beth-Ha-Tephila. I completed the building of financing of the new temple in two years. I was tired out and hoped that maybe I could get some rest by being fish commissioner again at Beaver Lake. Sternberg Hunting Rats �Joe Sternberg was president of the Lion’s Club in 1960-61. His father Seigfred Sternberg, came over to the U.S. at the turn of the century, procured a horse and wagon, drove around western North Carolina buying cowhides and junk. He finally opened a junk yard on Depot Street and became one of the largest cowhide dealers in the United States. Lion Joe was my classmate in the A.H.S. class of 1922. He would rent a freight car on the local freight train to Murphy and buy cowhides at the stations where the train stopped. I was watch inspector for the Southern Railway and would travel on the same train, give the employees a certificate that in my opinion the watch they had wouldn’t vary over 30 seconds a week. Going west you could go as far as Waynesville by auto and then by train to Murphy. Lion Joe Dave, president of the club in 1932, was construction engineer for the Sternberg Co. who supplied steel for the construction of buildings. Later he organized the Dave Steel Co. Old man Sternberg did well financially and became president of the Southern State Bank on Depot St. He became active in religious and fraternal affairs in Asheville. He built a big home on Victoria Drive. He didn’t like the help he was getting in Asheville so he imported a young beautiful maid from Germany. The maid went down to get an item at the garage and found Mr. Sternberg there. Mr. Sternberg got fresh with the maid, the maid picked up a 22 caliber rifle and shot him. The wound wasn’t serious. The next morning a news item appeared in the Asheville Citizen with the head line: “Sternberg Hunting Rats in the Garage.” Irving S. Cobb and Grove Park Inn About sixty years ago my friend Fred Bradley was night clerk at Grove Park Inn. He would tell me about the operation of the Inn. A guest would find his home town newspaper at his breakfast table. If he paid for anything, what change, if needed, would be given to him in uncirculated money. The only entrance to the Inn’s grounds was a large gate off of Macon Ave. The gate was closed at 10 PM as the noise from any automobile going in and out would disturb the guests. Irving S. Cobb, famous humorist, was spending a couple of days at the Inn. A little after ten o’clock one night he tried to get his auto into the Inn’s grounds. He found the gate locked. He had to park his car on Macon Avenue. He walked to the Inn and complained loudly about it. He was advised that the Inn didn’t welcome any unusual noises after 10 PM. In a little while he came down to the lobby from his �room carrying his shoes, nothing on his feet but his socks, walked very quietly to Fred Bradley, the night clerk, and whispered to him “I want to check out.” In a couple of days a news item appeared in the Asheville Citizen written by Irving Cobb with the headline: “The Bunk of Buncombe.” Read news article from Citizen-Times on suicide This reminded me of a historical event years ago when I was selling guns. A customer said he wanted an inexpensive pistol to keep in his home and he just obtained a permit to buy it. I sold him a 22 cal. Iver Johnson pistol. This type gun was later known as a “Saturday Night Special.” When I completed the sale I said “Thank you mister.” He said “Don’t call me mister, I’m a doctor. You call me doctor.” I said, “Thank you doctor.” He took the gun home and committed suicide with it. Now: I got to thinking if he bought the gun today he would have to make application to get a permit and wait two or three days for the permit to be issued. Maybe if he had to wait that long for a permit, he might have changed his mind about the suicide. Then: As a doctor I wondered why he didn’t write a prescription for some high powered sleeping pills, take several of them and just go to sleep and not wake up. I think I got an explanation. If any of you had to buy prescription drugs today, you know now expensive they are. And if they were that expensive back then when this happened, I guess the doctor felt he could save money by committing suicide with a “Saturday Night Special.” Problems in Water and Sewer Systems If you’ve read the newspapers lately, you know that the city of Asheville has problems in their water and sewer systems. I had some personal problems, so I phoned doctor #1. The lady answering the phone said that she would advise his nurse. His nurse was busy with a patient and the nurse would phone me later. The nurse phones me in about an hour. I asked the nurse if I was supposed to talk to her in a dignified way or call everything by its right name. She said to do what I think best, so I tell her what’s troubling me and that it had the color of Coca-Cola or Pepsi-Cola, I don’t know which. She said she would talk to the doctor and call me back. She calls back and says I ought to see doctor #2 who is a specialist with my troubles. He has a Rotto Rutter. I found out a Rotto Rutter is a gadget used by plumbers on home work. I see doctor #2 and he advises that he can’t find anything of a serious nature wrong. I go back to doctor #1. He makes several tests. He tells me to go back to doctor #2, that he is going to advise him of what he found and would ask him to make a complete examination. �Back in doctor #2's office, an assistant brings in a machine for examination. He tells me that this machine is a new one, and it don’t hurt like the old one. After the examination, the doctor makes an appointment for me to go to the hospital for a I.V.P. examination and bring the x-rays back to him. I take the x-rays back to doctor #2's office and the doctor says that they look pretty good, that all I need would be surgery and a 2 to 3 days stay in the hospital or it may be 6 days. I go back to the hospital for pre-admission tests and they do all the same tests that were done two or three times before and the nurse asked me a lot of personal questions. She asked if I had a BM. I knew that AM meant from midnight to noon and PM meant the time from noon to midnight. So I figured out the BM meant a BAD MORNING, so I told the nurse that I had a BM for about a week. I was told to report for surgery the next Wednesday at 6:30 AM, somewhat earlier than I usually get up. I get a phone call from doctor #2's nurse Tuesday night advising that the doctor is ill and would be unable to do the surgery and it would be postponed. Later I get a phone call that the surgery had been rescheduled for March 2nd at 1 PM. I had 5 days to review the situation and I think I was mentally, physically, and maybe financially ready for surgery. End of Report. I now feel good. Finis I had the honor of serving as president of Beth-Ha-Temphila in 1948 and 1949 during the building and financing of the new temple at Liberty and Broad Streets. I was Master of Ceremonies for the 50th Anniversary Banquet program of Beth-HaTehphila in 1941. I also presided at the 75th Anniversary Banquet in 1966. I have put in my application to preside at the 100th in 1991. Unless we are Indians, our ancestors came from Foreign Lands. I am thankful they did what they did so that I could have the privilege of growing up in a city like Asheville, enjoy this great country of ours---a land of religious freedom and opportunity. � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Leo Finkelstein Papers Description An account of the resource This collection contains materials relating to Leo Finkelstein, resident of Asheville, North Carolina, the Asheville Lions Club, and the Beth Ha-Tephila Cemetery in Asheville. It contains computer discs, notes, scrapbooks, book drafts, correspondence, photographs, programs, fliers, and other materials related Leo Finkelstein, his wife Sylvia, and the Lions Club, Elks Club, and Jewish Community in Asheville, North Carolina. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Finkelstein, Leo, 1905-1998 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Leo Finkelstein: Personal History (draft) Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1997-10-16 Language A language of the resource English Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context 107_01_LeoAsheville Subject The topic of the resource Finkelstein, Leo, 1905-1998 Jews--North Carolina--Asheville--History Asheville (N.C.)--History Description An account of the resource Finkelstein explains his family's past, beginning in Lithuania and ending in Asheville, North Carolina. Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a title=" In Copyright - Rights-holder(s) Unlocatable or Unidentifiable" href="http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC-RUU/1.0//" target="_blank"> In Copyright - Rights-holder(s) Unlocatable or Unidentifiable </a> Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource PDF Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a title="AC.107 Leo Finkelstein Papers" href="https://appstate-speccoll.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/192" target="_blank"> AC.107 Leo Finkelstein Papers </a> Is Part Of A related resource in which the described resource is physically or logically included. <a title=" Leo Finkelstein Papers" href="https://omeka.library.appstate.edu/collections/show/27" target="_blank"> Leo Finkelstein Papers </a> Type The nature or genre of the resource Text Extent The size or duration of the resource. 29 pages Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant Asheville (N.C.) Spatial Coverage Spatial characteristics of the resource. https://www.geonames.org/4453066/asheville.html Temporal Coverage Temporal characteristics of the resource. 1990s America ancestors Asheville autobiography Depression Flanders goyim Jews Lithuania pawn shop Pisgah Prohibition World War II https://omeka-test.library.appstate.edu/files/original/d084059d6c9829c71043ed306c3ee95f.pdf 5f53148a42e7bc5f8de3ac437eb88ac7 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Subject The topic of the resource Finkelstein, Leo, 1905-1998--Family Jews--North Carolina--Asheville--History PDF Text Text In Nineteen Five I became alive and what I found around this town Was joy and tears for 50 years. Origins In 1799, my great-great grandfather was a chicken farmer in the town of Pushalot, in the state of Lithuania, in the Soviet Union. It was a hard life in the town of Pushalot. The winters were nine months long and unendurably cold. The summers were hot and rainy. There were occasional pogroms or Russian Cossaks rampaging through the streets terrorizing the countryside, gypsies stealing everything in sight, including sometimes even children, and always there was the threat of Siberia. My ancestors, like most Jews, were very poor, hard working and suffering. My greatgreat grandfather bought eggs from all the chicken farmers, packed them carefully on a wagon, covered them with straw to keep them cool and fresh and rode many miles to Kovna, Vilna and Riga to sell the eggs at the big city markets. In 1825, my great grandfather served as a rabbi in Pushalot. In 1872, my grandfather opened a kretchma in Pushalot. A kretchma is a Russian inn somewhat like out modern motels, only they didn’t have swimming pools or air conditioning. It was a place travelers could stop for food or drink or spend the night. One day a Bolshevik on horseback stopped at the Inn and drank a lot of vodka. He got fresh with my grandmother, who I understand was a good looking girl in those days. My father, a teenage boy, picked up a piece of stove wood, hit him on the head and knocked him out. That was an awful crime in Russia for a Jewish boy. My grandfather made a temporary settlement with the Russian and gave him 50 rubles. My father thought that they may send him to jail or Siberia, so he stole his way across the border into Germany. He didn’t like Germany, so he left Germany and made his way to South Africa. He went to work as a house painter in Johannesburg. He became ill from the lead poisoning in the paint. There were no United Way or Federate Jewish Charities down there, but someone took pity on him and nursed him back to health. He sold cigarettes and sandwiches at a stock exchange and he finally opened a resturant. �In 1898, right before the English-Boer War, my father sold his resturant for gold coins, got a money belt, and went down to Cape Town. He had a cousin in Australia and a brother in Jacksonville, Florida. By a flip of a coin he came over to Jacksonville, Florida. In Jacksonville, Florida, he went to night school to learn to read and write English. In 1900, he became ill and the doctor in Jacksonville told him the only place to go to get cured would be the mountains. He came up to Asheville, and Doctor Smith told him he would die of anything except what they sent him to Asheville for, so that he might as well go back to Jacksonville. He like Asheville so much he decided to stay here. In 1903, he opened a pawn shop at 23 South Main Street (now Biltmore Avenue). He married Fanny Sherman from Newport News, Virginia, and made their home in an apartment on Ashland Avenue. In 1905, my father became a citizen of the United States. Among the organizations he joined were the Asheville Board of Trade (now The Asheville Chamber of Commerce), the Fraternal Order of Eagles, Suez Temple of the Oramatic Order of Khorosson, Lodge #1401 BPO, Elks, Mt. Herman Masonic Lodge, Scottish Rite Masonic Lodge, Oasis Temple of Shriners, Congregation Bikur Cholim (now Beth Isreal), and Congregation Betha-Ha-Tephila. So, the Twentieth Century began with: 1. The pawnbroker named Finkelstein. 2. S.H. Friedman, who operated a furniture store. He came to Asheville from Maryland, where he peddled tinware. His son, Nat Friedman, later operated the Susquehana Antique Co. 3. A Jewish lawyer by the name of Goldstein. 4. A Jewish plumber by the name of A.J. Huvard. He married E.C. Goldberg’s sister. E.C. Goldberg ran a news stand next to the Imperial aTheater on Patton Avenue for years. 5. A Jewish dentist by the name of I. Mitchell Mann. 6. Harry Blomberg’s father who came to Asheville in 1887. He operated the Racket Store on Biltmore Avenue for many years. 7. The Palais Royal Department Store operated by Morris Meyers for 40 years. He was a charter member of Congregation Beth-Ha-Tephila and he came to Asheville in 1887. 8. The Bon Marche Department Store operated by Solomon Lipinsky. 9. A Jewish postman who delivered mail by the name of Barney Seigle. I was particularly interested in Barney because he had a sister by the name of Ester, who was in my class in high school — a beautiful and affectionate student. 10. An industrialist named Seigfred Sternberg. 11. Dan Michalove, who worked at the first movie houses in town and finally advanced to Vice-President of Paramount Pictures and was put in charge of all �12. 13. 14. their theaters in Australia. Lou Pollock, who operate a shoe store at the corner of South Main and Eagle Streets. He once ran a shoe sale for $.98 a pair. Leo Cadison, who came here for his health, operated a ladies clothing store on Pack Square, finally moved to Washington, D.C., and became an attorney by act of Congress. He was a speech writer for the Attorrney General of the United States. An orthodox Rabbi by the name of Londow. It was in 1883 Jews were arriving to become pioneers in the Asheville community. Some came to make a better livelihood and for opportunity. Morris Myers served as Exalted Ruler of the Old Elks Lodge #608. The moderate climate and mountain air attracted others to Asheville, a growing medical haven for the sufferers of chronic respiratory diseases. Congregation Beth-ha-Tephila It was on August 23, 1891, twenty-seven men met in Lyceum Hall and adopted a constitution for Congregation Beth-Ha-Temphila. Among the charter members were the Blomberg, Lipinsky, and Zagier families. It is noted that the dues were $10 a year, payable in advance. Lyceum Hall was the first home of the Congregation. It was rented from a fraternal order for $75 a year. Congregation Bikur Cholim Rabbi Londow became the rabbi for Congregation Bikur Cholim whose articles of incorporation were filed in the Court Clerk’s office in February 1899. The incorporators were J.B. Schwartzberg, A. Blomberg, Sam Feinstein, S.H. Michalove, A. Shenbaum, M. Zuglier, and R.B. Zagier. Since the community could not pay Rabbi Londow a decent wage, he operated a Jewish grocery store on the side. He was a kindly old gentleman with a big beard, wore his hat around the grocery store at all times except when a lady called him on the telephone. He would remove the hat during the conversation and put it back on his head after the phone call. I remember a big barrel of herring in the center of the store. Plain herring were 5 cents each and milk herring ten cents. A newly married lady in the Congregation once called Rabbi Londow and complained that a duck she bought from him was old and too tough to eat. Rabbi Londow asked what she expected him to do --- look down the duck’s mouth and count its teeth! The first religious services of Bikur Cholim I remember attending was on the second floor of a building at the corner of Patton Avenue and Church Street. It was early in the life of Bikur Cholim that the congregation split up due to a big argument. Half of the members formed another congregation and called it Anshei Hashuron. They rented a second floor of an apartment house at the corner of Central Avenue and Woodfin Street. However, through the efforts of the impartial moderates, a compromise was reached and a permanent division averted. �Nevertheless, the apartment was kept for a religious school. It was here I received my first Hebrew lesson. Rabbi Fox was teaching us the four questions to ask at our Passover meal. At this time my father would attend all the board meetings of Bikur Cholim. He would come home upset and nervous. Dr. Smith suggested he not attend any more Synagogue meetings due to his high blood pressure. Rabbi Fox was active on the 9th and 10th degrees of Scottish Rite Masonry. After his death I assumed his parts in these degrees and I am still on the degree teams. Hebrew School In 1911, erection of a house of worship was started on South Liberty Street for Congregation Bikur Cholin. Although it wasn’t completed until 1916, the Hebrew School moved there in 1912. Hebrew classes were scheduled every Saturday through the winter. The only heat we had was from a large coal stove in the center of the sanctuary. The stove was prepared for a fire to be lit on Saturday morning before the Hebrew class met. Since the Rabbi wouldn’t light a fire on the Sabbath he arranged for a neighborhood boy to come in and light it. He would place a dime under a prayer book and after the boy had lit the fire he would tell the boy to get the dime 75 to 100 years ago in Asheville. Now about that time there were two synagoges in Asheville. My family belongs to the orthodox. from under the prayer book. The orthodox had strict rules for obeying the sabbath which began Friday at sundown and ended Saturday night. So if you owned an automobile you put it in your garage Friday evening and took it out Saturday night after sundown. You walked to religious services at the synagogue on the sabbath. To obey the sabbath correctly you were not allowed to operate a business, spend money, smoke, strike a match, work, cook and many other activities were forbidden. Remember this was about 100 years ago. You weren’t supposed to tear paper. Now if you had a bathroom with paper on a roll, you tore the paper off for Friday in case it may be needed for the sabbath. The same rule applies to outhouses with old Sears Roebuck catalogues. As far as I know none of these rules are observed today. When I was 11 years old I attended Hebrew school conducted by the rabbi on Saturday morning in the edifice of the synagogue. The sanctuary contained nothing but pews and a coal stove for heat. The basement was used for storage and rest rooms. In the winter time the rabbi fixed the stove for a fire Friday so that it could be lit Saturday morning to produce heat for the Hebrew class. Since the rabbi shouldn’t light a fire or spend money on the sabbath, he arranged for a boy in the neighborhood to light the fire Saturday morning. He placed a dime under a prayer book Friday and told the boy where to get a dime after lighting the fire on Saturday. One real cold morning the boy didn’t show up to light the fire. We were attending Hebrew class �in sweaters, coats and overcoats and it was awful cold. I asked to be excused and coming up from the basement I reported to the rabbi that the plumbing must have frozen as there was water leaking in several places. The rabbi rushed downstairs to investigate the troubles and the Hebrew class rushed out of the synagogue not to return until warm weather. For your information, there was no water leaking. Even in those days educational institutions had trouble with rebelling students. The boy that was to light the fire didn’t show up. It was very cold that day. I asked to be excused and went downstairs. When I came back I reported to Rabbi Redunsky that the pipes had froze and broke. The Rabbi went to see about it. I advised the class that there were no broken pipes and suggested that we leave the building --- which we did --- not to return until warm weather. The member of Bikur Cholim who owned an automobile would put them up Friday afternoon to observe the Sabbath and wouldn’t take them out until Saturday after sun down. Most of the members lived within walking distance of the Synagogue. The building of the Synagogue was completed in 1916 and the day before the eve of Rosh-Hashonah a fire completely destroyed the building. Mrs. Rosenfeld had a Jewish Boarding House next door and she cried and complained that she had just cleaned her house for Yontiff and smoke had dirtied the place up. The Masonic Temple was offered to us to use for the High Holy Day Services and we accepted. The Cemetary In those days Asheville was a place thar offered a cure for Tuberculosis. Many sanatoriums were located in the hills around town. A Jewish man died in one of the sanatoriums and had no money or family. No cemetery in town would bury him unless someone paid $100 for the grave. It was then that nine Jewish men formed the “West Asheville Hebrew Cemetery Association Inc”. My father was the first president. In their Bi-Laws it was stated that anyone of Jewish Faith could be buried there. The price of a grave was $100 and if there was no one to pay it there would be no charge. The cemetery changed it’s name some years later to “Mt. Sinai Cemetery” and sometime after to “The Lou Pollock Memorial Park”. After father died, Lou Pollock became president. After his death, I was the vice-president and assumed the duties of the president. I conferred with David Adler and set up a meeting between the directors of the cemetery and members of Beth Israel. The ownership of the cemetery was transferred to Beth Israel. The following names of the nine founders can be seen on a plaque at the entrance to the cemetery bearing the date 1916: Sam Feinstein Isaac Michalove Lou Pollock �S.W. Silverman Sender Argentar Rabbi Elias Fox Dave Schundler Barney Pearlman Harry Finkelstein Benevolent Societies Around this time my father felt that some home-made chicken soup would help the Jewish patients in the sanatoriums. A number of Jewish women set up a kitchen and once a week hot chicken soup was made available tot he Jewish patients and to others who requested it. Rabbi Fox acquired business interests in Asheville and served as part-time Rabbi. He was associated with a local butcher who made Kosher meat available. He would go by the homes of members and kill the chickens. In 1917, some of us young Jewish boys decided that we ought to have Y.M.H.A. or a Community Center in Asheville. Rabbi Fox met with us and suggested that we form a Y.M.H.A. He said a community center was for the community only, but a bigger and better organization would be a Y.M.H.A. because it extended from coast to coast. He told us a story about when he first came to this country and wanted to see the Brooklyn Bridge. He found a man who could talk Yiddish and after looking at the bridge he asked why they built the bridge with a lot of little cables instead of one big cable. The man explained to him that if one or two cables broke it would not harm the bridge, but if there was one big cable and it broke the bridge would fall in. Mr. Sternberg and Mr. Leavitt Seventy-five years ago there was no United Way in Asheville. There were many local charitable organizations sponsored by churches, synagoges, houses of worship, also the YMCA, the Salvation Army, the Elks Lodge and the Jewish Ladies Aid Society. Lion Joe Sternberg’s father was active in civic, religious, fraternal organizations in Asheville. At that time he was collecting donations for the “Ladies Aid Society” of Asheville. He went to see Mr. Leavitt who operated a ladies ready to wear store on South Main St. near Pack Square. He wouldn’t donate more than $5 and this didn’t please Mr. Sternberg. Mr. Sternberg was the owner of the building Mr. Leavitt operated his store in. He found Mr. Leavitt violated the terms of his lease because he subletted a portion of the store for a shoe department. Mr. Sternberg told Mr. Leavitt that he would have to give the Ladies Aid Society a suitable donation or vacate the building his store was in because he had violated the terms of the lease. They selected three �men to determine what amount Mr. Leavitt should give the Ladies Aid Society. It was agreed that the amount they decided on would be satisfactory to Mr. Sternberg and Mr. Leavitt. Mr. Sternberg selected a man to represent himself. Also Mr. Leavitt picked out the second man. They needed a man to represent both of them and they finally selected my father. The committee decided that Mr. Leavitt should donate $500 to the Ladies Aid Society. Rabbi Fox said that therefore us boys should be little cables and hold up the Y.M.H.A. we were going to form. After the fire that destroyed Birur Cholim Synagogue on South Liberty Street the second floor of the Sondley Building on Broadway was rented for the use of the congregation. A member of the congregation, a young man, forgot he had made a date with a waitress in the Langren Hotel and attended the meeting of the congregation. The lady waited in front of the Masonic Temple with a gun and took a shot at him after the meeting when was leaving the building. She missed. After going to Hebrew School in the building we would stop and examine the hole the bullet made in the front wall of the building. In 1911, I started school at Montford Avenue Grammar School. In 1918, I went to U.N.C. for 2 days, and had to come home to run the paawnshop. In the February 1922 graduating class in Asheville High School, there were 5 boys and 14 girls. Therefore, each boy was expected to take 3 girls to the Senior Class Dance of February 1922. Things were better when we had a dance for the entire year. There were three Jewish girls in the total 1922 class — Madeline Blomberg, Eva Sternberg, and Ester Seigle. I was the only student to take an automobile to school in 1922. It was a Paige make with a “bathtub black” model. I was the business manager of the “Hill Billy”, the school monthly magazine. I was given any study hall period off that I wanted to collect for ads that appeared in the magazine, so I would take my auto and a girl to help me from the study hall. After collecting for one ad we would ride over to the Charlotte Street Drug Store and participate in Ice Cream Sodas for the balance of the study hall period. Around this time Mr. Sternberg had a large junk yard and warehouse on Depot Street. He bought and sold hundreds of cow hides. On all his advertisements he carried the slogan “We buy anything and sell everything”. A circus came to town and didn’t have enough money to leave. They applied to Mr. Sternberg who was president of the Southern State Bank on Depot Street for a loan of $200. Mr. Sternberg made the loan and took the elephant as collateral. He complained he was losing money on account of the elephant eating so much, but was helped out when Mr. Buseck, who owned Middlemont Gardens bout the manure from him. On Sundays in 1925, the Jewish crowd of teenagers and somewhat older boys and girls would gather at the home of the Sternbergs on Victoria Road. The Sternbergs had four children: Eva, Joe, Johanna, and Rose. One of the older girls in the crowd was named Jennie. One day I asked her how she managed to be so popular among the boys, and her answer was, “Well, I’m not so pretty, but I’m catchie”. �I dated Eva and one night I called at the house to take her out and her father yelled to us from the second floor of the house “Don’t you go me no road houses”, and Eva replied “What’s the matter papa --- you afraid we are going to find you there!” One night Mr. Sternberg invited some of his men friends over to his home to participate in a small limit poker game. Sone one tipped off the police that a game was going on. The home was raided and Mr. Sternberg gave the names of the players as Mr. Aleph, Mr. Baze, Mr. Gimmel, Mr. Dolad, Mr. Hay, Mr. Vove, Mr. Zion, and Mr. Hess. The Asheville Citizen carried a story that an attorney appeared in police court for Mr. Aleph, Mr. Baze, Mr. Vove, Mr. Zion, and Mr. Hess and paid their fines. Very few people knew that their names were the first eight letters of the Hebrew Alphabet. It was in 1933, after Franklin Roosevelt was elected president of the United States, that the Volstead Act was repealed and it became legal to sell beer with an alcoholic content on October 1st. I was president of a mens social club, and it became my duty to get beer to serve to the members. This was a difficult job as none was available from distributors around Asheville. 1933 was the year of the Great Depression and Rabbi Goodcowitz bought a second hand truck from Harry Blomberg and was doing some hauling on the side to supplement his income from Bikur - Cholim. Rabbi Goodcowitz said he would go to Baltimore and get us a load of beer as he personally knew the owner of the Valley Forge Beer co. There. I gave him six hundred dollars of the clubs money and he left on a Monday to be back on Thursday. He didn’t show up, but came in the following Monday. The delay was due to the truck breaking down on the trip. Of course I was somewhat concerned but the club had a truck load of Valley Forge Beer available. Leo Cadison saw me and advised that he had talked to the United States Senator Robert R. Reynolds, and the members were starting a campaign to sell the beer before October lst. Captain Fred Jones of the Asheville Police Department, and a member of the house committee said he would not recommend selling it before the legal date. At the club that week, I noted about 150 members were present instead of the usual 40. Under “good and welfare” Senator Reynolds, a great oriator, spoke in favor of selling the beer and said that we were all brothers in a non-profit and charitable organization, and it would be legal to sell it. Others spoke in favor of selling the beer were Judge Philip Cocke, State Senator, A. Hall Johnson Superior Court Judge, Dan Hill, Postmaster, Marcus Erwin U.S.Attorney, Zeb Mettles Superior Court Judge, Charles McRae local attorney, and Leo Cadison. Leo Cadison made a motion that we advise the House Manager to put the beer on ice so that we could drink it after the meting. I advised Mr. Cadison that I could not accept a motion of an illegal nature but under Robert’s Rules of Palamentry procedure he could appeal from my decision. He appeared and I advised the question be voted don would be “Shall the decision of the chair stand” and there would be no discussion. The vote was unanimous against my decision (which suited me) and I instructed the secretary to take everything out of the minutes pertaining to beer, also to advise the house manager to put the beer on ice so we could have it after the meeting. He said that it was to late to advise him because the beer had been on ice for the past two hours. �In the 1930's William Dudley Pelly operated the “Silver Shirts”, a Nazi like organization in a building across the street from the Jewish Community Center on Charlotte Street. He published the Liberation Weekly, anti-semetic literature with a circulation of eight thousand. In a parade, I was playing th esaxaphone with the Asheville Shrine Club Marching Band, and William Rosenfelt was carrying the American Flag. Pelly in his “Liberation Weekly” published a story that we were disgraced by a Jew with a big nose carrying the American Flag. Pelly was arrested by the Buncombe County Sheriffs Department in 1941 for selling unregistered stock. He was found guilty through the efforts of Julius Levitch, a young Jewish lawyer by the name of Alvin Kurtus, and a local attorney named R.R. Williams. On July 25, 1923, the Emporium Department Store owned by Jack Blomberg at the corner of Pack Square and South Main Street was destroyed by a major fire. It was feared that the entire block of Eagle Street would be destroyed. Many of the Jewish merchants who operated clothing stores in the block brought their insurance polices and books to the pawnshop across the street and requested that we put them in our safes which were two of the largest moveable safes in town. These two safes are now located at 21 Broadway While my sisters Rosa and Hilda and I were still children and our parents were out of twon for health reasons, Doctor Schanddler’s father Dave Schandler, would invite us over to his house for meals, especially on Passover and other religious holy days. About this time when our house at 213 Broadway was being built, I was sliding down a sloping board and got a big splinter in my rear end. My father couldn’t get it out so he took me to Dr. Mann, the dentist, and he got it out --- no charge. In 1936, the movements in founding a Jewish Community Center and to organize Federated Jewish Charities in Asheville was started by Julius Levitch through B’Nai B’Rith. In 1947 a testimonial dinner was held for his outstanding service to the Jewish Community. In 1944, Sergeant Joe, the mess sergeant in my outfit in the 13th Air Force located in the South Pacific during World War II, received a shipment of canned corn. Instead of using it for chow, he built a still in a fox hole and made corn whiskey out of it. Joe ran a road house in Greenville, South Carolina before the war and in a neighborly spirit he invited me to drink what I wanted of the corn whiskey and he helped me trade watch bands for coca-cola syrup and ice cream from a Navy C.B. outfit located near by. After the war, he operated his road house in Greenville again. He came to see me and advised that they had arrested his partner for hauling whiskey in Buncombe County and wanted to know if I could help him. I told him that I knew the Chief of Police and Sheriff Brown and I would be glad to see what the situation was. He told me they couldn’t help as it was the Federal Authorities that arrested his partner. . Thinking of how to get him a light sentence I asked Joe if his partner was in the armed forces and he said that they had turned him down because he has a heart murmur. I told Joe to send him to Dr. Feldman and I’d get the report from him as to his heart murmur. Dr. Feldman told me he had a heart murmur and as Federal Physician he would �advise Judge Warlick about in Federal court. At the trial Joe’s prtner went Scott Free. Later he came to see me with a roll of hundred dollar bills and wanted to pay me for getting him off. I refused the money and told him that Joe had helped me out during the war an d what I did was a favor to Joe. Later he brought me six fifths of Scotch for a present, which I kept. While overseas besides having corn whiskey made by Joe and medical alcohol diluted 50% by water and flavored with burnt sugar, we were able to buy bonded whiskey from the flying personnel who didn’t drink their ration. Price was $60 per fifth. They were looking for souvenirs so I wrote Nat Friedman to send me a Japanese hare-kari knife from his antique store. He sent me a similar one. It was a circular shape Turkish knife with Turkish letters on it. My cost was $4. It looked like a Hare-Kari knife. I gave it to Sergeant Joe and asked him to see if he could trade for a Fifth of bonded whiskey. He reported later that he got two fifths for it. I had the honor of serving as president of Beth-Ha-Temphila in 1948 and 1949 during the building and financing of the new temple at Liberty and Broad Streets. I was Master of Ceremonies for th e50th Anniversary Banquet program of Beth-HaTehphila in 1941. I also presided at the 75th Anniversary Banquet in 1966. I have put in my application to preside at the 100th in 1991. Unless we are Indians, our ancestors came from Foreign Lands. I am thankful they did what they did so that I could have the privilege of growing up in a city like Asheville, enjoy this great country of ours---a land of religious freedom and opportunity. � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Leo Finkelstein Papers Description An account of the resource This collection contains materials relating to Leo Finkelstein, resident of Asheville, North Carolina, the Asheville Lions Club, and the Beth Ha-Tephila Cemetery in Asheville. It contains computer discs, notes, scrapbooks, book drafts, correspondence, photographs, programs, fliers, and other materials related Leo Finkelstein, his wife Sylvia, and the Lions Club, Elks Club, and Jewish Community in Asheville, North Carolina. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Finkelstein, Leo, 1905-1998 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Leo Finkelstein: Personal History and Asheville Jewish Community History Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1997-09-14 Language A language of the resource English Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context 107_01_Fam Subject The topic of the resource Finkelstein, Leo, 1905-1998--Family Jews--North Carolina--Asheville--History Asheville (N.C.)--Anecdotes Description An account of the resource Finkelstein describes his family's past, beginning in 1799 in Lithuania and ending with his life in Asheville, North Carolina, as well as some of the history of the Jewish community in Asheville. Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a title=" In Copyright - Rights-holder(s) Unlocatable or Unidentifiable" href="http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC-RUU/1.0//" target="_blank" rel="noopener"> In Copyright - Rights-holder(s) Unlocatable or Unidentifiable </a> Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource PDF Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a title="AC.107 Leo Finkelstein Papers" href="https://appstate-speccoll.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/192" target="_blank" rel="noopener"> AC.107 Leo Finkelstein Papers </a> Is Part Of A related resource in which the described resource is physically or logically included. <a title=" Leo Finkelstein Papers" href="https://omeka.library.appstate.edu/collections/show/27" target="_blank" rel="noopener"> Leo Finkelstein Papers </a> Type The nature or genre of the resource Text Extent The size or duration of the resource. 10 pages Spatial Coverage Spatial characteristics of the resource. https://www.geonames.org/4453066/asheville.html https://www.geonames.org/595513/pusalotas.html Temporal Coverage Temporal characteristics of the resource. 1990s 18th century 19th century 20th century America ancestors Asheville autobiography Depression Flanders goyim Jews Leo Finkelstein Lithuania pawn shop Pisgah Prohibition World War II https://omeka-test.library.appstate.edu/files/original/a8dc2ac25eaea7885e5f6336eba07e41.pdf ace6681be8543e482132e38615ed99fa PDF Text Text Retired Pawtib~oker Enjoying Slow;;""~~~e . .. By PAUL G. CLARK People in need of cash brought Staff Writer in suits, coats, books, cameras and It's been 10 years since Leo all kin_ds of musical instruments to Finkelstein retiied as the busy loan serve as collateral. Finkelstein broker at Finkelstein's, Inc., the would hold the items until the ownwell-known pawnshop on Pack ers returned for them or, if they Square, but he's still keeping busy. didn't, until they were sold. ·· Clyde Osborne, a reporter for Not that the 78-year-old has pressing business anymore, he said, The Asheville .Citizen, interviewed but with his house at Beaver Lake him in 1980. Finkelstein recalled a to look after and his piano playing minister who hocked his Bible durfor the singing group, the Sancti- ing the Depression. The preacher ·rnonious Seven, he manages to fill arrived at the shop each Saturday LEO FI_ KELSTEIN N _his days. to claim it for Sunday's service, and then would return it on Monday. · The store closed for the Jewish 1 ,. __ •• ."You can find things to do if ' -~- you look for .them,~' he said recent· Finkelstein began working .in . ~p!Jdays Rosh Hashana ·and .Yom t·· -~· lv,·:.'< I little cooking and.some .th~)itore when he .was 6 years9Id. . f.(iPP,~f;. arid F!n,k,elstein said·'·B.as·•,: iepair~· wtn~ h()1lse::!i::.. . .~ .··· . .. . o:·~,.~:r .wanted to' g<LouL and sen .· :s~Wcoritinues .the tradition. fjlli{el;, · · ·· No yardwork,thpugh. "1 super- _ newspa~rsi'but Dad:lold .me,:'you ':~t.¢iil.saidheasked-himwhy.> ~~;-,/;.: that,"he chuck]e'd. · come · ii( here and J'U·::~y(;" i:f ;~::\'L_ ''You gotfiobo(iy~of my re.~gion The Sanctimonious·· Seven, so job,' " he said. .He took 'OVer the here," Fifikelstein'Said. .•.::;,::c; : - - ._.·_ , - named because of the religious di- store when his father died in•l933~·"• .· .-·_ Bassett replied,-"I'm:not'·· goiJ}g ._ _ , versity among the group of Lions His father, Harry f'inkelstein; ·_,to ch:'mg~my luck." _ ·_: ''c-r· .. -•-"'·Club musicians;· performs occa~ was born in Russia, then moved to · · _,,_ 'c ~ · ·- ·· . .. 1 . ·-·sionally, and that keeps his toes Germany in 1890 and later to South -. ' ' : '"'>~tapping. · , . : · _ . .. . Africa. Near the turn of the cenj· ,..; . Once an avid hunter and fish, tury, he came to theUnitedSta.t~~~t . erman, he no ·longer fishes-in Bea-. locating in Jacksonville, Fla: "i ;;,,. ' 1 •'> :~ ~ Lake .. He said he prefers ''the · .-.._ A doctor, diagnosing tuberculoO "':] er . • · -" ~path ,of least resistance" :-:-fishing sis; suggested he moye to A~he.v.ille..-.' in commercial pol'lds. · : because of its clean aic. - ' ·· • , ~~ used to play..golfand.~ol> •---- ·-_-.S ~:fie}'e~h, as. ~~e,~$aris histole ., .t.lmp~, but Poth those...actlVl .. c,":f·Y••··cc•>·•-,-,, ,.. ·. ,_,. -~.._ .__.., . ties nave fallen, b~:.t_!~~ -~~ys_idf. ~ :.::-"'-' "';,;:.., -~~~'"'1~P~,,.ftnlq~l~t~in ~x,_,,pp~):!_~fl.~- · ·· · "I JUSt take 1te~sy--an_ct wata,n ::--\V~at Is ,beliey¢,d to ~At.~"""~!_41t_~ ... TV and read the newspapers,'' h~ frrst pawnshop•at-23 Biltmore Ave>• __ } said. _ _ _ _ · _. · r,,nue. Later he ·exiJlmde<i by opening ,_( :. · ' ·• · Th~t's 'qiiite a change from the a"-.ctrY goods shop and hardware _. ;~ way .things .used to be: Before he store next door. -· ' sold his sto~k in the shopto present -. , In 1933 he moved to Pac]5 owner H.G. "June'' Bassettin1973, Square and changed the operation's . · h.~ -over'saw-the daily traffi~·:·or ll:i~ , name~ ·rrom._(\Shevil).e ·• P~_w.IJ and ,.•• ~ .. pawnsh_ p.- ·-.o· o ,.;, ~- _ ->_:;···;; . : , LQ~n~Sho~}o"FitikelS.:~<:iri~s;-In_c. · ,,...,.._ .,_~;I , · --~ · do a you '4 � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Leo Finkelstein Papers Description An account of the resource This collection contains materials relating to Leo Finkelstein, resident of Asheville, North Carolina, the Asheville Lions Club, and the Beth Ha-Tephila Cemetery in Asheville. It contains computer discs, notes, scrapbooks, book drafts, correspondence, photographs, programs, fliers, and other materials related Leo Finkelstein, his wife Sylvia, and the Lions Club, Elks Club, and Jewish Community in Asheville, North Carolina. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Finkelstein, Leo, 1905-1998 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Retired Pawnbroker Enjoying Slower Pace, November 15, 1983 Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1983-11-15 Language A language of the resource English Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context 107_cd1_07_leocli Description An account of the resource A newspaper clipping about Leo Finkelstein's life after he retired and a brief overview of his career as a pawnbroker. Subject The topic of the resource Finkelstein, Leo, 1905-1998 Pawnbrokers--North Carolina--Asheville Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a title=" In Copyright - Rights-holder(s) Unlocatable or Unidentifiable" href="http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC-RUU/1.0//" target="_blank" rel="noopener"> In Copyright - Rights-holder(s) Unlocatable or Unidentifiable </a> Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource JPG Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a title="AC.107 Leo Finkelstein Papers" href="https://appstate-speccoll.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/192" target="_blank" rel="noopener"> AC.107 Leo Finkelstein Papers </a> Is Part Of A related resource in which the described resource is physically or logically included. <a title=" Leo Finkelstein Papers" href="https://omeka.library.appstate.edu/collections/show/27" target="_blank" rel="noopener"> Leo Finkelstein Papers </a> Spatial Coverage Spatial characteristics of the resource. https://www.geonames.org/4453066/asheville.html Type The nature or genre of the resource Text Image Temporal Coverage Temporal characteristics of the resource. 1980s 1983 Asheville Bible Depression Harry Finkelstein Leo Finkelstein retired Sanctimonious Seven https://omeka-test.library.appstate.edu/files/original/0f0a5ea3190bdac33246f49396336506.pdf 415d2c7c98839de94e107ca2de86fdf5 PDF Text Text Charles Finkelstein at Wilmington, NC Neal Finkelstein at Jacksonville, FL II. The Dawn of the Twentieth Century in Asheville And my father, Harry Finkelstein, at Asheville, NC. n 1900, my father became ill and the doctor in Jacksonville told him the only place ro go ro get cured would be the mountains. He carne up to Asheville, and Doctor Smith told him he would dir of anything except what they sent him to Asheville for, so that he might as well go back to Jacksonville. He liked Asheville so much he decided to stay here. In 1903, he opened a pawn shop at 23 South Main Street (now Biltmore Avenue). He married Fannye Sherman fro m Newport News, Virginia, and they made their home in an apartment on Ashland Avenue. Harry and Fannyr Finkrlsuin. Wrdding photo, cirra 1904 �In 1905, my father became a citizen of me United Stares. "7 Q Among me organizations he joined were me Asheville Board ofTrade (n The Asheville Chamber of Commerce), me Fraternal Order of Eagles, Suez Temple o e Oramaric Order ofKhorosson, Lodge # 1401 BPO, Elks, Mt. Herman Masonic Lodge, Scottish Rite Masonic Lodge, Oasis Temple of Shriners, Congregation Bikur C holim (now Bern !scad), and Congregation Becl!-Ha-Tephila. So, in Asheville, North Carolina, me twenriecl! century began wid!: ~The pawnbroker named Finkelstein. ~S. H. Friedman, who operated a furniture store. He came to Asheville from Maryland, where he peddled tinware. His son, Nat Friedman, larer operared me Susquehanna Antique Co. ~A Jewish lawyer by the name of Goldstein. ~ A Jewish plumber by me name of A.}. Huvard. He married E. C. Goldberg's sisrer. E.C. Goldberg ran a news stand nexr ro me Imperial Theater on Patton Avenue for years. ~A Jewish dentist by the name of I. Mitchell Mann. ~Harry Blomberg's father who came to Asheville in 1887. He operated me Racket Store on Biltmore Avenue for many years. ~The Palais Royal Department Store operated by Morris Meyers for 40 years. He was a charter member of Congregation Beth-Ha-Tephila and he came ro Asheville in 1887. ~The Bon Marche Department Srorc operated by Solomon Lipinsky. ~A Jewish postman who delivered mail by rhe name of Barney Seigle. I was particularly interested in Barney because he had a sister by the name of Esther, ·who was in my class in high school - a beautiful and affi:ctionate student. ~An industrialist named Siegfried Sternberg. ~Dan Michalove, who worked at the first movie houses in rown and finally advanced to vice president of Paramount Pictures and was pur in charge of all their rhearers in Australia. ~Lou Pollock, who operated a shoe store at the corner of South Main and Eagle Streets. He onoe ran a shoe sale for 98 centS a pair. ~Leo Cadison, who came here for his healcl!, operated a ladies ci ore on Pack Square, finally moved ro Washington, D .C., and became an arrorn byA:r of ongress. He was a speech writer for me Arrorney General of me Unired Sra ;:::::::. <. ews were arriving ro become pioneers in me Asheville community. Some came ro make a better livelihood and for opporrunity. The moderate climate and moumain air aruacred others ro Asheville, a growing medical haven for me sufferers of chronic respiratory diseases. Congregation Beth-Ha-Tephila I served as President 1948 ro 1950. On August 23, 1891, twenty-seven men met in Lyceum Hall and adopted a constitution for Congregation Berh-Ha-Tephila. Among me charter members were me Blomberg, Lipinsky, and Zagier families. It is noted that me dues were $10 a year, payable in advance. Lyceum Hall was me first home of me Congregation. Ir was rented from a fraternal order for $75 a year. Congregation Bikur Cholim I served as Vice President before World War II. Rabbi Londow became me rabbi for Congregation Bikur Cholim whose articles of incorporation were filed in the Court Clerk's office in February 1899. The incorporators were }.B. Schwaraberg, A. Blomberg, Sam Feinstein, S.H. Michalove, A. Shenbaum, M. Zuglier, and RB. Zagier. Since the community could nor pay Rabbi Londow a decent wage, he operated a Jewish grocery sto re on rhe side. He was a kindly old gencleman wid! a big beard, wore his hat around rhe grocery store ar all rimes except when a lady called him on the telephone. He would remove the hat during the conversation and pur ir back o n his head after the phone call. I remember a big barrel of herring in the center of me store. Plain herring were five centS each and milk herring ren cents. A newly married lady in the Congregation once called Rabbi Londow and complained that a duck she bought from him was old and roo rough ro eat. Rabbi Londow asked her �fo ~ In 1911, erection of a house of worship was started on South Liberty Street Congregation Bikur Cholim. Although it wasn't completed until 1916, the Hebr w'Scl!_ool moved there in 191 2. When I was I I years old, I attended Hebrew school conduct the rabbi on Saturday morning in the edifice of the synagogue. The sancruary contained nothing but pews and a coal stove for hear. The basement was used for storage and resr rooms. In the winter time the rabbi fiXed the stove for a fire Friday so thar it could be lir Saturday morning ro produce hear for the Hebrew class. what did she expect him to do - look down the duck's mouth and count its teeth! The first religious services of Bikur Cholim I remember attending were on the second floor of a bwlding at the corner of Patton Avenue and Church Street. lr was early in the life of Bikur Cholim thar the congregation split up due ro a big argument. Half of the members formed another congregation and called ir Anshei Hashuron. They rented a second floor of an apanment house at the corner of Central Avenue and Woodfin Street. However, through the efforts of the impartial moderates, a compromise was reached and a permanent division averted. Since the rabbi shouldn't light a fire or spend money on the Sabbath, he arranged for a boy in the neighborhood ro light the fire Saturday morning. He placed a dime under a prayer book Friday and rold the boy where to ger the dime after lighting the fire on Saturday. Nevertheless, the apanmenr was kepr for a religious school. Ir was here thar I received my first Hebrew lesson. Rabbi Fox was reaching us the four questions ro ask at our Passover meal. At this time my father attended all the board meetings of Bikur C holim.rle ou d come home upset and nervous. Or. Smith suggested he nor attend any mor~agog meetings due to hjs high blood pressure. .f!c- / e..... Rabbi Fox was active on the 9th and I Oth degrees of Scottish Rite ry. After his death I assumed his parts in these degrees and I was on the degree teams until retiring in 1995. Even in those days educational institutions had trouble with rebelling students. One real cold morning the boy didn't show up ro lighr the fire. We were arrending Hebrew class in swearers, coats and overcoats and ir was awful cold. I asked to be excused and coming up from the basement I reported ro Rabbi Redunsky that the plumbing must have frozen as rhere was water lc:alcing in several places The Rabbi went to see about it. I advised the Orthodox Rules and Hebrew School Sevenry-five to 100 years ago there were two synagogues in Asheville. My fam ily belonged ro the orthodox. The orthodox had srricr rules for obeying the Sabbath which began Friday at sundown and ended Saturday night. The members of Bikur Cholim who owned an automobile would put them in the garage on Friday evening ro observe the Sabbath and wouldn't rake them out untjl Sarurday after sundown. Most of the members lived within waJkjng distance of the synagogue. To obey rhe Sabbath correcrly you were nor allowed ro operare a business, spend money, smoke, strike a march, work, or cook. Many other activities were also forbidden. Remember this was abour 100 years ago. You weren't supposed to rear paper. Now if you had a bathroom wirh paper on a roll, you ron: the paper off for Friday in case ir may be needed for the Sabbath. The same rule applies ro outhouses with old Sears Roebuck catalogues. As far as I know none of these rules are observed today. ii > Fannyr on thr porrh ofthr �class that there were no broken pipes and suggested that we leave the building- which we did - not to return until warm weather. For your information, there was no water leaking. While my sisters, Rosa and Hilda, and I were still children and our parents were out of town for health reasons, Doctor Schancl1er's futher, Dave Schancl1er, would invite us over co his house for meals, especially on Passover and other religious holy days. About this time when our house at 213 Broadway was being built, I was sliding down a sloping board and got a big splinter in my rear end. My father couldn't gee it out so he cook me to Dr. Mann, the denrist, and he got it out gue was Harry and Fanny< Finlulsttin with childrm uo, ; o :::uilding of . 0 completed Rouz, and Hilda the eve of Ro honah a fire complecely destroyed the building. Mrs. Rosenfeld had a . / .:::.1ewish".!5i)ardiiig ousc nc:xt door and she cried and complained that she had just cleaned ~ / her house for Yon tiff and smoke had dirtied the place up. The Masonic Temple was offered to us to usc for the High Holy Day Services and we accepted. in(ian~:tfore '? After the fire that destroyed Bikur Cholim Synagogue on South Liberty Street, the second floor of Soncl1ey Building on Broadway was rented for the usc of the congregation. A member of the congregation, a young man, forgot he had made a date with a waitress in the Langrcn Hotel, and attended the meeting of the congregation. The lady waited in front of the Masonic Temple with a gun and took a shor at h~er e meeting when he was leaving the building. She missed. After going to Heb - oo in the building we would ihe building. stop and examine the hole the bullet made in the front me 7 The Cemetery In those days Asheville was a place that offered a cure for ruberculosis. Many sanatoriums were located in the hills around town. A Jewish man died in one of the sanatoriums and had no money or family. No cemetery in town would bury him unless someone paid $100 for the gravt::a. then that nine Jewish men formed ~heville Hebrew Cemetery Associa onjnc. My futher was the first president. e bylaws rated. that anyone ofJewish fai e buried there. T he price of a grave was 0 and if there was no one to pay it there would be no charge. ,S,~m te changed its name some years later to Mt. Sinai Cerneteqt-an after' toA'fle Ld Pollock Memorial Park. After Father died, Lou Pollock became presiden ih, I was the vice-president and assumed the duties of the president. I conferred with David Acl1cr and set up a meeting berween the directors of the cemetery and members of Beth Israel. The ownership of the cemetery was transferred to Beth Israel. < The following names of the nine founders can be seen on a plaque at the entrance to the cemetery bearing the date 1916: Sam Feinstein, Isaac Michalove, Lou Pollock, S.W. Silverman, Sender Argenrar, Rabbi Elias Fox, Dave Schancller, Barney Pearlman, Harry Finkelstein. Benevolent Societies Around this time my futher felt that some homemade chicken soup would help the Jewish patients in the sanatoriums. A number of Jewish women set up a kitchen and, once a week, hot chicken soup was made available to the Jewish patients and to others who requested it. Rabbi Fox acquired business interests in Asheville and served as part-time Rabbi. He was associated with a local butcher who made kosher meat available. He would go by the homes of members and kill the chickens. In 1917, some of us young Jewish boys decided that we ought to have a Young Men's Hebrew Association or a community center in Asheville. Rabbi Fox met with us and suggested that we form a YMHA. He said a community center was for the community only, but a bigger and better organization would be a YMHA because it extended from coast to coast. He told us a story about when he first came to this country and wanted to see the Brooklyn Bridge. He found a man who could talk Yiddish and after looking at the bridge he asked why they built the bridge with a lot of little cables instead of one big cable. The < �man explained to him that if one or rwo cables broke it would not harm the bridge, but if there was one big cable and it broke the bridge would fall in. Rabbi Fox said that therefo re we boys should be little cables and hold up the YMHA we were going to form. Flanders 20 About 75 years ago the Studebaker Corporation made rwo automobiles - the Flanders 20, 20 horsepower and the Emf. 30, 30 horsepower. My family owned a Flanders 20. To start the engine you used a hand crank in front of the auto. You lowered the spark control lever because if you didn't, you might get a kickback on the crank and get your arm broken. Mr. Sternberg and Mr. Leavitt Seventy-five years ago there was no United Way in Asheville. There were many local charitable organizations sponsored by churches, synagogues, houses of worship, also the YMCA, the Salvation Army, the Elks Lodge and the Jewish Ladies')Aid Society. Joe Sternberg's father was active in civic, religious, and fraternal organizations in Asheville. At that rime he was collecring donations for the Ladics...,Aid Society of Asheville. He went to Mr. Leavitt who operated a ladie.?read)loto,.wear store on South Main Street near Pack Square. He wouldn't donate more than $5 and this didn't please Mr. Sternberg. 7 > If you had a Aat tire, you had to raise the wheel with a hand jack, take the rire off and ftx the inner rube with patches t.hat you always carried with you. Y had a hand pump to ou inAate the tire again. 7 see Some owners of the Flanders 20 bragged that sometimes they could drive up the hill on South Main Street (now Biltmore Avenue) from Depot Street to Pack Square in high gear and they didn't have to shift to a second gear. Mr. Sternberg was the owner of the building in which Mr. Leavitt operated his store. He found Mr. Leavitt violated the terms of his lease because he sublet a portion of the store for a shoe deparunent. Mr. Sternberg told Mr. Leavitt that he would have to give the Ladi~Aid Society a suitable donation or vacate the building because he had violated the rercns of the lease. They sdecred three men to determine what amount Mr. Leavitt should ) give the Ladies'Aid Society. It was agreed that the amount they decided would be satisfactory to Mr. Sternberg and Mr. Leavitt. There was a dirt road to Hendersonville. Some of it was red clay that would become slick when it rained. One small section of the road became very slick due to its location. There was a man there with a mule. For a small fee he would hitch the mule to the front of the auto and pull you out of the bad place with the help of the engine of the car. f Mr. Sternberg selected a man to represent himself. Also, Mr. Leavitt picked o ut the second man. They needed a man to represent both of them and finally sclfcted my father. 7The committee decided that Mr. Leavitt should donate $500 to the Ladies Aid Society. 7 In 1936, the movement to found a Jewish Community Center and to organize Federated Jewish Charities in Ash.eville was started by Julius Levitch through .~:~f· In 1947 a testimonial dinner was held for his outstanding service to the Jewi~nity. < Jl{y Father and the Sheriff's Department In the early days of the century, my father would give each member of the Buncombe County Sheriff's Deparunenr cu1f links for a Christmas present. In appreciation, the Sheriff always sent my father a gallon of corn whiskey. We always than.la:d the Sheriff for his gift even though none of my family drank cotn whiskey. uo andfrimds with Flantkn 20 13 �We were invited to a wedding in Hendersonville by Mr. Lewis whose sister, Rose, was gening married to a young anorney named Joe Patla. He practiced law in Asheville fo r many years. We took our Flanders 20 to the wedding with a couple of our friends. We had no trouble as it didn't rain. Coming back to AsheviUc, we got a flat tire ncar Skyland and stopped to fix it. We noticed a lot of berries growing near the road and we all began to ear them. A F.umer saw us and accused us of stealing his berries. He took our a warrant for my father. The trial was to be heard by a Justice of the Peace in Skyland. My father employed a young lawyer by the name of Bob Reynolds. Bob Reynolds in later years became a U.S. Senator. The Justice of the Peace office was too small to hold the crowd that came to the trial so it was held under a large oak tree outdoors. I heard that Bob gave a great speech to the crowd and the Justice of the Peace o rdered my father just to pay the farmer a small amount for the berries. The moral of this event is: Don't ear wild berries beside an old road. You arc liable to have more troubles than a stomachache. -;. Beginning to work I .o;;::. When I was eight years old, I starred selling newspapers. I wasn't doing very good so my father gave me a job in the pawnshop at 50 cents per week. I had to save 25 centS of it. I was co work when there was no school activity or important events pertaining to my education. I was given Saturday afternoon off co go fishing and Saturday morning to sec a serial movie at the Galaxy movie house on Pack Square. Many people left their musical instruments as collateral for loans. I tried out my musical ability on a guitar, a ukulele, a violin and a saxophone. I took violin lessons from Mr. Popala.rdo and piano lessons &om Mrs. Oliphant. My mother insisted that I practice on the piano one hour a day. School In 1911, I st.trted school at Montford Avenue Grammar School. In 1922, I went to University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill for rwo days, and had co come home co run the pawnshop. Finlu!Jttini Pawnshop. Harry Finlu!Jttin on tht right rhe~922 In graduating class in Asheville High School, there were five boys< and 14 girls. Therefore, each boy was expected to rake three girls co the Senior Class Dance of February 1922. Things were bener when we had a dance for the entire school. There were three Jewish girls in the total 1922 class - Madeline Blo mberg, Eva Sternberg, and Esther Seigle. I was the only student to rake an automobile to school in 1922. It was a Paige make with a "bathtub back" model. I t incss man er of Tht: Hillbilly, the school monthly magazine. I was given any study hall perio o .ro1fecc for ads that appeared in the magazine, so I would take my auto and a girl to he p me from the study hall. Alter colleering for one ad we would ride over to the Charlotte Street Drug Score and participate in ice cream sodas for the balance of the study hall period. <.... �Asheville Dixie jazz Band In 1921, I, along with a violin player from Lewis Funeral Home, Frank McCormak, formed the fir.a musical outfit Asheville High School ever had. Below is a poem from an issue of the 1921 school paper, Th~ Hillbilly. The Dixie jazz Band BDJ1 and girls, hav~ you h~ard th~ nnuJ, A nnv way to g~t livtly without any boou, jUJt com~ around and giv~ UJ your hand ~i-t th~ m=b= ofth~ "Dixi~ jazz Band. • ~plAy and plAy and n~vrr gtt ~aryl ~'Ujazz you up and make you chury. ~'U makt you danu and n~vrr ut JtiU You'U haw to 1himmy. against your will Tht drumm~r is a drumm~r by trade, Th~ fiddler is a mUJician, ulfmatie, Th~ flute is th~ bat you ~''" htard, Th~ mandalin Joundi likt a mocking bird. w -uoFink~lsuin Pisgah 1922 Joe Sternberg and I were seniors in the 1922 class of Asheville High School. Now, Joe's mother, Mrs. Sternberg, phoned me and advised me that she was entertaining Joe and three other members of the 1922 class with a trip to the top of Mr. Pisgah. Eva Sternberg, Joe's sister, graduated in 1921 bur wanted to go with them. Her mother asked if! would like to go and look alter Eva if she went, and I told her that I would be delighted. They all picked m~ up the na~ morning and Mrs. Ster~be~ove us the ho me of 'to Mr. and Mrs. Rufus 0 Kelly who lived at the base of Mr. Prs~ Oen~n passenger Mormon automobileJWe had lunch of possum and sweet potatoes. There was one dirt road (one way) to the top of Mt. Pisgah, five miles long. An auto had to go up in the morning at daylight and was allowed to come down after I p.m. until dark. We hiked to a cleared section. Mr. O'Kelly chaperoned the trip and built us a large bonfire and was fiXing something to eat. Eva was unpacking some things and I noticed a large bottle of Bromo-Selczer. I asked if she expected someone to have a headache. She said, "No, I opened a pint bottle of father's bottled whiskey, took half of it and filled the Bromo-Selt:zer bottle. Now you and I can have a drink before we eat. "' "That's a good idea." I said, "but what is your father going to say when he finds out?" She said, "No problem. I filled the empty half of the whiskey bottle with water. " At nighttime she and I sat around the fire drinking a few drinks of BrumoSelczer. On Sundays in 1925, the Jewish crowd of teenagers and somewhat older boys and girls would gather at the home of the Srernbergs on Victoria Road. The FrimdJ at plAy (1-r Milton Schwamlmg, Harry Stern bergs had four children: Eva, Joe, Roth, William RoJmftld. Sam Roth) Johanna, and Rose. One of the older girls in the crowd was named Jennie Selt:z. One day I asked her how she man~e..so popular among the boys, and her answer was, "Well, I'm not so pretty, but Vm catehie." I dated Eva and one night I called at the house to take her out and 11~-.....,~.p--~­ us from the second floor of the house, "Don't you go to no road houses!" Eva replied, "What's the matter, Papa - you aftaid we are going to find you there?" William Jennings Bryan On July 7, 1896, William Jennings Bryan delivered the "Cross of Gold" speech and �won the Democratic parry nomination for Vice President of the United States. In 1900 he was nominated again for Vice President. In 1908 he was nominated for President of the United Stares. Later in life he moved to Asheville and his home was at the corner of Evelyn Place and Kimberly Avenue - just a few houses away from where Jack Cole now lives. Mr. Bryan asked my father to order him a special made double barrel Parker shot gun with 28" barrels modified and choke bores, and a 2 3/4 inch drop. After receiving the ~ n he wrote my father a letter of thanks. I had this letter in my historical files and it disappeared. Now I don't know whether to blame it on the Democrats or Republicans. The Emporium Fire of 1923 ......., On July 25, 1923, the Emporium ,es>arunen;Jtore owned by Jack Blomberg at the / corner of Pack Square and South Main'"Street was<femoyed by a major fire. It was feared that the entire block to South Main Street (Biltmore Avenue) would be destroyed. Many of the merchants who operated clothing stores in the block brought their insurance policies and books to Finkelstein's Pawnshop across the street and requested that we put them in our safes which were two of the largest moveable safes in town. T he two safes are now located at 2 1 Broadway. &wing Machine Mystery A sewing machine was brought in for a loan. The next day some ladies from a church walked in from a church society, identified the machine and claimed it had been stolen from the church. The pawn ticket was hunted. "What's the name on the record?" one of the women inquired. It was read off. "What!" shrieked the group in unison. "That's the name of our pastor!" And, the mystery was cleared up: someone else had pawned the machine giving the reverend's name. �Hl AsheviHe the 1930s . Ill (ions Club "iremember when I became a member of the The club had 16 members and I was the 17th. Our meetings were held at the S & W Cafeteria on Panon Avenue, in a meeting room on the second floor. A good meal could be had at a cost ofless than one dollar. As{~Ue Lions Club in 1930. I remember when the club's membership reached I 00, we held a stag parry at the Sky Club on top of Beaucatcher Mountain. Out of 100 members we had 97 anend. Three were absent on account of being out of town. The club was operated by Boyd and Albertine Maxwell and their daughter was the hostess. Albertine was a professional dancer and she did a "snake dance" to entertain the parry. Lion Dan Furr fiXed us a special drink consisting of an assortment of fluids that we called "Scrape the Bonom." We had a big spagheni dinner. The cost of the evening was $1.50 per member. The young lady who was hostess, in appreciation of me bringing the Lions Club there for a parry, taught me to dance the "Charleston," a new dance that had just started. I remember when I drove my new automobile to the Stag P~ty with Lion John Thayer. The automo- <:::_ bile was a Terraplane Sedan that Lion Johnnie Groome sold me. It had an electric gear shift controlled by bunons on the steering wheel. It also had a stick shift in from of the center of the from seat that could be used when the electric shift failed to work. �Going down Bcaucatcher Mountain in the Terraplane, Lion John Thayer, who had drank a substantial amount of "Scrape the Bottom," acted funny, yanked the gear shift stick loose and threw it out of the car into the woods of Bcaucatcher Mountain. The next day Lion John and I searched the woods, found the stick shift and replaced it. I remember when the dub held a "womanless wedding" at a Ladies Night Banquet on March 14, 1939 and Lion Dan Furr was the flower girl. I remember when in 1939 the club presented a pair of lions to the city wo and a few weeks later a baby lion was born. It was named "Leo." I remember when an alarm clock was placed at the speaker's table at the club meetings set to alarm at 2 o'clock with a sign: OUR MEETING CLOSES AT 2 O'CLOCK AND WE DO NOT APPRECIATE DIRTY JOKES. I remember when Jack Cole was president of the Asheville Lions Club. We held a ) ladicJnight banquet at the Battery Park Hotel. Lion Jack invited a U.S. Congressman, Lion Roy Taylor, to make a talk for the gathering. It took Lion Jack twenty minutes to introduce Congressman Taylor. Roy Taylor in response said that there must be a mistake. "It looks like Lion Jack Cole was to give the address and I should have introduced him. " I remember when City Manager Burdette announced to the C ity Council that the police department's new traffic bureau would begin operating and that ordinances would be strictly enforced. Mr. Burdette left no doubt in the minds of a Lions Club committee who called to complain about the parking problem. and if he wanted a tunic race, to present it to the board of directors at their regular meeting. There was no runic race. := ::: <__ I remember when I was dating a nice young lady in Asheville by the name of Pearl. Pearl was hostess in a restaurant I used to eat at. The Lions Club was giving a Ladies) Night ~inner and Governor Hoey was to be our speaker. I was told that I couldn't bring Pearl. C Governor Hoey's daughter was coming to the dinner and I'd have to sit with her at the speaker's table. It was an uneventful monotonous dinner and when it was over I told the governor's daughter good night and went to see Pearl. I remember when a member missed over two meetings Lion Charles Bertyman, who operated a funeral home, would send his ambulance to bring the member to the meeting. I remember when a member missed over three meetings without an excuse. Lion Judge Sam Cathey would send a police car to present the member with the following summons: C1TJ' or Anirnt.LE No. 131313 POLICE SUMMONS Dot••..•..ir/ d-J.J·····-···-······· Add"'"-······-·--·--···· .... X:uut'. . L..~~r"..... Li··,~ru.• :\n,_J.Y...t ..:..":!_.. ,. \ 'Ol' .uu: ouurn::n TO nr:roltT TO rr..n nsKJ:L~oo""TnX. a·•nf~l· DJ:'XT, AT UOSA C"LUO !lolf:J:TL XO 0~ Wr "'CS"D,\T, t r , Jt.. AT .D. Gt:OROt: \ 'A.SOEJlDII.Ir IIU'I'T.L 1'0 A.Xfil\\"tm nu;; FOU.Oa"J:~Ct f I remember when Lion Joe Dave announced that the club delivered five pigs to the Candler Pig Club in connection with the Chamber of Commerce's plan for improvement of western)'(North Carolina's livestock through cooperation of civic clubs. I remember when in 1938 at a Lions Club golf tournament, I promised to give a prize for the winner of the first flight. I wrote a check for $1,000 and since I won the first flight, I presented the check to myself. I remember when Lion Roy Phillips, advertising director of the Al}uvi/1~ Citiun- Tim~s talked to me as President of the Lions Club and wanted the club to sponsor a tunic race ~d buy a page ad in the newspaper. I told him to present it to the board ofiirectors, that I would not t2ke the responsibility of investing in a turtle race. He gld me T couldn't be a good president of the club and let grass grow under my feet. I told him that he wasn't talking to one of his advertising salesman, that he was talking to me as president of the club vt~~:k:-:.=;~;7., , I N'-INr J.IMUftO I AbNnt Q-n La411M N'llbt • I'Co-.411tl• ) ::: : : : ~: 7 1 "'..,.."' •• lllt&e ;;:'A~•t•Wt.-dH > r•n,· e..,.; ,g (),)),,, Q"'..: ··········- ·····--···- · ···-··············-············· orn-r. I remember when I had a phone call from my golf caddie named "Cris" on a Saturday, and he advised me that Lion Judge Cathey had given him 30 days in jail for fighting. He, ,_./ wouldn't be able to caddie for me Sunday. That was a disaster for without Cris I just coui_Y-. ~ play a good game of golf. I called Lion Judge Cathey and advised him of the siruation "'and he told me he would reduce Cris's sentence from 30 days to one day and for me to go down to the jail and get him. < �More than 300 persons representing every civic organization in the ciry attended the banquet at the Battery Park Hotel. I got~. Sholn of Florida to make the principru< address. ~V.£"/RAIO/C.._ I remember when Lion Judge Cathey was namea the National Handicapped Man of the Year and several of us Lions went to Washington with him to receive the award from President Eisenhower. 7 I remember when l was invited to Lioness Hudson's house for Thanksgiving dinner. She called me the day before and said that Lion Judge Cathey had put her cook in jail and she had no one to cook the dinner. I called Lion Judge Cathey again and told him about it. He arranged for Lion Hudson's cook ~ksgiving dinner. Prohibition's I remember when mimic political campaign speeches by members of the Lions Club were featured at the S & W Cafeteria during their meeting. In the comic program, four members representing four political parties made "pleas" for support of their candidates for president. Lion Schorr urged the club to vote for Herbert Hoover, Lion Roy Phillips upheld Franklin D. Roosevelt, Lion Nat Friedman asked that William D. Upshaw be given the club's support and l talked at length on Norman Thomas, the socialist candidate. I remember when Lion Dan SteWart, Lion Charlie Miller and I went to Havana, Cuba for an International Convention. We drove to Miami and took the boat to Havana. After the convention, trying to get back to Miami, we found it was going to be three days before we could get passage on the boat. I didn't want to wait three days in Havana so I phoned my girl friend Reggie who was secretary to the Mayor of Miami Beach. She told me she would take care of the situation and for me to go down to the boat office and they would give me passage on the next boat to Miami. She told the boat office they needed me as a wimess in a court case, so I spent the night in a big chair in the lounge of the boa~ ?~ing to Miam~ Reggie and I met Lion Stewart and Lion Miller in a couple of days an~k them fishing. I remember when on July I 0, 1940 the Lions Club held a meeting which was described by Lion C.E. Hudson as "in truth the most gratifying gathering of all times in Asheville, of its kind.• It was described by the Ashwilk Citizm as the largest and most represenrative civic organization gathering in Asheville in recent years. It was an inter-club banquet and fim annual award of the Asheville Lions Club to the most useful civic club member in the ciry of Asheville, 1939-1940. Tbc idea of this banquet was presented to the Civic Club Union by Lion Jim Divelbiss IDIIIIIJICI£ They assisted the Lions Oub and picked Robert Lee Ellis of the Coca-Cola BOaJias Campaay 11 Asheville's most useful civic club member in the 1939-40 year. He ftCiiWd • tiluale plaque from the Lions Club which he said he would cherish as long as he lnecL ~ning Days It was in 1933, afrer Franklin Roosevelt was elected President of the United States, that the Volstead Act was repealed and it became legal to sell beer with an alcoholic content on October I st. I was exalted ruler of the Elks Club and it became my dury to get beer to serve to the members. This was a difficult job as none was available from distributors around Asheville. Nineteen thirty-three was the year of the Great Depression and Rabbi Goodkowin bought a second hand truck from Harry Blomberg and did some hauling on the side to supplement his income from Bikur Cholim. Rabbi Goodkowin said he would go to Baltimore and get us a load of beer as he personally knew the owner of the Valley Forge Beer Company there. I gave him six hundred dollars of the club's money and he left on a Monday to be back on Thursday. He didn't show up, but came in the following Monday. The delay was due to the truck breaking down on the trip. Of course I was somewhat concerned, but the club had a truck load of Valley Forge~eer available. ~ <( Leo Cadison saw me and advised that he had talked to United Scates Senator Robert R. Reynolds, and the members were starting a campaign to sell the beer before October !st. Captain Fred Jones of the Asheville Police Department and a member of the house committee said he would not recommend selling it before the legal date. At the club that week, I noted about 150 members were present instead of the usual 40. Under "good and welfare" Senator Reynolds, a great orator, spoke in favor of selling the beer and said that we were all brothers in a non-profit and charitable organization, and it would be legal to sell it. Others who spoke in favor of selling the beer were Judge Philip Cocke, State Senator; A. Hall Johnson, Superior Court Judge; Dan Hill, Postmaster; Marcus Erwin, U.S. Attorney; Zeb Nettles, Superior Court Judge; Charles McRae, local attorney; and Leo Cadison. Leo Cadison made a motion that we advise the house manager to put the beer on ice so that we could drink it afrer the meeting. I advised Mr. Cadison that I could not accept a motion of an illegal nature but under Robert's Rules of Parliamentary Procedure he could appeal my decision. He appealed and I advised that the question to be voted on would be "Shall the decision of the Chair srand," and there would be no discussion. The vote was unanimous against my decision (which suited me), and I instructed the secretary to take everything out of the minutes pertaining to beer, also to E �advise the house manager to put the beer on ice so we could have it aficr the meeting. He said that it was too late to advise him because the beer had been on icc for the past rwo hours. How to Finance a Pawnshop in a Depression '7 7 7 193~ It was the Depression of the Our loans averaged $1 0 and we made them as low as 50 cents. The demand was great on loans on diam~d jewelry. The top loan on a 1/2 karat diamond was $50 and $200 on a good grad~ I was running out of money. I saw Perry at the Morris Plan Bank and we agreed to rent a lock box at the Wachovia Bank. Both of us would have a key to it. I would hypothecate the large size diamond and jewelry loans. The way that worked is I would make the loan, get the cash &om Perry on a 90 day note, and put the jewelry in the lock box as security. If the customer came to redeem his jewelry I advised him ¥~lry was at the vault at the Wachovia for safekeeping and I would get it for h.im. ~ This was working very well as the bank was making the legal rate of 6% on 90 day notes which were paid in 30 to 40 days with no refUnd for unearned interest. I was doing OK also. I charged interest at legal rates plus other expenses incident to the negotiations of the transactions. But a miracle happened. A girlfriend of mine in the 1922 cl School married a man from Milwaukee, Wisconsin, who later com came back to Asheville to live. She saw me and wanted to know if I could help her out. She said she was left a sizeable amount of life insurance and did I know of a safe place where she could invest some of it and get a decent return. I helped her out. Streetwalking A young lady friend of my family would pawn a diamond pin for $50. She was always months past due on the redemption of it. I felt sorry for her and I didn't let her pay any interest or charges on any loan afier her first loan. After pawning it several times, she came in for a loan on the pin. She asked for one hundred dollars. I told her that a hundred dollars was more than we could loan on it, that I would loan her $50 again. She said that she needed a hundred dollars and that I was trying to make a "street walker" out of her! The Preacher and the Bible I helped a preacher financially conduct his Sunday's services. Back in e...!l!:prcssion days of the 1930s there was a preacher who pawned his Bible every Mond mor er Sunday's services and redeemed it on the following Friday or Saturday for the next service on Sunday. I made the original loan of $10 and advised the preacher that he could get it out at a charge of $1 anytime in 30 days or if needed, he could wait three months at no additional charge. Then a banker comes to town. He took over the Morris Plan Bank and organized the Bank of Asheville. Perry, the new cashier at the Bank of Asheville, came to sec me and said, •Mr. Wolcott advised that the bank wun't a pawnshop and to tell F"mkdstcin to pay off those 90 day aoca. • It looked like I was going ro haft co atOp making large jewdry .,._ and try to meet the 90 day note. In checking the records I found that he had pawned the Bible weekly on many occasions. On the next Friday morning when he came afier his Bible I told him he didn't owe anything on it, that he had paid more carrying charges than the original loan. I told him to put that $10 bill he had next to the Ten Commandments in the Bible and the next rime he needed $10 to take it our and put it back in the Bible afier Sunday's service. Just don't bring the Bible back here for a loan. He didn't. LM Finlttlsuin in his paunuhop �Overcoats 7 During q{e ~~on of 1933 the pawnshop had 800 overcoats left at the beginning of the summer. ~e-loans were from $3 to $7 each, and 80% of the loans were past due. There was a problem of moths. We pur mothballs in the pockets of all overcoats and sprayed them with DDT. I asked him if it was life insurance. He said, "No." lc was liability insurance and if I did anything wrong as a deputy sheriff that they would fUrnish me legal assistance in court. I was sworn in November I 5, 1934. After rhe overcoats became more than three months pasr due we: had them dry cleaned. We: made: a contract with the cleaners to pick up and return lots of twenty at SO cents each. The owner of the cleaning company came in the shop and said that he wamed to buy an overcoat for his chauffeur. He tried on one and liked it so much that he said he would keep it for himself and give his ro his chauffeur. Murders in Pawnshops and Helping SheriffL. Brown You have probably read in the Citiun-Timls about Mark Lane who was killed in a shooting during an armed robbery. His futher, Ronald Lane, and he were co-owners of che Leicester Pawn Shop. Earlier, I wrote of Reggie, secretary ro the Mayor of Miami Beach, who helped our delegation get fusrer transportation back co Florida from rhe lmernacional Lions Convention in Havana, Cuba. Lion C.A. Miller was on char trip. Lacer Reggie's brother was killed in a holdup in his pawnshop on Flager Screer in Miami. A lor of people classify a pawnbroker as a shylock. Those pawnbrokers I have known are kind people and are an asset to any community they operate in. In November 1934 Sheriff Lawrence Brown of Buncombe County came to see me and said thar he needed help. Beacon M ring-Eompany4t Swannanoa was having labor -;, rrouble and a group from South Car linal_was coming up c~tcvem che employees from going ro work. He wanted ro rene 12 u tglfns to be used by special deputies ro guard the entrance ro rhe plane. 7 Harringro~chardson I rented him twenty 12 gauge shotguns for $1 each. He was successful in guarding the plane and they never fired a shoe. The sheriff phoned me and said char be wanted ro bestow upon me rhe honor of being a deputy sheriff and co come over and bring a photo for an identification card. I cold him I didn't know anything about enforcing rhe law. He said char was okay, ro come over and he would swear me in and cake out insurance on me. uo Finktlsuin, Dq>uty Shmff X~ I goc a phone call che next morning from Mr. Seely, Manager of the Grove Park Inn. ~ He said that he needed a gun for his watchman, a .38 Smith and Wesson SpeciaJ/1 with a 4~ barrel. Sheriff Brown cold him I co~d what he wan red. I cold him I had ic in stock su ply and he asked me to bringrgz· c o c to nn. goc in my dilapidated Ford touring car, drove to the from entrance of th ,k_ an to go in, when the bell captain stopped me. < ( <.. He asked, "What arc y oing here?" I replied, "I have a gun for your watchman and Mr. Seely asked me to bring ic our co him." "Well," he said, "you rake that gun to the back door. They have a barrel of money back ~~· there and they will pay you for ic." ~ression the~ced This was during che of Mr. Seely top price, and was going co do almost anything co complete the sale, so I went to the back door. ~ Now I am happy co announce that at the present time I am allowed co go in the fronL_ entrance to the Inn. ~ ( \ ' '<. �Guns and a Grandfather Clock A friend of mine had a valuable an rique clock abour six fcer tall. He said that he was leaving home for a month and there was a lot of larceny going on. He wanted to leave it with me for safekeeping. I told him to put it in the storage area on the second floor of the shop. A couple of days later a customer comes in and wants to buy a shotgun. It was summer rime and since hunting season didn't open until fall I wondered why he wanted a shotgun. My salesman said all the shotguns and shells were stored on the second floor and he wo uld take the customer up there. A little later I heard a big loud bang from the second floor. The salesman came running down and said that the customer had commirted suicide with a shotgun. I called the Police Deparrment and Dr. Baer, the coroner. Will Hampton, solicitor of police court and the chief carne over. I went to the second floor with them and we found the customer passed out on the floor. I didn't see any blood and upon examination we found part of his clothing blown away under one arm and he wasn't injured. It's almost impossible to reach the trigger of a 32" barrel shotgun when you have the muzzle at your chest. Evidently the customer must have tried to reach the trigger and the muzzle slipped under his arm when the gun fired. I remembered the grandfather clock and found that the discharge from the gun blew some of the plaster out of the wall about a foot from the dock. T he dock was okay. Dr. Baer asked for a pin. He said that he wanted to find out if the man really passed out. He jabbed him several rimes with a pin and the man didn't move. He really passed out. The chief said that the man had violated a law and he would take charge of him. The lesson from this event is: Don't try to commit suicide- if you do, you are liablr to get arrested. .A Secwtarys Thoughts My name was Ma~t Owen in 1936, when I was Leo Finkelstein's secretary. It was the first job I ever had and he really taught me how to be office help. It was an exciting time to work on Pack Square, which was the hub of Asheville's business world at that time. I remember that Mt. Finkdstein would lend me out to do typing for some of the Jewish organizations he was participating with at that time. I worked for Lou Pollock when he was head of the Jewish Cemetery, and Mr. Gustav Lichtenfels and Siegfried Sternberg when they were working on getting Jewish people out of Germany. I wrote some of the letters which were instrumental in bringing some of the early German Jews to Asheville, who then went on to become very valuable citizens of Asheville. I know of Herbert Schifran and his fam ily, and Alfred and lrmgard Lichtenfels. There were probably others that Mr. Finkelstein was responsible for that he remembers, but I have forgotten. I was in the store when the internees of Germany and Japan who were billeted at Grove Park Inn came in, and Tom Wolfe carne in to visit his friend, Bob Bunn. I was standing out front one day when General George Marshall walked by on his way to the City Hall which was the Air Force Headquarters at that time during World War II. We all were out front one day when President Franklin D. Roosevelt visited Asheville to dedicate the Great Smoky Mountain National Park. Mr. Finkelstein was more than a friend to many of the ethnic community of char rime. I believe char he was the contact for visiting rabbis, Jewish transient people who needed help and communicated with them in Hebrew. All the employees learned to understand and communicate (somewhat) by talking to each other in Yiddish. Mr. Finkelstein played ar least ten or rwelve instruments, demonstrating in order to make a sale o r loan. The Silver Shirts In the 193{)!;>William Dudley Pelly operated the "Silver Shirts," a Nazi-like organiz.a- <!_ rion in a building across the street from the Jewish Community Center on Charlotte Street. He published the Libaation ~tkry,'tanti-Semitic literature with a circulation of eight thou- ~ sand. 0->n.--ln a parade, I was playing the saxophone with th~ Shrine Club Marching · le Band, and William Rosenfelt was carrying the Ameri n""i=Jag. Pelly in his Libaation Wftkry published a story that we were disgraced by a Jew with , · nose carrying the American flag. Pelly was arrested by the Buncombe County Sheriff's Department in 194 1 for selling unregistered stock. He was found guilty through the efforts ofJulius Levitch, a young Jewish lawyer by the name of Alvin Kurrus, and a local attorney named R.R. Williams. < �The Stolen ~tch William Rothenberg was a parient at the V.A. Hospital in Oteen. He moved to Asheville to live, married Freda Gross. I gave him a job as salesman in the pawnshop. He would go back to Oteen for treatments but was asked to stop. He got to drinking and was separated from his wife. A railroad watch from our display board was missing. A taxi driver told me that William Rotheuberg sent the watch to the other pawnshop in town by him, and he pawned it there for $20. I checked the serial numbers on the watch and they were the same as the ones on our watch. I asked Rothenberg about it and he said that he won it in a poker game the night before at the Langren Hotel. I checked with Fred Bradley, the night manager of the hotel and he advised me that there was no poker game in the hotel that night. Rothenberg got to drinking and Judge Cathey put him in jail with a sentence of 30 days. Judge Cathey released him from jail after I promised to send him to Miami, Florida where his ex-wife was living. I bought him a bus ticket and told him nor to return to Asheville. He clid not return. rv. I Am A Dime was born in the early pan of the twentieth century at the United States Mint in Philadelphia, put in a roll with forry-nine other climes and srupped to the Southern State Bank, of which Mr. S. Sternberg was president, on Depot Sueer in Asheville, North Carolina. M r. Sternberg had a son, Joseph, who later became president of the Asheville Lions Club. Mr. Sternberg rook me and the forry-nine other climes to his beautiful estate on Victoria Road in order to panicipare in a ten cent limit poker game with some of his friends. Someone tipped off the police that a game was goiug on. The home was raided and Mr. Sternberg gave the names of the players as Mr. Aleph, Mr. Baze, M r. Gimmel, Mr. Dolad, Mr. Hay, Mr. Vove, Mr. Zion and Mr. Hess. The Ashroilk Citiun carried a story after the trial that an attorney appeared in Police Court for Mr. Aleph, Mr. Baze, Mr. Gimmel, Mr. Dolad, Mr. Hay, Mr. Vove, Mr. Zion and Mr. Hess and paid their fines. Very few people knew that Aleph, Baze, Gimmel, Dolad, Hay, Vove, · , ess are the first eight letters of < the Hebr ~abet. I got sep te from the other dimes that came to Asheville with me. I found myself in the pocket of Chief Bernard of the AsheviUc Police Depanmenr. It was in Novemb61i'9P6, that the Chief phoned Uncle~ Harry, the pa~er, and said that he needed firearms and ammunition ro equip a posse of fifty men in order to hunt Will Harris, a desperado. Will Harris had shot and killed five men, two of whom were ciry policemen. Uncle Harry furnished the �posse with guns and ammunition, taking only the names of those receiving firearms. It was reported that Will Harris spent the night in a barn in Buena Vista. The posse surrounded him in a field near Fletcher and~him. His body was brought to an undertaking estab? ishmem at 21 South Main Srr e~ hung our of the second story window in the building in order to show the people t he had been killed and quieten them down. The next day, the Chief called Uncle Harry and asked if all the firearms had been returned. Uncle Harry said they had and commented that the people of Asheville were honest and good citizens. {Bob Ton//, wriur for rh~ Citizen-limes, ta/lud about this romt at on~ ofour mutings of Club.) th~ Lions (In 1968 th~ Bur~au ofAlcohol Tobacco and Fir~arms in Washington ~quir~d a ~cord of nl"J pistol rifo, rroolv~r that w~ ~aiv~d and dispos~d of, as ~11 as th~ mod~/. calib~r, urial numbu and manufoctur~r. I ~antly ch~ck~d th~ shop that I r~tir~d.from 25 y~an ago and thry hav~ mortis of33,000 transactions sina 1968 on hand.) The Chief took me to Mr. Pa~e on South Main Street, bought his lunch which consisted of a ten cenr bowl of soup, a good supply of free crackers and catsup. OLM>Pff$'? 1P 1 Pa~rother Mr. operated the "Candy Kitchen" on Haywood Street. They were making a l<~t.gfs;ick candy in the shape of wa.lking sticks, colored red and white. The cafe owner bought a half dozen walking sticks from his brother, using me as part payment. He said that he was going to put the candy on his C hristmas tree. p.~fu,ed The next day Mr. on North Main Street, was coming to town in a rain storm. North Mai~;.:: ~t all side streets were not. They had stepping stones in order to get across. Mr. P~p?~ on a stepping stone, getting his shoes all muddy. He stopped at the Pack Square Shoe Shine Parlor, got a shoe shine for five cents and gave the shine boy a five cent rip. The nc:xt thing I knew I was placed in a deposit for the Wachovia Bank and I stayed in their vault until the year 1913. Uncle Harry picked me up rouse in his petty cash. His son asla:d for his weekly allowance and I was given to him with four other dimes. The son boarded a South Main Street streetcar on Pack Square with a fishing pole and a can of womu. He got off at the Swannanoa River and waiked a hundred yards toward the French Broad. In a couple of hours, he caught a nice suing of hog suckers, homey heads and perch out of the beautiful clear waters of the Swannanoa River. On his way home, he gave me to the conductor, received five cents change and a transfer to the North Main streetcar inor~e~ome. Z e-CondJ cror carried me around a few days and then gave me to a lady on the Rive · pen air" streetcar that ran to Riverside Park. Riverside Park was owned and operated by th~eville Power and Light Company, the same people who owned the street car company at was mally gobbled up by Lion Smith's Carolina Powe~d Light Company. This ady gave me to her husband who went down to the EIWClub and lost ~ me in a rummy game to a distinguished looking attorney they called "Judge Cocke." After the card game, the judge sat around talking to brother Elks and drinking beer. He was <.... ~ F.unous for his knowledge of North Carolina, people and places. He even talked about ._.; 44 the house of ill repute in Asheville at the rum of the cenrury known as the "Eagle Terrace" run by a lady called "Queen Elizabeth." r The next morning, Attorney Cocke defended a man in Police Court who was charged with stealing a pair of shoes and pawning them because he couldn't wear them on account of being too small. The court ordered the man to leave town that day. The man said he was hungry and didn't have any money. So Attorney Cocke gave me with other change to him. The man went down to the Asheville and East Tennessee Railway Company station ar the comer of North Main and College Streets. They operated an electric vehicle between Asheville and Weaverville. The man smelled hot dogs cooking at D. Gross's Hot Dog Srand next door, so he spent me for a hot dog and a coca-cola. Mr. Gross raised and educated a F.unily of thirteen children from the money he earned at his hot d og stand. Mr. Gross carried me around unci.l Saturday night when he went to Liggett's Drug Store for some headache powders. He stopped in from of the drug store to listen to the Salvation Army band while they were having a preaching and musical session. He put me in a pot they were using to get donations for their annual Christmas party. The Salvation Army bought a second-hand truck from Lion Fred Brown to be used in delivering food and clothing to the poor people in town. I was used in this transaction. Lion Brown rook me to a Lions Club meeting, where he used me to pay the dime he was fined by the Tail Twister for falling asleep during the program. The Tail Twister's wife took possession of me and bought some ribbon a Royal, a large department store on South Main Street, operated by Mr. Mo cis Myers.!? )1/t'Jt:R. I circulated around Asheville until 1918, and again found myself in poss · of Mr. Sternberg. He had a large junk yard and warehouse on Depot Street that bought and sold < �FR OM R.S.U . MEDIR SERV I CES 0:5.0 6.1998 11:04 hundrui' '''' .....,J,idt,. On -.ll ,,f hh adV\:tti&(menu, he ca.rried the slogan, "We buy any· rl11 111!, :uul M II eve •ytluul'\: A • ircw came to town and didn't have enough monty to leave. T hey :•pplit d :•· M1. Stc robc r~ who wu president of the Southern States Bank 011 Depot !'It I<< t lm 11 I••:•" .,f $200. Mr. Sternberg made- the loan and took the elephant as collateral. H e ntnl'lale,.·rl lu• ...,~~ lo•in ~ It Ioney on account of the elephant uting JO rnuoh. Otto llu,rr k wh¢ 11\\ll c d Mtddlcneull t Gudens at th:u time raited hb own flowers at a hot house it . c :.111dln. 11, 1 1 rlrt~ol M1. ~~~· rnherg out wirh the elephllllt- he bought tht elrphant'' 1 P. 2 Lion 4 home to 2 into the P recruited ' muskrar h fj,,. bdl ~tllll• d '" ri 1t~ At tht' fitc house. The Armistice of World War J had bean signed. Then to the Gal Bill's hrotl President the thc:ate l'r11pk g;~thnu . 1111 I•H Squa1c and buih a hugC" bonfire. A firC' truck came out of the flr: ck hl•uH to ~lut•< "' J)'lldight 011 rhe American flag fly1 at the top of the Pack Square flag ng 1 pol, 1CC>I'k ~ ~ " 1>1 iu~m~ th1it ~u tu from home to the Square i\nd 1hootin(t livr ammuni· girls at clc boy& in or 111 .111\1 11' , 'J l1c t u::Xt """j.: I tc·call Wfl' Jout o'clock on the morninsofNovemhcr II , 1918. ti1oo1 IIIlO th t : j, ·lhe Il l l'l'i~(,tfl tll'll The fdlt •w who <lwned mr hrought 11 double~barrel shotgu11 10 town and bought some l.!u1~ I'OW\I•·J ~loc·ll~ I rom Oti~ Green HMdware Store. (Mr Green yean lurr bee~~ me mayor l,r 1\~lorvill~l .,.lu: ('!,ic-C of Pulice &oon asked alluorea 1elllng Rmmunition to qult selling it ~' hc w~~ 11lt.,·,, \IIIIH'11f1C: Wl'uld acddentally get ahot. M1. <;,,.1to tuok rnt to tlu· Southem Railway pacsengu atation and bought a ticket to Nrw Yurk f 11•ll l !'at Mulvanry, ticker agent. Frank Mulvaney, a brother to p_.t, was a chief drrlc lor the n•llmd lit" latrt I'ICcame councilman for the City of A1heville. 1';11 wok '"' ''' 1hr Uniuu News CompAny's news 1tand in the station and bought two bousht a Billboard magarJnc, And I wa. ~tvt 11 w ltil ot II • < h :111~(· for '' dc\llar. He took me to the Glen Rock Hotel RCroll the meet, and I w•~ u,,.,J 111 payilll( hb h1l l. The clerk at the hotel bought some icc cream 111 Finley's P111~ Ston· t•l">1 door liv<· <"<"Ill •:it·.:1r' 1 :1 tt' an t'nwuc:er from the ra~lroad .. ......._. Mr. Jr,r,lcl' ._:.1vc· ""' to ht~ M>n, Bob. who took e ~o ntford Avenue School. Bob in / lat< r yt·tH lo< l:tiP,. the· Suprrntl' Court Justice for e'~atc Washington. Sob, on kavi n~ Momlot<l ~''''"ll' St 1.11ol opt liRy. took me to Mr. ' roccry Store on Cherry Street ~nd lwtJfoh~ \ (>lltl · rookie• Thr peOflle acrou the street from Mr. Book's Groc:Qry Store had ~ lut nf t:h~n )' trcr . .<Ill their land aJ1 they would pay boyt from the tchool ten cenu a , d qu:trt 1 p~ ~. d~<·rnc·~. Lion Curl Rhinehart picked e quart of cherrie& and ~c~lved me in 0 JI~ )' IIH I ll Majestic 1 It was bought b) Street. Sc there for 1 used me 1 The c Thq more. 1 c me. Dr. J aale. Dr. haven't lt4 �Lion Cui Rhinehart lost me in a marble game :1r s~:hool cu Ja.c:lt R x·•• '• wl•tl tovk .,,,. ol' home: to 21 ~ Norch Main Sttctr. A creek ran plllJkl ru Nm ch Main Sirccc .111 :empti(d J into the Pren_ch Broad. Jack foW'Id mutkra.ts were running up a11d dowfl du: •:• ct~• av ht r~cruirc:d Scl~c: of the: nc:ishborhood boys who acquired n~cl UiipS anJ ~a u~h 1 .ojd told rlw mulkrar hidcts ro St. Penick and Company, at the corner of Ncmh Mairl :u•cll .••..iu~Jtvn. uy any~ to leave. Depot collateral. Otto hoc houJc: phant's 18. The llgned. ,f rhc: fire~ are flaa ammunl- .ghc some: line: mayor t sellinslc T he ncsc thing I recall I waa in the pants pockc:c ot Lion Uill Mifh ~l·rv·· · whp rook "'' to the G:Vuy ·rncater on Pack Square in order to sec 11. . eri:J 'n•>vie ralltd n,,. 11/a:·• lltwd. 1 Bill's brother, Dan, was manaFr of the Asheville: The:ttcr.s, a11.J he fin;~ly I·~·· ·"" ' Viu· Presldc:nc of Paramounr Picturet, with hc:adquRiters in Aumah<4. Sinc:c '''' IIU• ic1 .1c che theateu in town, he: would, on oc:cuion, take his teenage· 1-ouy fticnls l•:u k~ ra~e .1r ch ~ Majestic Thc:atc:t, Joe~ red :u d~ corner of Colle~e and M.ukn Strew. 1 ~" w •l1c ch• . girls at dose range. 1omm)' E.lkina, the stage mlltlngcr, wou ld keep a rh~c.: w.. t. on thC' ., boys in order to see that they behaved themselves. It wa, in 1922 when I waa wed 1.1 pare p:Ayment for a sc.:oud h;111d Jcll··cy ;'IIUlllluh•k bought by Harry Blomberg. Harty took Ius Jeflcry autl) to A1hcvillc lli~• , ,.,.. ~,f on< .,~k Srreer. Someone dropped me on Market Street :wJ I rolled dnwn :.t sc.•"' "'""~'· I ~1ayc.J there for ;a lqng time and one day a man from the c:ity's water dt·p;~w HO•H f., .. ,,.j me .111d used me in a donation co me Dem«ratic Patey of Buru:omhc Cl)unty. The: c.:h a.itm<~n of rhc: P11rty put me in a 10 cent slot mad •rnc :i<:ket co u a chief ughttwo • and I wu he meet. t Finley's t&t J tv< i.d . l ui ~ The pl~ycr who won me at the 1lot machine wl)u(J tlw.ly5 put 111c h.h ~ . l~toping 111 wrn more. t circulated in and out of the .lot m~hine wwl 19~0, when l .io11 l l , I:,;lthn;ru w''" me:. Dr. f'ddmm had a rcputacion of never buyin~ any thin~ unlm hr ~~~ ·lid ~~~·J it whtJ!e sale. Dr. f'Cldman put me: in the z.ipp~r change !ecuon of hi~ 1 10Cketh• •'k· .111.1 1\tlW I haven't seen the light of day for twenty years. >1. &b In on Ieavins ry Srrcc:c Store had :nrs a :dmc in s: 'd S 3Ji n ~3 S ~103W ·n·s·~ W O~ ~ �make any difference, as long as he is a Jew that is all that is necessary. That is what you might think, but I don't! There is not one Jewish transient in five hundred worthy of any help at all. They travel from place to place using the fact that they are Jc:ws to prey upon other Jews. Many of them are ex-ronvicts, some just ordinary bums, and all of them liars. In this army of rogues, you will not find one who has a friend or relative who they could obtain help from. I have offered to wire to any person for hundreds of them, but they will teU you that all their friends or relatives are broke, or that they wouldn't think of asking any of them for money. Common sense will tell you that, if a transient is wonhy, there must be someone in this world who will help him to some extent. I am sure if any of you gentlemen were to find yourself broke in some fur off place, that you would have at least one friend or relative to whom you could wire for help. These swindlers don't want to get help from friends or relatives. They are just traveling around, enjoying life in a peculiar way, and living on the Je · pu ·c, their so-called brothers. QL - y So, when these Je "sh Bro / them? The only sensible possible. rs of ours come to town, what are we supposed to do with ng we can do is to get rid of them as quickly and as cheaply as The most common type of transient is the ordinary bum who claims that he has a job in a nearby city. All he wants from you is a couple of meals in a good restaurant, a room with a bath in a dean hotel, transponation to the place he is going, and maybe a pair of shoes, a couple of shirts and an overcoat. In order to get rid of this man quickly you must start talking befOre he does. So when I spot one, I start talking first. I ask him if he wants some help, and as soon as he says "Yet I hand him a half-dollar, a meal ticket to a nearby rataurant, and teU him to get the heU our of town as rut as he can. Most of them will take this and leave because they know, through their grapevine system, that this is all they can get- This system even infunns them where to go to when you get to a town, and that is why nobody sees the majority of these people except mysel£ Some of them insist that they have a special story ro teU you about their hard luck, and that they are different from the rest. These stories would make some of you break down and weep, but to me these stories are just a bunch of fabricated lies. Then, we have the group of transients who are physically disabled. Some are partially blind and crippled. They will claim to have tuberculosis, nervous indigestion, high blood prasure or what-not. Some will claim to have a combination or complication of diseases, or an assortment of ailments. If I am convinced that the transient is really ill, then I buy 40 him transponation to the nearest point, and get him out of town as last as I can. These people are never given cash for their transponation. A check is written to the bus station for their ticket, and the bus station has instructions to issue a ticket stamped "No Refund." This method was adopted after I found out some cashed their tickets back in to get cash, and bummed rides out on the highway to get to where they were going. A decent looking, elderly lady once appealed to me for help. She stated that she was almost blind, and was traveling with her son who was so crippled he couldn't walk. She told me that she and her son had come in on a bus late the night before, and were at a small hotel near the bus station. She advised me that her son was ill in bed, that she was out of funds, could not ay her hotel bill, had nothing to eat, and no way to get to a nearby city where her ~?In to enter a hospital. "A worthy case, at last!" I thought. I took her name, apd asi~Jier t come back in an hour, and I would see what I could do for her. I inquired ahhe.ho e , and found that nobody by the name she gave me was there. I asked her about this when she returned, and she said that she did not use her real name since it was Jewish, and she didn't want people to think she was Jewish. I called the hotel sor, <..___ ~~~red~~~=~~~~~~~~~~~ the two of them were registered there, but that her son seemed healthy, and was in and out of the hotel all day long. Asking her about this, she explained that her son went out only when he had to go to the drug store for medicine. It was cold and raining outside, so I called the hotel, and told them I would pay their bill, gave her enough for food, bought her two bus tickets, and gave her instructions to get out of town by night without fail. It wasn't long before I received a phone call from a Jewish person in town stating that this old lady had called on him, and he proceeded to cuss me out for not giving her any help. To make a long story short- she called on three more persons in the city with the same story- that I would not help her. A couple of hours later I went by the hotel where she was staying and found that she had checked out and left in her room many pieces of clothing that had been given to her by these people she had called on in the city. Then we have the rabbis. They are a wonderful type of transient to deal with. They usually get to town on Friday, so you have to keep them over "shabbos." That means an expense of two nights' lodging and meals for a whole day. In fact, all the transients who arrive on Friday are "very religious" and won't travel on Friday night or Samrday. I've had many rabbis promise to send me back the money I gave them, and never yet has one of them sent back a penny. In filet, of the hundreds of promises that I've had from all kinds of transients to return money given them, never has one kept his promise. �The president of the onhodox congregation on~ phoned me, and told me that a rabbi was at his howe and that this rabbi was a very fine person, a scholar, and a gentleman, a man in need, and suggested that I give him $5. I was jwt ready to leave my howe, and I informed the president that I did not have time to interview the rabbi myself. bur that if he thought the man was wonhy, to give him $5, and I would return that amount to him larer. I happened to pass by the president's howe jwt as the rabbi was leaving there, and I rook a good look at him. The nt:Xt morning, the same rabbi was at my place ofbwiness, wanting co know if I cook care of the Jewish transients. He wasn't a rabbi anymore, and he had changed his name. I told him to come along with me, and I would rake him to the man who could help him. He got into the front seat of my automobile, and wanted to know where we were going, and when I told him we were going co see the president of the onhodox congregation, he jumped out and ran. I ran after him, and caught him on Patton Avenue. He starred yelling like I was going to murder him, and a crowd started to gather, so I let him go, and he ran away again. I haven't seen him since. Another rabbi on~ appealed co me for help. and he claimed to be a brother-in-law of the rabbi in Greenville, SC. Knowing the rabbi in Greenville personally, I didn't believe he would send a brother-in-law of his our of the state to chisel the public, so I phoned long d.isrance to inquire about the man. The rabbi in Greenville informed me that this transient had worried the community there a couple of days before, that he was no relation of his, bur claimed to be a brother-in-law of the rabbi in Columbia. This man's system was to claim relationship to a rabbi in a nearby cicy. in order co get help. I gave him fifty ~nrs and a meal ticket, and told him to get out of town before dark He didn't leave, instead he called on other Jews in the cicy with the same story, and collected around $5 by noon the next day. I finally contacted him and cold him again to get our of town, which he refused to do. So, I had the poli~ department pick him up and put him in jail. In about an hour, I went over, and talked to him in jail, and he changed his tunc quite a bit. He was ready co leave town, so we let him out and this time I gave him fifteen minutes to disappear- and he did! Another rabbi onc.e called on me and stated that he was a representative of a Jewish institution somewhere in Europe, and wanted a donation for it. I explained to him that we had a federated Jewish charities here to help him, and he would have to make his request through them. He kept insisting that I give him a donation personally, and I kept refusing him. He finally gave up, proceeded to ews me out in Yiddish, in a extremely loud voice and this wasn't all- he spit on the floor, slammed the door as hard as he could as he wenr out. I fdt like killing him, and I think it would have been jwcifiable homicide. I could cell you many tales of my experiences with these human vultures, but one I remember in panicular was the rime when a local judge phoned me and told me that he would have to try a young boy by the name of Goldberg for vagrancy. He asked me to recommend to him what to do with the boy. I wem over to see the defendant, and he happened co be one of the transients I had helped a few days before. He had ordered a sandwich at a small restaurant on the outskins of town, refused to pay for it, so the restaurant man had him arrested. I told the judge of my experiences with the Jewish t.ransients and asked him co make an example out of this boy, so he gave him thiny days on the road. In sentencing the boy, the judge told him that from now on every Jewish transient that was brought before him would get a road semen~. Then I really got criticized by the Jewish community for putting Jewish boys on the chain-gang. I was shown a copy of his criminal record from che FBI a few days Iacer. He had been convicted of all kinds of offenses from stealing a bicycle co highway robbery. After the boy got out, he came to see me again, and feeling sorry for him, I bought him a ticket to Charlotte, and informed him that I would sec that every transient from now on coming into Asheville would get a road semen~. Before that time, we had from ten to thiny transients per month appealing for help. It was interesting to note that we didn't have another transient come into Asheville for six weeks after the boy left, and for a long time after that appeals for help were half of what they had been before that. It is my sincere recommendation that every Jewish transient, coming into Asheville, be put in jail for a certain length of time. This is the only way co cure this evil. Of course, the Jewish community wouldn't stand for anything like that, they would rather give these damned hoodlums a few hundred dollars every year. Then, we have the transients coming through in family groups. These groups consist of a mother and father with one or more children. They wually arrive in a dilapidated old automobile. Most of the time, the automobile needs some repairs before they can leave town in it; it never has any gasoline and wually needs a couple of quatts of oil. These patties are expensive and hard to handle, becawe you can hardly send small children on their way without a night's sleep and proper food. Of course, I have some deserving cases, bur I don't class these with the transients. For instance, a man once came in to see me with the story that he had tuberculosis, and he had come down here from Detroit as his doctor had recommended this climate to him. He expected co gee a job as an elevator boy, or something of the sort, and he was under the impression that the climate here would cure him while he worked. Well, the man was broke and was waiting for some financial help from his brother whom he had written a few �days before. I gave the man $4 and he promised ro pay me back as soon as he heard from his brother. He came back the ncxr day. He had heard from his brother. He showed me the lcrrer and his brother enclosed $ 10 which was all that he could send. He told me that he was unable to find work, and was going to scan back for Detroit. He offered me the $4 I had given him. I asked him how he expected to get back to Detroit on $6, and he cold me that he would have co hitchhike. I told him to keep the $4, and wished him the best of luck. While I am nor a doctor, I was under the opinion from his looks that his health would never permit him to hitc€Juk'f_ ~~cf.~m ynd get there alive. ~~ch~ So for twenty years, I have bunch of beggars, coming from north, south, east, and west. They have become a part of my life, and if I could get out of this job right now, I am sure I would miss this horde of gangster.; that hop around from place co place like a bunch of grasshopper.; in a clover patch. Vli. War Years fiiot on 023 / "fin admission co the Air Force in 1943 I was ~ imetkwed as to what activity I had in a business or profession, also what experience I had in religious, fraternal or civic affair.;. I told them I was just a clerk in a pawnshop. I didn't tell them that I once: -was president of a cemetery. - was an owner of a company that built floats and decorated the town for the fim Rhododendron Festival in Asheville. -supplied the Asheville Police Department and the Sheriff's Department with guns and ammunition. I didn't tell them anything about my civic, fraternal, religious or social activities. I was sent to Tishomingo, Oklahoma for training in the Oklahoma State College for Agriculture to be an Air Force clerk in engineering. After graduating from the clerk's school in TIShomingo, I felt I would have an easy life in the Air Force being an engineering clerk. But my duties from Tishomingo to the islands in the South Pacific were: kitchen police mess hall fireman mess hall garbage director cleaning chickens �\ policing grounds digging ditches hauling poles ~ hauling fire:)vood hauling coal ,_ fighting forest fires ~ ) sorring merchandise a~house sorting salvage merchandise smashing tin cans hauling water finance clerk derail clerk runner for headquarrers sracking lumber cleaning rifles and machine guns building roads repairing bridges laying concrete operating gasoline pump telephone operator making inventories of supplies accing C. Q. pulling weeds and grass watering trees loading and unloading trucks loading and unloading freight cars loading barracks bags on boars and trucks cleaning harche.< on boars latrine orderly painting machinery communications clerk and finally, engineering clerk for the 394th Squadron, 5th bomb group of the 13th Air Force. ' Gerring a good grade on my education at lishomin South Pacific I thoughr I was ready to do my job. '---My first difficulry was when A pilot comes in to see me afrer a combat mission on a B-24 Bomber number 023 and said that he failed to put on his reponing form #I that the rachometer indicator occilates excessively, would I please write it in the form for him. I rold him I would. You know, I didn't know what the h--- he was talking about and I couldn't even spell it. Tokyo Rose Tokyo Rose was an American girl broadcasting from a radio station in Japan during World War II. Her broadcast was received by the 13th Air Force in the Admiralty Islands located in the South Pacific area. / She played recorded American music in her broadcast. She advised us that our wives and sweethearts were daring the 4 F's - the men who srayed our of military service - and they would go to drive-ins for hamburgers and ~oca-colas. She also said that the Japanese would be waiting for our B-24 bombers scheduled for a mission in the morning with anri-aircrafr guns and fighter planes. Radios were scarce on rhe island. wanted to listen to Tokyo Rose so I wrote home and requested a small radio to be shipped ro me. They advised that the smallest radio weighed roo much to be shipped overseas by parcel post but they would rake it apace and ship it in two packages which was acceptable at the post office. uo in World Wor II �The radio deparunenr of the 5th Bomb Group said they would be glad to put the radio together for me. When I received the shipment in two packages I gave it to them. They repaired. it the best they could. I found that when I turned it on, it would work for abour a minute and then quit receiving. They could not find the trouble. One day I took a screw driver, tightened all the screws and thought I found rhe trouble. I put the radio on the table in the tent, started it receiving and in one minute it stopped. I was disgusted. I hit rhe radio, knocked it off rhe table; it hit rhc floor, bounced about two feet and started playing. It was okay from then on. In about a week Captain Gardner in the engineering department sent word that he wanted to sec me as soon as possible. I thought I had fouled up on keeping his engineering records but he had this to say: "Corporal Finkdstein we are having trouble repairing cqe radio on airplane No. 022 and we understand that you are the only one in the 394th Squadron that can solve our problem. Wtll you help us?" I forgot what I said, but I couldn't figure out how to knock an airplane off the table. Topless WOmen Now if you read the morning paper, you noticed headlines on the from page: "Topless Night Club Opens in Asheville." Well, you didn't need a night club to see topless women on those Sourh Pacific Islands during World War II. The trouble was they would move all the women to another island close by the island we occupied. We built a motor boar made of two airplane belly tanks and a small power unit so that we could go over and sec the women at another island. I didn't go over to see the women. I wasn't afraid of them, bur I was afraid the boat might sink. Before the war Smokey Joe owned a road house on the highway going south from Asheville and after talking to him I found that I had patronized his instirution on numerous occasions during my younger years. Since we were practically neighbors in civilian life, we felt rhat we should continue over there as good neighbors and so we were. There is no better friend in the army than a cook because when you get hungry, he is rhe only man who can help you out. In passing I might mention that Smokey Joe, Starvin Marvin and I have on numerous instances enjoyed eating surplus stocks of food from the Mess Hall. Smokey Joe told me that Sheriff Brown, in Asheville, took his automobile away from hiJ? once because rhe sheriff had found some whiskey in it that he was rransponing to his road house. In 1944, Sergeant Joe received a shipment of canned corn. Instead of using it for chow, he built a still in a fox hole and made corn whiskey out of it. In a neighborly spirit he _. invited me to drink what I wanted of the corn whiskey and he helped me trade watch bands for coca-cola syrup and ice cream from a Navy,C.B. outfit located near by. ~ While overseas, besides having corn whiskey made by Joe and medical alcohol diluted 50% by water and flavored with burnt sugar, we were able to buy bonded whiskey from the flying personnel who didn't drink their rauon~~were looking for souvenirs so I wrote<( Lion Nat Friedman to send me a Jap~e har~tkari k.ti e from his antique store. He sent<:___ me a similar one. It was a-cir~ ~a~ · e with Turkish letters on it. My cost was $4. It looked Iii<{; hare:kari lq\ife. I gave it to Sergeant Joe and asked him to see if h< 'hl:.oond~hiskey. He reported later that he couldn't get a fifth of could trade for a fifth whiskey for it but he did get two fifths for it. Now Smokey is fighting to get his freedom - his freedom to go home and dodge Sheriff Brown some more. Srarvin Marvin wants ro go home and see his wife and two year old boy, a child that he has never seen, and so it is with me - I want ro go home - I just want to go home. World 'War II Diary Sergeant joe Sergeant Smokey Joe's home is just a little bit south of Asheville, NC. He was mess good guy, and a GI who could sympathize with all the ~er had to eat the food he prepared. sergean~e 394th squadron, a Vo 48 I had nothing to do while recovering from a recent surgery so I found my World War II diary and read the following: Before the war, I thought know Sherman was right. bein[~e army would be a thrilling advenrure - bur now I 7l (_ �Before the war, I thought the Air Force was a mechani~d force- but now I wonder what the hell I'm marching for. cwfff.J VJI[. Mter the War lkfore the war, I thought the .AJhroi/k Citizm was a 9181ten newspaper - but now I enjoy reading one four days old. Sgt. Smokey joe Before the war, I would drink a cocktail before dinner - but now I drink milk with my dinner. Before the war, I would sometimes go to bed at 4 a.m. - but now I get up at 4 a.m. Before the war, I was particular about what girl I took out- but now I'm not so particular. Before the war I struggled over a golf course- but now I struggle over an obstacle course. Before the war, I used to shine at a dance - but now I shine my shoes. Before the war, I cussed at a golf ball - but now a sergeant cusses at me for not being on the ball. lkfore the war, I didn't have much religion - but now I pray for a furlough. Soon after a prayer for a furlough, the Red Cross advised me that a business associate of mine had committed suicide and I had been granted a rwo weeks emergency furlough for a trip home. A ~ 'Jtrer the war Smokey Joe opened his road house agam near Greenville, SC. He carne to see me and advised that they had arrested his partner for hauling whiskey in Buncombe Counry and wanted to know if I could help him out. I told him I knew the Chief of Police and Sheriff Brown and I would be glad to see what the situation was. He mid me they couldn't help as it was the federal authorities that arrested his partner. Thinking of how to get him a light sentence, I asked Joe if his partner was in the armed forces and he said that rhey had turned him down because he had a heart murmur. I told Joe to send his partner to Lion Dr. Feldman who was federal physician and I would get a report from him as to his heart murmur. Lion Dr. Feldman told me he had a heart murmur and as a federal physician he would advise Judge Warlick about it in federal court. At the trial, Joe's partner got a suspended sentence. Later he carne to see me with a roll of hundred dollar bills and wanted to pay me for getting him off. I refused the money and told him that Joe had helped me out during the war and what I did was a favor to Joe. Later he brought me six fifths of scotch for a present which I kept. Corn Whiskey at Road House Before the war, road houses would hide the corn �whiskey they served their guests in a container under a bed. When the sheriff's deparunent would raid the joint, they usually wouldn't look for it there. One night they found it and an article appeared in the AJhroilk Citizm that the sheriff's department confiscated a gallon of whiskey hid in a container at a road house. jim Dive/hiss and Beaver Lake Returning home from World War II, I was interested in building a house to live in. Jim Divelbiss, president of the Asheville Lions Club 1941-1942, said that he had a lot across the street from his home on Westwood Road in Lakeview Park and if I would build a om• story house so he could see Beaver Lake over the roof of my house, he would give me a good deal. I acquired the lot and built the house. He told me that as a resident of Lakeview Park I should take on some activity for the benefit of the park. He took me to the annual meeting of the property owners and I was elected as one of the three commissioners - no salary. When I met with the other two commissioners they told me I had charge of the lake and fishing and they would back me up in anything I wanted to do. I got phone calls. ~ I got a phone call from a resident ~~who said "stop the fishing, the fish arc diseased." contaCted the game warden from thtr:r<i"''ild.life Resources Commission and we found that a service st2tion alongside the creek that fed the lake had put old oil from automobiles in the creek. and it had k.illed a few fish. -v I got a phone call from a lady that an awful looking man wearing overalls was fishing. I asked her if she expected him to wear a ruxedo. I got a call advising that two women indecently dressed were near the dam of the lake. '"">I found..!.- •o be the wives of the two commissioners 811.11 ilafftillg.. t" - j\''Y<;u ~n 1 U1 • I found two men swimming in the lake, which was against the rules. They wid me they would swim and that I couldn't stop them. I told them to swim if they wanted to and that a sewer line had broken and was emptying in the lake, and they would probably get typhoid fever. They stopped swimming. I found a group of women in bathing suits with a photographer at the lake near Glenn Falls Road. I found them to be local beauticians getting their picture with the lake in the background. They were using the picrure on a cover of a program for a state convention of beauticians in Asheville. Fishing in the lake was allowed for licensed property owners only. I saw a man standing at the edge of the lake for 30 minutes just looking. On investigation I found he had a line tied to his belt that ran down the inside of his pants leg over his shoe into the lake. On the line he had a float and a haired hook. When the fish would bite and pull the float under he would kick his leg, hang the fish, pull it in, and nobody would know he was fishing. I appreciated what Lion Divelbiss had done by getting me elected to be fish commissioner of Beaver Lake. But I got a call that I was going to be elected president of Congregation Beth-Ha-Tephila and that construction would be started soon on a temple at Liberty and Broad Streets. I thought I could use some religion so I didn't run again for commissioner of Lakeview Park and I took up my duties as president of Beth-Ha-Tephila. I completed the financing of the building of the new temple in two years. I was tired out and hoped that maybe I could get some rest by being fish commissioner again at Bc:av~r Lake. Sternberg Hunting Rats _) Lio~ub <('_ ~ Joe Sternberg was president of the in 1960-6 I. His father, Siegfried Sternberg, came over to the U.S. at the tum of the century, procured a horse and wagon, and drove around western North Carolina buying cowhides and junk. He finally opened a junk yard on Depot Street and became one of the largest cowhide dealers in the United States. Lion Joe was my classmate in the Asheville High School class of 1922. He rented a freight car on the local freight train to Murphy and bought cowhides at the stations where the train stopped. I was watch inspector for the Southern Railway and would travel on the same train, giving the employees a certificate that in my opinion the watch they had wouldn't vary over 30 seconds a week. Going west you could go as far as Waynesville by auto and then by train to Murphy. Lion Joe Dave, president of the club in 1932, was conmuction engineer for the Sternberg Company who supplied steel for the construction of buildings. Later he organized the Dave Steel Company. Old man Sternberg did well financially and became president of the Southern State Bank on Depot Street. �He became active in civic, religious and fraternal affairs in Asheville. He built a big home on Victoria Drive. He didn't like the hdp he was gerring in Asheville so he imported a beautiful young maid from Germany. The maid went down to get an item from the garage and found Mr. Sternberg there. Mr. Sternberg got fresh with the maid, the maid -;..1 - -:,?ricked up a.22 caliber rifle that I sold him and shot him. The wound wasn't serious. The next morning a news item appeared in the Ash~ilk Citiun: "Sternberg Wounded While Hunting Rats in the Garage." Irving S. Cobb and Grove Park Inn P About sixty years ago my friend Fred B~ night clerk at the Grove Park Inn. ~e would tell me about the operation of~ A guest would find his home town news/ paper at his breakfast table. If he paid for anyuung, what change, if needed, would be given to him in uncirculated money. ~ounds The only entrance to was a large gate off of Macon Avenue. The gate ..._ was dosed at 10 p.m. as the noise from any automobile going in and o~d disrurb the guests. Irving S. Cobb, a famous humorist, spent a co~k,_of days at ~ I A little afrer <(_ ten o'clock one night, he tried to get his auto into ~;grounds. e ound the gate <. locked. He had to p~ car on Macon Avenue. He walked to ~ and complained loudly about it. He was advised that th@ n didn't wdcome any unusual noises afrer 10 p.m. In a little while he carne down to the lobby from his room carrying his shoes, nothing on his feet but his socks, walked very quietly to Fred Bradley and whispered to him, "I want to check out." In a couple of days a news item appeared in the Ash~vilk Citiun wrirrcn by Irving Cobb: "The Bunk of Buncombe." Read news article from Asheville Citizen-Times on suicide ;::::..-;::::. ~ I was reminded of an historical event years ago when I was sdling guns. A customer said he wanted an inexpensive pistol to keep in his home and he just obtained a permit to buy it. I sold him a.22 caliber lver Johnson pistol. This type gun was later known as a (_ "Saturday Night Special." sai?J "Don't call me mister, When I completed the sale I sai:)."Thank you, mister." He I'm a doctor. You call me doctor." I said, "Thank you, doctor." He took the gun home and committed suicide with it. Now I got to thinking. If he bought the gun today, he would have to make application to get a permit and wait rwo or three days for the permit to be issued. Maybe if he ~ had to wait that long for a permit, he might have changed his mind about the suicide. c. \ "'-... Then, I wondered why, as a doctor, he didn't write a prescription for some high powered sleeping pills, take several of them and just go to sleep and not wake up. I think I got an explanation. If any of you had to buy prescription drugs today, you know how expensive they are. And if they were that expensive back then when this happened, I guess the doctor felt he could save money by committing suicide with a "Saturday Night Special." Ashntilk BotJhruJbile with Finlulsuin's in th~ bac!tground on th~ squart, with passmga Mluf•rtt Ytzndk mul K4thmn~ eu~. drivtr. Phofo by Jaunia \V'dma, IllS I. PhcKo cowtay of Nonh CaroliJU Collection, Pack Memorial l.ibruy, Asheville, NC. < �~ 'VIj....SINS OF THE 5A.NcroMioussUMMIT, OR Shall I live and !aug?_, or cry and die with a prayer, or laugh and live or cry and die ylvia and I decided to go into the Summit, a retirement home, for our golden years of life. We soon found out that the golden years of life arc: just gold plated - the gold wears off and you find yourself in a situation of assorted problems. I was in the World War II battle in the South Pacific but I found that it was a cinch compared to the "old age" battle in the Summit. Some of the residents here arc: physically disabled and some arc: menrally disabled. I am 92 years old and I find that all the residents over 90 years of age are both mentally and physically disabled. In moving to apartment # 108, I asked if! could bring my piano. I was advised that my apartment had sound proof walls and it would be OK. A female resident in an apartment near me said that she enjoyed listening to me practicing but please don't play before eight o'clock in the morning- "it's liable to disturb my sleeping." The Summit was described to me as a "country club" retirement home with beautiful grounds, good entertainment and delicious food. In the so-called "country club retirement home," I am still looking for the golf course and a swimming pool. The department serving food is the best outfit here. The meals are delicious but I've never been �~ffered a cocktail befor~ dinner. The strongest drink I've ever had here has been i4ea. The Sanctimonious Band / Some day maybe we will have an enuee of a Maine lobster o r a wild duck on toast. I couldn't figure out my monthly bill. I was told that the adding machine I had was an antique and what I needed was a calculator and computer to get the correct amount. I was advised that the easiest thing for me to do was to write a check for the amount listed as BAlANCE on my statement. That would be satisfactory with the Summit. I never worry about paying my bills to the Summit - I let them worry. If I go broke, I'll just go next door to the Veteran's Hospital where I can get in any time since I have a disability discharge from World War 1!. The 1997 elections are over and I'm glad I'm a Democrat because I don't like what the Republicans will do with my benefits I get from Medicare and other government agencies to help pay the Summit. The Democrats are not so hot either. They lowered interest rates so much on my government bonds so now I have to cash them in order to have enough money to buy drugs. b. I played the piano with the Sanctimonious Band and we performed old songs and new, for Lions Club Ladies Day meetings and other gatherings. Sometimes I wrote songs similar to those that were sung by soldiers after World War II. Fritz Abertson wrote melody notes and completed the music for songs about Lions Club members who were veterans of World War II. j - Snapoo - Snapoo j Oh Madame - oh Madre, your daughter i I'd like to take her out a date Snapoo -snap-= . g scannie, Go-sn= Snapoo - Snapo i_n Oh sir - oh sir, she · roo young Snapoo - Sna o Oh sir - oh sir, s is too young She's never been ·sscd by any man's son Snapoo - snap , go-scannie, Go-sneeze Snapoo - napoo LN IINi Sylvia Oh Mother oh Mother, I'm not too young Snapoo - Snapoo Oh Mothe - oh Mother, I'm not too young I've been cd by the Rabbi's son Snapoo - ap-cczc, go-scannie, Go-sneeze Snapoo - Snapoo - �Oh Mother - oh Mother, Shelby's awful nice S apoo - Snapoo / 0 other - oh Mother, Shelbtwful nice 's An ow he's already kissed me icc Sn - snap-cc::zc, go-scannie, Go-sn= Snapoo - Snapoo Oh ~other - oh Mother, we' e leaving to eat S~apoo- Snapoo Oh M~er- oh Mother, e're leaving to eat We'~e t ·ng a ride in his my jeep Sna~a~:a:s:e~o-s Oh nie, Go-sneeze Mbth~ - oh Mo er, the moon is bright Snapo~Sna Oh Mod-i r oh M ther, the moon is bright d I' stay out all night Now Shel , go-scannie, Go-sneeze Snapoo - sn ~ Snapoopoo #2 I forgot to turn the srove off and the coffee pot was melted. #3 I forgot to turn the lights off. #4 I forgot to take my hearing aid with me. #5 I forgot to take my walking cane with me. #6 I forgot to take my reading glasses with me. #7 I forgot to rake my teeth. #8 I forgot to go to the bathroom - for my pills. I put a sign by the door where I leave the apartment listing the eight things I am supposed to do before leaving. Most times, I forget to look at the sign. ~SurgeryJ:yment < My doctor advised me that I needed major surgery and chat he would like to talk to me in his office. He wanted to know how I was going to pay my bill. I told him chat a former doctor in his establishment would accept Medicare, also ocher insurance benefits and send me a bill for what he didn't collect. I would chen send him a check. He advised that there were deductions on my insurance during me first part of the year and wanted to k.now if I had considered them. I rold him I didn't know, but I would write him a check now if he wanted it. Memory My memory is getting worse. In leaving my apartment, I find the following has hap- pened: #1 I fOrgot to tum the water off in the kitchen and the floor was flooded with water. Tht Sam:timonious &vm, 1-r. Fath" /Wph Ntagk, l.J. Charks Long, Bm SkiUman (statttl), F. jatlt Cok, David Albmson, Lto Finktlsuin at tht piano, Fritz Alhmsoon, D. 8/ac/nwU �"Oh no,~ he said. "I'll rili the check after the surgery." I answered, "I think you are making a mistake. If you take my insurance payments you will get paid in thirty days. If you wait to take my check and I die, it will take you a year to collect from my estate.) )l He said, "You are wrong. I'm not going to let you <lie." So now, I'm looking forward to the future with many years of fears and tears, suffering from: memory loss, over-reacting. trouble with eating, sleeping and weeping, coor<lination, irritation, and constipation. I had something to say about hc:r in a lenc:r back home which is rc:cordc:d in my <liary as follows: 20 Oaob" 1943 ~ I can't tell you where I'm at because the censor wouldn't like it. I can't tdl you what kind of clothes I've been issued because you would know was going. I can't tell you about the camp because it's against the rules. \ I can't tdl you about my equipment; it would jeopardize my security. Prayer, or Humor, or What? I wondered what is the most beneficial to me- PRAYER, or HUMOR, or WHAT? Is it time for me to laugh, cry or <lie? "";;, I sent copies of my World War II Diary [see page~ to two preachers chat responded ' { as follows: I can tell you this though - I had a date with a girl I knew in AsheviUe by the namf of Sylvia who used to live in C hicago, who is now living in Los Angdes and who is visiting sdlne friends in a town near here and she is JUST AS SWEET AS EVER. After my rerum home after three: years overseas in World War II, I found her JUST AS SWEET AS EVER. And we got married. From preacher #1: Dearw: Thanlu for the grrat pieu. I enjoyed it! My best to you and Sylvia. I don't have hc:r now but in my estimation, her SWEETNESS WILL LAST FOREVER with me. Unless we are Indians From preacher #2: Thank yttU so much for that grrat •tmn home from World Wor ll • It's very fonny! AawdJy it rtJZlJy 1NIIie my d4y afor shoveling snqw. I too could uu a forlough. All my best to yttU muJ Sylvia. Later both preachers asked for permission to use my thoughts in sermons. Maybe I should have been a preacher instead of a pawnbroker. 7 My.:J" I had the honor of serving as president of Beth-Ha-Tephila in 1948 and 1949 during the: building and financing of the new temple at Libcny and Broad Suc:ets. I was Master of Ceremonies for the 50th Anniversary Banquet program of Beth-HaTephila in 1941. I also presided at the 75th Anniversary Banquet in 1966. I wasJI!norary Master of Ceremonies at the tOOth in 1991. .... ., at SylvUis Mnnorial Service Sylvia and I 'M:ft! married 52 years ago. Fifiy-five ycus 310• I was in Camp Stoneman, California waiting to be shipped overseas in World War II. ( Unless we are Indians, our ancestors came from foreign lands. I am thankful they did what they <lid so that I could have the privilege: of growing up in a ciry like Asheville, enjoy this great country of ours - a land of rdigious freedom and opponuniry. �Index Adarru, Lee . ••...•. .. ... . .... . ........ ..... . (lntro) Adler, David . . . . . . • . . . . • . . . • . . . . . . . • . . . . . . . . . . . I 0 Albcnson, David ............ . .... ... ... . . .... ... 59 Albcnson, Fritz ..... . ... . .... . ..... .. .. ...... 57, 59 Argcntat, Sender........... . . . ........ . •. . ...... =I I Bacr, Dr...........•...•... . .. . .. . ............. 27 Bcin, Patti ................. . ............ . .. . (lntro) Bernard, Chief. .. . .................... . .... . . 3 I , 32 Bcrrynun, Charles ................... • ........... 2 I Blackwdl, D ............. . ................. .. ... 59 Blo mberg. A. ............................... .. . .. 7 Blomberg. Harry .................... . ...... 6, 23, 35 Blomberg. Jack............... . .. ...... ..... .. ... I7 Blomberg. Maddine........ ...... ..•.. . ... • . .. . .. I 5 Bradley, Fred . .............. . .. . .........•.... . . 52 Brown, Fred ......... . ....................... .. . 33 Brown, Lawrence .............. ... • .............. 26 Brown, Sheriff ............................... 46, 49 Bryan, WiU~Jennin&' . ... . .... . .............. . I6, 7 Bunn, Bob ... .. . .. . .................. . . ... ..... 28 Burdette, Ciry Manager ........... . .......•....... 20 Buscck, Otto ......•.. .. .......... . ............. 33 Cadi.son, Leo........ ........... .... •... . ...... 6,23 C...C, Katherine . .. .•.......... .. . •. . . ........ ... 52 Cathey, Sam ..... .. .. ..................... 2 1, 22,29 Cobb, Irving S.....•................ . ... . . . .. . . . 52 Cocke. Philip . . .. .. • ...... . .. ........ . ....... . .. 23 Cole, Jack ......... .. . ... .. .............. I7, 20, 59 Dave, Joe . . .. •......... . ..... . ..... . . . . . . ... 20, 5 I Divelbiss, Jim . .......... . . . ......... ...... 22, 50, 5 I El>cnhowcr, President •......... . ..•. . ... . ...... . . . 22 Elkins, Tommy.....•............•...... . • .... . .. 3 5 Erwin, Marcus .....•.................... • ....... 23 Feinstein, Sam .....•................. .. .... . .. 7, 10 Feldman, Or.... . ..•. . .. ..... . .... . •. .. ...... 35, 49 Finldcrtrin. Ourlcs .... . ....... •. ...... ... ... .. . . . 3 F'tnldatdn, Fannyc • .••......•.. •.•.••........ 5. 9, 10 Finklestcin, Harry. . . (lnuo), I, 2, 3, 5, 6, 11,12, 13, 14, 17, 31, 32 Finklestein, Hilcb.... ... .. . ... .. .. .. ..... . . . (lntro), 9 Finklcstein, Leo .. . . (Imro), 2, 9. 13, 15, 24, 28, 45, 46, 56. 59,60 Finklestein, Leo Jr. .... .. ...... . .... . . .. ... . .. . (lntro) Finklestcin, Louis ....... . • •. .. . ... •...•........... 3 Finklestein, Moe ... . ........... ........ ..•..... . . 3 Finklestein, Neal ... ... ...... ..• . ........ . . ... ... . 3 Finklestein, Phyllis . .... .......•..... . • ........ (lntro) Finklestcin, Rosa .... . ... . . . . .. . .... . .... . . . (lntro), 9 Finklcstcin, Stephen ...... ...... ........... .... (lntro) Finklestein, Sylv~ . . ... . . . . •.. ..... (lmro}, 55, 56, 60, 6 I Finley, Bob ..... . . .. ...• . . .. .... ....... ... ... .. 34 Finley, Mr.... .... . . ....•.......... . • ..... ...... 34 Fox, Rabbi Eliu . . . ...... . ....... . . . . .. ....... . 8, I I Friedman, Nat . ... .. • . .. . ... .•• ..• . .•......... 6, 22 Friedman, S.H .............. • ..... • . ........... . . 6 Furr, Dan . .. . ........... • . .. . .... . . .• ... • ... I9, 20 Gardner, Captain . .... .. • ..... .......... . . . .... . . 46 Goldberg. E. C ... ..... . . . .• . .. . ........ ....... . .. 6 Goldstein............ • . . .. . ....•........ . •. . . ... 6 Goodkowitt, Rabbi .. . ........... .. .. .... . .. ..... 23 Green, Otis ... . ... . ............................ 34 Groome, Johnnie . . .... • . ..... ...•...... ...•.... . I9 Gross, Mr. . . . . . . ....... . . . • ....••...... . •.... .. 33 Hampton, Will . . . . ... • . . . . .. .... .....•....... . . 27 Harris, Will ...... . . . .•.......... • ............ .. 32 Hill, Dan ........ . .. •. ... • .................. .. . 23 Hoc:y, Governor .... ... • . . . •. .. . • ... . • ... .. .. . . . . 21 Honon, Shdby Jr.... . ........ .. • . .. . . . ... . ...... 57 Hudson, C.E. . . ..... ... . . .....•... . ....... ..... 22 Hudson, Lioness ......... ... . .... ........ . ... 2 I, 22 Huvard, A.J ........... . . ....... ........ . ....... . 6 Johnson, A. Hall .... . ....... ..... ... . ...... .. ... 23 Jones, Fred.... . ..... • .... ..... . .... ....... ..... 23 "Judge Cocke . . ... ..•... • . ......... .. .. . ....... 33 Kunw, Alvin .. ..........•........ . ............. 29 Lane, Mark ... ..... • ....•. .. .... ..... .... .. . ... 25 Lane, Ronald ........ • ...•.... • . .•.••. .. .. .. .... 25 Leavitt, Mr. . . . . . . . .... ...................... I I, I2 Lcovitah, Juliw . . .... ........ ... ............. I2, 28 Lewis, Mr. .. .. ... ... . .. . . ... .•. . .. ... .. . ... .... I3 Liggett, Mr.. ............ .... . . . ... . ... . . ....... 33 �Lipinslcy, Solomon .............• . . ................ 6 Lichrmfi:ls, Gu.sav.............................. . 28 Lichrmfi:ls. Alfred ............................... 28 Lichralfds. lrmgani . . . ..................•........ 28 l.ondow, Rabbi ......................... . ..... .. . 7 Long. Lt. Charles ...... . ... . ........•............ 59 Mann, I. Mitchdl .............................. 6, 9-\0 M=lull, George ................................ 28 (p McCormak, Frank .....................•......... I MclW:, Charles . . ....... . ....................... 23 1~ Maxwdl. Albertine ....................... .. ...... Roscnfdd, Willi2m ...........•. .•. ..........•. 17, 28 Rnth, Harry ........... .... ....• ....... ......... 17 Rnth, Sam .............•.•....• . ............... 17 Rnthc:nberg. Freda . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ............... 29 Rnthenberg. WillWn ........... . ...... . . . .......0 29 Sehandler, Dave .......... . .......•........... -~ II 10 Schmdler, Dr...................... . ............. '9' Schifun, Herbert ........... .. .................. . 28 ,. . Schornstdn, Rhonda . . ........................ '(iftuQ) ' " Ji'f' "14.1 ~~~~-::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::: -~~'\; Neagle, Father Ralph .......... . ..............•... 59 Michalove, Bill . .............................. 34, 35 Michalove, Dan ........ . ............•........ . ... 6 Michalove, Isaac................................. II Michalove, S.H...... . ............................ 7 . Miller, Charlie A. .......................•..... 22, 25 MuiY2Dcy, Frank .......... . ..................... 34 MuiV2Dcy, Par •••.••••••••. • •••..••.••.••••••••• 34 Neagle, Father Ralph .•......................... . . 59 Nettles, Zeb.. . . . ...•..................... . ..... 23 O'Kdly, Mrs. . . ................................. 16 O' Kdly, Rufus ...... . .......................... . 16) Oliphmt, Mrs.....•.•... . . . ............. . ....... 14 Owen, Margaret..•. . •. . ....•.................. . . 28 Pappa., Mr. ...•...... . .... . ...... ..... . ... .... .. 32 Parsons, Joe .. . .....•...... . .... .. .........•.... 57 Pada, Joe • • . • • . . . . . • • . • . • . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . • . . . . . . Ia::: 1'1 Pada, Rosa .. .•.•. . .................. . ....... . .. -Ja: \ 4 l'1:ulman. Barney. . . . . . • . . . . . . . . . . . • . . . . . . • . . . . . . II Pdly, WillWn D. . ......... . . .. .. . • .............. 28 Phillips. Roy .•..............•........... . .. . .2(( 22 , ~ <1 Polioclc, Lou•.••• . .••. . ... . ....•... . . . .... . 6, II , 28 1 7 Popalardo, M~ . . • . ........ . . .. . ..... . .... ..... .. 14 Pope Leo IX. ...... .. . . ..... . .......... .. ...... . . 3 Rafumky, Rabbi ................................. 9 Rquolds. Bob •.......... . .•...... . ...... . . ('{ Ill, 23 Rhiodwt, Carl . . • . .. .. ...• . . .. . ..... . ... .... ... 34 ~Mn. .. . ....... . . . ..... .... ..... .... .. IO '1"\r-.c r»CI.S , N il ( ma l'l . Schorr, Lion ....... . . ......•. ............. ..... ~ ~ Schw.uttberg. J.B .. . ..... . .. . ..................... 7 Schwanzbc:rg. Milton .................. . .. . ....... 17 Seely, M~ ................. ................ . . 26,27 Seigle, Barney . ..........•.......... . ...........• 6 Seigle, Esther ........ . .•.....•.... . ........... 6, 15 Seltz, Jennie ................... . .......... . .....)€ I 7 Shenbaum, A. . .......................... . ... . ... 7 Sholrz, Governor ........ ... .... ........ .. ...... . 22 Silverman, S.W. ..............••................. II Skillman, Ben ...........................•... . .. 59 Smith, Dr. .....................•......... . .... 5, 8 Smith, Lion .............•...... • ..... ..... . .... 33 Smokey Joe .............................. 46, 47, 49 Starvin Marvin .......... . .......• . ........... 46, 47 Stc:rnberg. Ev.o. •• • . • ••••.•..••••••••••••.•••• • ~. 16 > 17 1 Stc:rnberg, Joe ......... . .. ..... . .... . ... 12, 16, ~ I, 51 Sternberg. Johmna ..... • . ........• .. ....... ... .. :16 I 7 Sternberg. Mrs............. .. ........ ... .. ...... 16 Sternberg. Rose ........... . .....• :~Y-o ........... . 16 > I ) Sternberg. Siegfried ........ 6, II, 1 2,~. 28, 31, 33, 51,52 Stewart, Dan . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .•... • ........ 22 Taylor, Rny .. . ................ ...... •..........2Q:' a a Thayer, John .•. • ••••.•.•• ••. . •.• •••.••••••..~. lQ" 01\ )a~ --:;;-- arlick, Judge ........... . .................. . ... 49 w . Williams, RR . . .... ... • ........................ 29 Wolfe, Tom ................. . .•.. .• ....•..... . . 28 Yandle, Margaret ..... . ....... . .......•... . .. . ... 52 Zagier, RB......... ... . . . .. . ... .. .........••.... 7 Zuglier, M...... . ........ . .....•...... . ......... 7 �.· ~ \ Index .Ad.a.Jns, 1...cc ••••••••••• • •••••••••••••••••••••~tro} \ I I Adler, David ........... • ....................... I0 vi Alberuon, David ......... . ...................... 59 Albertson. Fritz .............................. 57, 59 Argencar, Senda....•.......................... ~ II Bacr, Dr.. .. .............. . .................... 27 Bcin, Patti ............ . · . · · · · . · • • • · • · · · · · · · · {lntro)- ; j1. Bernard. Chief.........•........ . ......... . . . 31, 32 Berryman. Charles ... . . ......................... ~ 1r"'> Blaclcwdl, D........ . ........................... 59 Blomberg. A. ....... . ........ .. . ... . ............. 7 Blomberg. Harry .... . ......• • •............. 6, 23, 35 Blomberg. Jack. .. ...... .......... .. ............. % 16 Blomberg. Maddine ...... .. ...................... 15 Bradley, Fred ••••...•.......... • . ............... 52 Brown, Fred .•..•.•••.............. . .... . .. .. ... 33 Brown, uwrcna: .. .. ............................ 26 Brown, Sheriff .......................... . .... 46, 49 Bryan, WilliamJenninss ......................... "t1;,j7 ) 1 £b Bunn, Bob ........ .• .............. . ...... . ..... 28 Burdtttc. City Manager .. . ................. . ..... .'20if Bused<. Ono .....•.•... . ................ . ... . . . 33 ~- Cadison, Leo............. . .................... 6;23 Case, Katherine . ......................... ·~if .... 52 Cathey, Sam .•...... . ..... . .. . .. . .. . .. . <P.>r~ 29 . Cobb, Irving S. . ........... . . . . . ........... . ... . 52 C.0CU. Philip .......•.. . . ............... - ~ .. ~- 23 Cole, Jad< .. •.••...•...................'J: . ~,0. 59 Dave, Joe ..•.•..•... ........ .. . ... ....... 'Pil-. -2<r. 51 Divelbiss, Jim . ... .................... . .... 22. 50, 51 Eisenhower, President .•.... . .... .. .. . ...... . ...... 22 Elkins. Tommy.•.•............. . ... . ............ 35 Erwin. Marcus ......••.......•................ . . 23 Feinstein, Sam •... . .•... . .........•........... 7, 'ffi' II Feldman, Or. . ....•.•............. . .......... 35, 49 t...\ Ftnklcsrcin. Olarles .. .. ....... . ...............•... -,( Fmldcsttin, Fannyc•. ~J!,(f!. f) tl N.. ·, ~ ....... 5. 9. I0 --' \1j . ,, . .\') 1\ ) I ll ..,., ·. I .. i ,\s·'i ~ FinkJcstcin, Harty... - · I, 2,p, 5, 6, 11,12, 1~ • 14, 17, 31, 32 . Finklesrcin, Hilda. ... ,, ·~ ...... . •• •..... ! '· •.. (lnuo),~ 70 1 Finklcstcin, leo .... ' " 2 , 9. 13. ~ ~4. 28, 45. <16, 56. 59. 60 • Finklcstcin, leo Jr................... . ...... . .. (fntro}- 110 Finklestein, I..Duis . •..•.•. ••.••.•• . •.••••••.•..•••• 3 Finklcstcin, Moe .................. ......... · · · · · . ~ Finklestdn, Nc:al ...•••.• . ....•.•.... . .•..•••. ......~'1tfl Finklcstcin, PhyUis .. .1?.-t .f. . ,J.., ••••••••• •• •••••. , (l~lm) Finklcstdn, Ro.s:l .•••••.•••• :':-. .••. .••• ••••. {t:.-l,~ Finklcstdn, Stephen ................ ~ • ....•.... ilntro}. " ~ Finklcstcin, Sylvia ......... . • .... • . (i;.uo), 55. 56, 60,61 Finley, Bob ... . ......... . ...... ... ...... ... . ... 34 Finley, Mr....... . . . ............. ... ............ 34 Fox, Rabbi flw .................. . ............ 8, II :7-t.\ /!? Friedman, Nat ...........................•.... 6, "1;.1 Friedman, S.H... ............ . ....... . .........•. 6 (J.'J. Furr, Dan.. . ......... . .... ... ............... ~"20.?\\ ) Gardner, Captain . ...................•. .... ...... 46 Goldberg. E.C .... . ............... . ..... . •.. . .... 6 Goldstein............................... • .... ... 6 Goodkowitz. Rabbi ........ . . ........ .......... .. 23 Green, Otis ..... . ............ . .. · · · · • · · · · · · · · · · 34 Groome, Johnnie ....•..................... . . · · · · "19. Gross, Mr...................................... 33 Hampton, Will ......... . .... . ... .. ....... . ....• 27 Harris, W~l .. . ..... .. .... .. ................. .. . 32 0- I ~~~~.;,~;: :: :::::: : ::::::::: ::::: :::: : ::: :~P ~b,Jr.................. . ~7- ~~=~: ~~:~·:::::::::: : ::::::: ::: ::::::: :~~~ Huvud, A.j. . .. ......... . ...... .. . ..•. ... . ...... 6 Johnson, A. Hall ............... . . . . . ...... .. . . .. 23 Jones, Fral. ......................... . .......... 23 "Judge Cock.c" .......... . ........ .. . .... . .•..... 33 Kunus, Alvin ...... • ........ ...... . . .•.•........ 29 Lane, Mark ...... . ........................... .. 25 Lane, Ronald ....... , ............... . ......... . . 25 Leavitt, M r................ .... . .....•.•. . •.. 'tt; 12 ~~!.~~~-::::::: : : : ::::::: ~:::: : ::::::: -~~:! Jcf Li~tt, Mr.............•.......•...• .• ... . ..... 33 � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Leo Finkelstein Papers Description An account of the resource This collection contains materials relating to Leo Finkelstein, resident of Asheville, North Carolina, the Asheville Lions Club, and the Beth Ha-Tephila Cemetery in Asheville. It contains computer discs, notes, scrapbooks, book drafts, correspondence, photographs, programs, fliers, and other materials related Leo Finkelstein, his wife Sylvia, and the Lions Club, Elks Club, and Jewish Community in Asheville, North Carolina. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Finkelstein, Leo, 1905-1998 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Poor Man's Bank Drafts, edited Language A language of the resource English Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context 107_03_04_PoorMansBank_M Description An account of the resource Leo Finkelstein's account of Asheville, North Carolina in the early twentieth century, how the Jewish community functioned, and pawnbroking during the Depression. Item contains photographs. Subject The topic of the resource Finkelstein, Leo, 1905-1998 Asheville (N.C.)--History Lions Club (Asheville, N.C.) Jews--North Carolina--Asheville--History Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a title=" In Copyright - Rights-holder(s) Unlocatable or Unidentifiable" href="http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC-RUU/1.0//" target="_blank"> In Copyright - Rights-holder(s) Unlocatable or Unidentifiable </a> Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource PDF Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a title="AC.107 Leo Finkelstein Papers" href="https://appstate-speccoll.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/192" target="_blank"> AC.107 Leo Finkelstein Papers </a> Is Part Of A related resource in which the described resource is physically or logically included. <a title=" Leo Finkelstein Papers" href="https://omeka.library.appstate.edu/collections/show/27" target="_blank"> Leo Finkelstein Papers </a> Type The nature or genre of the resource Text Extent The size or duration of the resource. 33 pages Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant Asheville (N.C.) Spatial Coverage Spatial characteristics of the resource. https://www.geonames.org/4453066/asheville.html Asheville cenutury dawn Depression dime Flanders Greenville Hebrew Lions Club orthodox overcoat rabbi Silver Shirts Tokyo Rose https://omeka-test.library.appstate.edu/files/original/cb79872727dddb69d8702254e4ce9652.pdf 67541066aabc3212be4304c0c6a11df2 PDF Text Text ���������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Leo Finkelstein Papers Description An account of the resource This collection contains materials relating to Leo Finkelstein, resident of Asheville, North Carolina, the Asheville Lions Club, and the Beth Ha-Tephila Cemetery in Asheville. It contains computer discs, notes, scrapbooks, book drafts, correspondence, photographs, programs, fliers, and other materials related Leo Finkelstein, his wife Sylvia, and the Lions Club, Elks Club, and Jewish Community in Asheville, North Carolina. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Finkelstein, Leo, 1905-1998 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Leo Finkelstein Diary and Notes Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1930 Language A language of the resource English Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context 107_01_01_SpiralNotebook_Notes_1930s_M Description An account of the resource Leo Finkelstein displays his incredible talent as a storyteller and historian through the letters and diaries that he wrote throughout his life. This notebook contains stories about World War II, Thomas Wolfe, pawnbroking, the Great Depression, and Asheville, North Carolina in the twentieth century. Subject The topic of the resource Finkelstein, Leo, 1905-1998--Diaries Finkelstein, Leo, 1905-1998--Correspondence World War, 1939-1945--Personal narratives, American Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a title=" In Copyright - Rights-holder(s) Unlocatable or Unidentifiable" href="http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC-RUU/1.0//" target="_blank"> In Copyright - Rights-holder(s) Unlocatable or Unidentifiable </a> Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource PDF Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a title="AC.107 Leo Finkelstein Papers" href="https://appstate-speccoll.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/192" target="_blank"> AC.107 Leo Finkelstein Papers </a> Is Part Of A related resource in which the described resource is physically or logically included. <a title=" Leo Finkelstein Papers" href="https://omeka.library.appstate.edu/collections/show/27" target="_blank"> Leo Finkelstein Papers </a> Type The nature or genre of the resource Text Extent The size or duration of the resource. 94 pages Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant Asheville (N.C.) Spatial Coverage Spatial characteristics of the resource. https://www.geonames.org/4453066/asheville.html Temporal Coverage Temporal characteristics of the resource. 1930s Asheville Citizen-Times Bunk of Buncombe Depression diary grandfather clock Grove Park Inn letters pawnshop Porkie suicide synagogue Tishomingo WACS https://omeka-test.library.appstate.edu/files/original/09f6ad0ea996217dec3846bbf16be712.pdf f7f5f1c916b644dbb44494b427cfcc2f PDF Text Text ^ u, ./> wi /A 6^&-i~-<p4j6*s ^/ ^^ ^^o / // -^^c3 ��6 ���r-i C "^/ ; ^f - ^V" <X -/-j"?t~f �� Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Kirby and Eller Family Letters Description An account of the resource The Kirby and Eller Family Letters contain correspondence between the Kirby and Eller families of Ashe County, North Carolina. The letters focus mainly on day-to-day events such as planting and harvesting crops, health and illness, and household tasks, but also include references to the Civil War. The original letters of Collection 495 Kirby and Eller Family Letters, 1826-1938 are in the W.L. Eury Appalachian Collection. <div class="subnote "> <p><span class="less">Elizabeth “Bettie” Kirby (1851-1925) was born on February 15th, 1851 in Meadow Creek, Virginia, to parents Joel Kirby and Frances Roberts. Millard F. Kirby, Samuel J. Kirby, Emory T. Kirby, and Ada B. Kirby were her siblings. She married Joseph Lafayette Eller on September 22, 1875 in Ashe County, NC, where she lived until her death on December 9, 1925.<br /><br />Luke Eller (1806-1883) was born on June 8, 1806 in Ashe Co., NC. He was married to Sarah King<span class="elipses"></span></span><span class="more"> on March 27, 1829 in Ashe Co. He is the father of Joseph Lafayette Eller (Elizabeth’s husband), Hansford Eller, and Aswell Eller. Luke Eller lived in Ashe Co. until his death on December 6, 1883.</span></p> <span class="note-content readmore expanded"><a href="https://appstate-speccoll.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/165#" class="expander">See less</a></span></div> Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <p><a href="https://appstate-speccoll.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/165">AC.495 Kirby and Eller Family Letters</a></p> Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a title="In Copyright – Educational Use Permitted" href="https://rightsstatements.org/page/InC-EDU/1.0/?language=en 8" target="_blank" rel="noopener"> In Copyright – Educational Use Permitted </a> Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Letter from Emma Baker Martin to Betty Kirby Eller, 17 October 1897 Subject The topic of the resource Prices Indentured servants Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1897-10-17 Extent The size or duration of the resource. 7 pages Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context 2012_045_1897_1017 Description An account of the resource This is a letter from Emma Baker Martin to her aunt Betty Kirby Eller. The letter opens as usual for Emma, writing about the price of butter, fabric, and postage. Emma also mentions her youngest child, Virginia, who is healthy and playful. The letter closes with a rant about her indentured servant, whom she greatly despises. Language A language of the resource English Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <p><a href="https://appstate-speccoll.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/165">AC.495 Kirby and Eller Family Letters</a></p> Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a title="In Copyright – Educational Use Permitted" href="https://rightsstatements.org/page/InC-EDU/1.0/?language=en 8" target="_blank"> In Copyright – Educational Use Permitted </a> Is Part Of A related resource in which the described resource is physically or logically included. <a title=" Kirby and Eller Family Letters" href="https://omeka.library.appstate.edu/collections/show/17" target="_blank"> Kirby and Eller Family Letters </a> Spatial Coverage Spatial characteristics of the resource. https://www.geonames.org/4453028/ashe-county.html Type The nature or genre of the resource Text Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource PDF Letters (Correspondence) Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant Ashe County (N.C.) Temporal Coverage Temporal characteristics of the resource. 1890s Abingdon Ashe County Betty Kirby Eller Bluefield Butter Clifton Depression dressmaking Eller family Emma Baker Martin family letters letter Martin family Motherhood North Carolina Postage Servant West Virginia https://omeka-test.library.appstate.edu/files/original/c0fda66486b11b32e32cefae4864f3fa.mp3 da32e4a686b13e86c5ca44db2778b99f https://omeka-test.library.appstate.edu/files/original/5344c91deed430f25c6ddcfaf3733297.pdf cc47525b342044c703215c0f6e88d073 PDF Text Text Oral History Transcript Appalachian State University • Collection 111, Tape 214 Interviewee: Charles Bolick Interviewer: Barbara Greenberg 21 June 1974 CB: Charles Bolick BG: Barbara Greenberg BB: Charles Bolick of Blowing Rock, North Carolina interviewed by Barbara Greenberg on June 21, 1974 at his home. Well, Mr. Bolick, Charles you… CB: Charlie, that’s my name and that’s Libby, my little darling over there. BG: You want to start out by telling me a little bit about where you were born and your family. CB: Oh, well…its just about ten miles from Blowing Rock over in Caldwell County. Mulberry Valley, a good farming community. BG: And did your parents own their land there? CB: Oh, yes. They owned their own home. BG: How much land did they have? CB: Oh, I think it was 150 acres in that place. My mother had a couple of hundred somewhere else. And, we just lived…that was all there was to it. We had to work. We had to do this, that, you know. And go barefoot, summer time us kids did. And we would get so danged tired playing, that if we stubbed a toe over a flint rock…the sparks would fly, that’s for sure. They would, we could light our way after dark by stubbing our toes. BG: How many people were in your family? CB: There was one little girl that died, I don’t remember her, I wasn’t even born yet. But there would have been eight had she lived. There were seven of us. Five boys, two girls. BG: What did your father do? CB: He was a farmer, just a plain homesteader. He had to be, like most of the people back those days. They had to be. They just had to do what they had to do and there was not much, as I understood it, not much money back in those days. The people, but yet the old timers they had to have cash to pay their taxes. And he told me that his father, my granddad, old granddad 1 �Abner, he had his own still. He used to make whiskey and he sold it at ten cents a quart, 40 cents a gallon, in order to get money to pay his taxes. That had to be in cash. Otherwise they could barter you know, the barter system. If we have something we have a little surplus of, we could swap to our neighbor who may have had something we needed. You know that’s the same as cash and sometimes I think maybe it was better off that way than it is today. The only thing we’ve got that isn’t worth anything is our dollar. Everything else is worth something today. BG: Especially the land. CB: Oh, Lord yes. Even the barrel box cost you 25, 50, maybe 100 dollars. Well, it’s a homestead; okay you got it from now on. We had to think of those things too. That’s permanent, to pay taxes. Those are the two things that will last right on through. BG: Till the end. CB: Yeah, just right on and on. BG: Well, when did you start farming? CB: When? Oh, I was about knee high I guess. Kept clearing new ground. We burned a lot of good wood, just piled them up, you know new ground. Logs, brush, everything. But farming, that is the way we grew up back in those days, we had to. BG: How did you decide how much of each crop you should plant? How did you know how much you would need for the next year? CB: Well, that was just a matter of what folks knew, it was experience. They would just plant what they thought and hoped they needed with perhaps a little surplus, you know. It was just that way. Sow turnip seeds, you know, when we were laying the corn by. They lay corn in the new ground we would sow turnip seeds, then pumpkin seeds. And maybe fill up an old hollow chestnut stump with turnips in the fall of the year. They’d keep maybe, if we covered them over good. Haul them out by the sled load, you know, and pumpkins, they’d break loose from a vine and go rolling just having a big time down the mountain. BG: Do you farm as much now as you used to? CB: Oh no, we just to a little gardening now. Just a little gardening and the better half does most of that right? I don’t see my way around too good any more. BG: were there ever any times when your family didn’t grow enough food and when you were hungry? 2 �CB: Oh yeah, we went through all that. We just had to make do without. The only things we bought back in those days was sugar and coffee and once in a while rice if we wanted to be real fancy, we would buy enough of rice for breakfast. But the rest of it we just grew on the place. And we raised our own hogs and killed a beef in the fall of the year, salt them. You know, we didn’t have all that fancy stuff, it was just plain salt. And some of the best eating. We made kraut, we raised cane, I mean the kind you make sorghum out of it. Well, we just had to make it or else we didn’t have it. BG: Did you have chickens and cows? CB: Chickens? Yes, and turkeys. BG: How were the chores divided on a farm? Did the boys do certain chores and the two girls do other things or…. CB: Oh, a whole lot like now. The girls did their share of the chores and the boys of course worked outdoors like gathering corn and hoeing corn and digging potatoes. And the girls were more interested in quilting or making their clothing. BG: Helping your mom in the kitchen? CB: Cooking, yes, exactly. And Lord knows the mothers had plenty to do back in those days. Besides raising a bunch of little heathens that we were. BG: Did you give your mother a hard time? CB: No, she was always our best friend. BG: That’s great. Did the Depression have very much effect on your family? CB: Well yes, it did to me. I wasn’t here then, I was out in the western country, but Lord it did hit out there. The Depression? Do you mean that 1928, ’29, ’30 Depression? It was tough. And it must have been rough on other people, because I was single then. I hadn’t been exposed to marriage at that time. So no responsibilities other than, well…I was working on this construction camp, and this friend of mine, Old Smiley Thomas, he said, “You know something?” I said, “What Smiley?” He said, “The times are getting better.” I said, “What do you mean?” He said, “They are making the hotcakes bigger and thicker.” Every morning, we were living in this boarding house; the hotcakes were bigger and thicker. Oh Lord, is that thing on? BG: Tell me, when you planted your crops in the spring of the year, did you know whom you were going to sell your crops to? 3 �CB: Oh, no. We were just growing them ourselves. BG: There was no cash crop? CB: Well, whatever we might swap with a neighbor for something, if they had a surplus of more that they needed. I’ll never forget one time my mother sent me over to old uncle Will Green’s. He’d always butcher a yearling, take down to the Grove Store and sell it on Election Day. That was usually in early November, the 6th I believe. And my mother said, “Charlie, go up there this morning and get us a good mess of beef. Your dad, when he goes for live beef, he always brings back part of the neck; the brisket they call it.” She said, “Get something better.” Well, I bought ten pounds of steak, 50 cents for 10 pounds, or five cents a pound. Well, I got back home with it and my mother balled me out for buying such expensive meat. Can you imagine that? She did. She said, “Charlie, I didn’t mean for you to buy such expensive beef.” I’ve thought of that time and again. Five cents a pound for good steak, just a yearling beef, you know not an old or a tough one or something. BG: Good eating wasn’t it? CB: Yeah, it was. But I couldn’t quite get over her kind of balling me out about buying such expensive meat, it was five cents a pound, ten pounds was 50 cents. And you know how I made that 50 cents? I used to help my dad run his still. BG: Did your dad run his own still? CB: Oh yeah, copper stills back in those days. They weren’t government inspected. We had a lot of fun. We talk now how to make apple brandy. BG: Tell me how you make it? CB: Well, you just grind up the apples and set them in wooden barrels and when it ferments and gets to the proper stage, before it turns to vinegar, you just boil it. Just distill and boil it. And that’s all it and you get something. It’ll be brandy tomorrow. And two or three sips, you could make a rabbit walk up and spit in a bulldog’s face. BG: Well, tell me…you don’t have to put any sugar in it? Just… CB: No, we didn’t then. We were not that smart. No, it just made more. It produces more. Like this old farmer was telling me about his corn crop this year. He said, “I’ll calculate that it will grow about 60 gallons to the acre.” BG: What do you mean 60 gallons? Did you mean 60 bushels? CB: No, we get two gallons to the bushel. So he figured it in gallons. Except one fall of the year, 4 �some of the neighbors got worried because he wasn’t going to their revival meeting at night. You know those country folk…back in those days; I guess here and there they’re still that way. My dad said, “Charlie, some of the neighbors are wondering why you’re not attending. Maybe you would better go down to the Bryant’s and sort of wash up a little bit and put you on a clean pair of overalls. Just shut the still down and go on to the church. That will take the pressure off.” Well, it did. It worked. BG: What was it like (running the still)? Did you have to hide this still a lot? Did you have to hide the fact that you had this still? CB: Oh yes, that was all way back in the cove, the little burner. Otherwise you would get “chopped down” as they called it then. The revenue agent, the IRS, the same outfit that collects our income taxes. They are something. BG: I hear they are bad people. CB: Well, we had a lot of fun. It was rough growing up in that time and day, but we did enjoy life, just like people do today. Just a little different style and manner that is all. We were ourselves, and they were themselves. Like the old saying out west, “Well men are men, and women are glad of it.” That’s the way it was then, down here at home, right through these hills. I wouldn’t mind living through it again, knowing what I know now. It was rough, but that was only what we had, so we had to live it. BG: That’s right. Do you think life today is harder or easier than it was then? CB: It’s much easier, but it’s too fast. Everybody’s in a hurry today. Back in those days you just didn’t rush through like they do it now, it’s the way I see it. Somebody asked me not long ago, “How did you do it? How did you hang on so long to life?” My answer is by not hurrying. The only time I ever got in a hurry in my life I was trying to stop. Just one time I got in a hurry. BG: Well what happened? CB: I had straddled a danged riled horse and he was running away with me. That was it. The next thing I knew I was sitting there looking at the other mountainside, blinking my eyes like a frog in a hailstorm or something. And didn’t know who I was or where I was. Two arms, one collarbone busted, and my head and neck bruised. They made me a trough to eat out of, I couldn’t feed myself. Well, I still like horses now, if you can imagine that after that one near beat me to death. It was a little two or three year old stallion. The horse was as gentle as a kitten, but he just decided he was going to have his fun, and he did. BG: How old were you then? CB: About 17 or 16. I was old enough to have known better. 5 �BG: Really? CB: When I look back at things like that its sort of amusing and, you know, if you didn’t have a sense of humor you wouldn’t have much. At least I wouldn’t. I sort of like that idea of taking things lightly, you know. Don’t be too serious about things and don’t get in a hurry. BG: Yes, you get by a lot easier. Talking about getting in a hurry, did people go visiting very much when you were a boy? CB: Not very much. Well, they did on Sunday. That was church day, you know…Sunday school. And that was the chance they had the whole week to see their neighbors. People would have this church group where they would get together and get acquainted again. And do a little gossiping sometimes on the side. But it was interesting. That was the only thing that we had to look forward to. There were no picture shows, no little league baseball. The only place where kids could go. Sunday morning we could put on our clean shirt and go to church without asking mom or dad, “Can we go?” That was understood, that was a part of life. They knew where we were going. We knew where we were going, there were no questions asked at all on Sunday morning. Do as you please, as long as you go to church. Well, sometimes as little boys we would always go to Sunday school first then church. Sometimes we would prefer the swimming hole that was about a half mile below the church. We would play “hooky,” I believe they call it. We sure did, but it was fun. Once in a while we would have to kill a water snake or something. BG: Does the water stay pretty cool up here all summer long? Is it warm enough to go swimming? CB: Well, this was down in Caldwell County about 2,000 feet lower than Blowing Rock. Down in the valley, John’s River Valley and Mulberry Valley, which was just under the mountain three or four miles away. Yes, up here the only way I would go swimming is to fall in and hope that didn’t happen. It’s too cold up here. BG: Pretty chilly. What about your schooling? Can you tell me something about your schooling? CB: Yes, ma’am. If I can remember. We had a three-day rain one time, way back in the teens. That’s a little further back than you remember I’m sure. It washed the foot-log away, and we were living on the wrong side of the creek. The schoolhouse was on my side. So I had to go to school for three days before they go the foot-log put back. BG: That’s the only schooling you ever had? Those three days? CB: Yes, that was it. Except for just reading the Boone Almanac and a few newspapers. BG: Where did you learn to read? 6 �CG: At my home by firelight. Preacher Savage used to be the Episcopalian minister here. I think that he was raised over somewhere in Allegany County. He gave me a book; the name of it was Treasure Island. I started reading it on Christmas morning, that was my Christmas gift, and I finished reading it about midnight. I just had my head buried right in that thing. First in my bedroom, then I had to go out on the porch, then upstairs. I was so danged scared I called my mom to show me to my bedroom after reading that book by firelight. The house was a bit crude, it didn’t have things so modern back then. That is, not compared with today anyway. Its like those old timers used to say it was “root hog” or “die them days,” and hogs didn’t root them like they do now. BG: What do you mean by that? CB: Well, hogs would just stick their nose in the ground and start walking. Now these days they have smarted up, they go “hunching along.” I’m sure that is going to be interesting now. BG: Go ahead. CB: Pardon? GB: I just said go ahead and tell me some more. CB: About what? BG: You’re doing just fine. CB: Well, thank you. I hope it will not create too many red faces. But, just thinking of things back those days like they were then and like they are today, there is really no comparison. Back in those das when I was a young fellow, we just had one-track roads. It was either a buggy or a wagon or a sled. Just right of the river. Most of the roads followed the creek bank, through the farm area. Back in those days farmers were what kept us alive and they couldn’t afford to give valuable level land, it was with corn or wheat or something for a road. That had been unheard of. BG: Doesn’t the way people used to utilize what they had, taking advantage of the land and misusing it? CB: Well, they just had to do it. Yes, we used to make molasses like I told you a while ago. Boil molasses, you grind the can round with an old cane mill, horse or a mule, or an old steer or something. That used to be my job. Pulling that thing, pushing him along, grinding candy. It took one complete circle for the horsepower to equal one turn of the cane mill. So it was a slow process. And it was just a toss up which one of us got dizzy first, going around and around. And lots of times we would have to take one out when it would fall. Put in a new one that wasn’t so disturbed, or something. 7 �And chestnuts, the forest full of chestnut trees then. It was a lot more fun to pick them up and road them in front of the old molasses boiler furnace. That was made it worthwhile was roasting chestnuts. BG: I don’t think that I’ve ever eaten any chestnuts. They are just not around anymore. When was it that the blight hit and wiped out all of the chestnuts? CB: When? Well, it was some sort of blight. It got all of tem. All of our original, now they are what they call blight resistant Chinese chestnuts. They are not too good either. I planted a few of those. They are a very poor substitute for what we used to have, our original chestnut trees. BG: When did this blight hit? Do you know what year that was? CB: Oh, it started when I was a kid. My granddad had a big old field he called his chestnut orchard. Great big old chestnut trees that were three or four feet in diameter and he would go out there and pick them up. He would just fell for them, but they started dying. I was probably ten years old, that’s a little while ago. Life was really interesting back then. It still is for that matter, but people are living so different today. Too much hurry. Too much, well just we’ve got to get there or we don’t, these days. And I don’t see where it quite, I don’t know…maybe it’s a wholesome life. That’s all people know. The young people these days, is what they’re living. Just like we did. The thing is its just different for us old timers. But yet its all the young people know. This is their life. And some of them are living it up a little bit. BG: Way too fast. CB: That’s what I would say. It’s no use hurrying through. It’s too short anyway. I’m not mad; I don’t know whether they quit. It just doesn’t work that way. BG: You’ve got a real good attitude. CB: Well, thank you. I have been that way most of my life. Like I say, if you didn’t have a little sense of humor, you wouldn’t have any sense. It all goes together. It works together. It’s about what you make of it, is the way I see it. But the main thing, don’t get in a hurry. Even thought it might be a lot of fun, don’t get in a hurry. Just go along in the agony. I’m going to tell you a little shady joke or two. You would be better put that on another tape. BG: All right. Can you tell me what a typical farm day was like? What time did you get up in the morning? CB: Sunrise or earlier. BG: And what was the first thing that you did? Try to remember one, a particular day and just 8 �tell me every detail about it. CB: Well, the first thing we would usually have breakfast. Mom would get up and cook breakfast. BG: What did she usually cook for breakfast? CB: Just whatever there was. Eggs, bacon, ham; we usually grew our own hogs and our beef. Just whatever there was. And turkey, once in a while we would have a stuffed turkey or something at Thanksgiving. But it’s just a plain country family. Get up and work after breakfast. Hoe corn; dig taters, whatever there was to do. BG: There’s always something to do. CB: There sure was. If nothing else we could on rainy days, we could get out there and straighten up old bent nails with a hammer. Straighten nails they call it, because you couldn’t afford new nails or anything. We made our own fence rails. We made our fences. We couldn’t afford buying barbed wire, it was called barbed wire. So the cattle and cows and everything they just roamed around through the pasture and the woods. And we would in the evening, our job as kids was to go out and round them up, bring them in for milling. Just plain country life. BG: What time would you come in to eat? CB: Before dark. We would usually be in by dark, after supper. Bread and milk for supper. It was wholesome, it was right good eating. And one time, I’ll never forget this. We had something different for breakfast. Usually it was cured meat, ham, and stuff like that, maybe salted bacon. But one morning, it was in wintertime, sort of cold. And mom left her old oven door open, this old range stove. Back in those days we used to have a cat hole in the door. Have you heard of that? A cat hole so the cat could come in or go out as he pleased. And some of them, before they got sort of wised up they would cut a little hole for the kittens. But by and by they found out the kittens could go through the same hole the old cat could, so they just cut one hole, a big one. Mom left the over door in a range cook stove. Two or three cats in there. It was cold, wintertime. They decided they would keep warn in that oven. Well, we got up way before daylight always every morning, and she closed the oven door and started the fire going. It was a wood burner, and by and by she heard this awful yowling. She started looking for the cats, they weren’t anywhere in there except in the oven and they were baking. That’s one time we came right near having a baked cat ham for breakfast! Well, mom opened the door. They left there so fast and both hit the cat hole at the same time and they jammed up in it and then they got in a fight. The hair was scorching plum in the woods! But we nearly had cat ham for breakfast that morning. 9 �BG: But they made it all right? CB: They pulled through it. They didn’t come back too soon; they stayed away a little while. BG: Wondering what these strange people are doing to them? CB: Well, this was just old country stuff you know. That’s all. Just like people used to live. BG: After you ate supper at night, did your family sit around together and have any sort of a family entertainment? Did anybody play a banjo or fiddle? CB: Well, there were not many musicians in our family. Two or three of the youngsters could kind of plunk on an old guitar. You know, just one at a time. But generally at that time of the day we were so tired we just went on to bed after supper, as soon as we could. Back in those days we had those old rope beds. They called it a corded bed. Instead of springs, we used just rope. BG: Were those pretty sturdy? Were the rope beds pretty sturdy? Did they hold the mattress firm? CB: Well our mattresses were “ticks” as they called it. Straw ticks. Filled with wheat straw. Well, by and by then they wore out we hat to put new straw in it. And the old bed, it could be any style shaped bed and ever so often those ropes had to be tightened up. My brother and I bunked together. One particular evening we got to bouncing around, the danged thing collapsed with us and the old headboard came over and caught. We were in a spot I’m telling you. Hollering, “Help! Help!” Mom finally had to go, she just died laughing, she had to come and lift the danged headboard off of us before we could move. I reckon we would have been there yet if somebody hadn’t moved. BG: What was the headboard made of? CB: Wood, it was all just old wood. BG: Were they all hand carved by somebody in the family? CB: Well mostly, yes. But there not so many factory made stuff back in those days. It was just you do it yourself you know. BG: Everything seemed to last a lot longer like that too. CB: We have an old one in here, but its modernized. It got springs and what not on it. Used to be in the family when I was a kid. You can see it after a while. BG: All right, great. I’d like to see it. 10 �CB: It can’t talk to you. If it could I’d touch a match to it I believe! BG: Don’t want it to tell any stories? Any old stories? CB: I don’t believe I would, don’t believe I would. Lib can tell you some stories. Now, any other questions Miss Barb? I’m just taking up a lot of your time? BG: Oh, I’m enjoying it. Its great. This is great. I want you to tell me some more stories, like the beds. I didn’t know about the rope beds. What was something else that is so different now than how it was? I don’t know like…rugs. Did your mother weave your own rugs? CB: She had some of those old wool cards they called it, you know…spiked things? And a spinning wheel and what not. I think couple of old spinning wheels as boys; we tore them up trying to make a sawmill out of it. Or tried to. If we had them today they would be worth something. But as kids, anything we could, we would tear up cloth and make a sawmill out of it. Just anything, kids, crazy. When the brains were passed around I reckon we just reached over and grabbed a bag of nuts, or fell out of the high chair or something! BG: Did your mother make all of your clothes? CB: Most of them. BG: What did she make them out of? What kind of material did she use? CB: They called it factory cloth back then. It was just plain old white cloth. The same kind of stuff they made covered wagons out of, the white stuff. BG: Canvas type cloth? Was it thick? CB: Well, it was made by a manufacturing company. It was thick and heavy. Well, that was the only cloth that I ever knew of, other than the overalls. Overall cloth could be bought then in the bolt. She would make overalls for us and shirts. And that factory cloth was the coldest underwear I believe. Even an Eskimo would have shivered if they put on a pair of drawers made out of that stuff! BG: Did they keep you very warm in the winter? CB: Well, after you finally got them warned up you would stay warm. They were all right, but golly they were cold to start with. BG: What about your shoes? Did somebody make your shoes? CB: Oh, we would get a pair a year. If we wore them out, we were out of luck until the next year. There were shoemakers back in those days, but my dad didn’t make any. His dad did, my 11 �old granddad. He used to make all the shoes and granny made all the clothes for all the young ones. BG: Did you know your grandparents very well? Did they live… CB: I remember my granddad real well. He died when I was about; I think I was eleven years old when he died. He was 90, somewhere in the nineties. I went to his funeral. BG: What was the funeral like? CB: It was country graveside; they just dug a hole and planted him in there. That was all there was to it back in those days. My daddy used to worry about that. He told Momma one time, he say, “We’ll, you know it would take a 100 dollars to bury the family.” There were seven kids and he said, “It will cost that to bury our whole family.” One hundred dollars, think of that. Well, an undertaker wouldn’t even sneeze at you these days for $100. BG: And then you would be buried anywhere you wanted. Is that correct? CB: Oh yes, family burying ground usually. Just anyplace on the hillside where it wouldn’t do to grow corn. Just plant them (people) there and they would stay. No questions asked. Nothing. BG: Did a lot of the neighbors come to the funerals? CB: Oh yes. Everybody for miles around. That was another one of those get together, like going to church on Sunday. But they were all there if you needed help. They would come and sit up with you and everything. That’s one think we don’t have that much anymore, very much. We still have friend s and neighbors, but back in those days you just had to do things. That was part of life, you know. BG: Showing each other. Kind of showing each other how you felt, helping them out when they were having hard times. CB: Oh, yes. It was just being neighbors and friends, that was all. We either stuck together or else we were gone. That was the way it was. Help each other. And sometimes I think its pretty nice way to live. Pretty good way to be friends and neighbors. Its still that way, but a little different…too speedy these days. Say, “Good morning” to somebody these mornings and then the next morning they say, “Oh, go to hell!” or something. Its just different than it used to be. Please excuse my language. BG: Oh, it’s quite all right. Well, you were talking a little while about the roads being just onelane roads. Do you remember when the first cars came to this area? CB: Oh, yes. They were those old Model T Henry Fords. You would crank one of the dammed things till the water boiled and maybe they would start. You know hand-cranked? Lord have 12 �mercy. The hardest work I have ever done in my life was trying to crank up one of those damned things. And then you would usually end up with a broken arm! The car would backfire if it ever did fire. That’s what this old Frenchman told me. He said, “I cranked the danged thing until the water boiled.” He was French Canadian. I said, “Dan, wouldn’t it fire at all?” “Hellfire, it wouldn’t even backfire!” he said. But that was your Model T’s. That was way back in the 1920s. BG: Did the coming of the car have much of a change on life? CB: Oh yes, it changed everything around. But it took a little while to do it. You know we still had plenty of chestnuts when they first came out. And beans and corn and there was no blight, there were no bugs. We didn’t have to spray, or dust or anything for our crop back then. But I reckon the Model T’s changed all that. They brought the bugs with them or something! BG: The pollution I guess it was. CB: Could be. I don’t know if this was so long ago. It’s hard to put everything together again, you know just at once. But sometimes I think maybe we would have been just as well off if we would have stayed with a horse and buggy. I can’t help but think of it that way. At least it suited me. And those were the good days if you didn’t mind sitting behind a horse. You could have a lot of fun on a date. Just as much fun as it is these days. If you didn’t mind sitting behind a horse. BG: What was courting like? CB: Courting? Just like it is now, I reckon. BG: Where did you go? What did you do? CB: Nowhere. You just go call on your date. You would sit at her house for an hour or two and then head for home. A little bit milder I reckon than what it is these days. I would say quieter. And you had to act respectable they called it back in those days. You had to be known in other words. If your date’s parents didn’t like you, you just didn’t date. That was all there was to it. You had to be a good neighbor and a good friend in order to have a date with whoever it was. BG: Did you have to ask the parent’s permission or did you ask the girl? CB: Well, that was usually understood. You knew if the parents didn’t approve of you, you wouldn’t be there regardless of what the girl said. But otherwise the courtship I would say was a little more modest back in those days. Less, what would you call it these days? permissiveness these days? 13 �No, that was unheard of back then. If a girl made a mistake, she was through. And they all, it seemed to be understood that way. They just very seldom ever made a mistake until they were married. And then of course, it couldn’t have been a mistake. End up in a divorce court, but very seldom. BG: Did they have many divorces back then? CB: Oh yes, the same then as now, but you were downgraded if you even though of a divorce. That was something unusual. People jus didn’t go for that. They just have to if they made a mistake. Well, they would sweat it out. Just tough it out. Rather, they were thinking of the kids. Family life in other words. Rather than degradation. BG: That sounds good. CB: Whatever it was. They just didn’t go for that back in those days. Nothing, they wanted to be on the “up and level” you know, keep going ahead. And it wasn’t a bad idea, I reckon. BG: Kept people closer together and family life more of a family. CB: Yeah, more of a close-knit family life. Rather than, I think these days that, I don’t know but it seems to me that the parents say, “Okay kids, just go ahead.” Without supervision or anything. Just to get rid of them, get them out of the house. “Go on, do what you want to do.” Well, they do. Especially if they have a sporty vehicle. Back in those days if we had a four-legged horse and a four-wheeled buggy we were, lucky. A buggy would be like a Cadillac today. BG: Were your parents very strict with you? Did you consider them to have been strict? CB: Well, they sure laid it on once in a while. I knew exactly where they were hitting too. BG: Is that what they would do for punishment? CB: Well, they would talk a little once in a while. But usually they were too dang busy trying to make a living that they didn’t have time to talk too much. But when they did decide to punish, they knew exactly where they were spanking. BG: What did they spank you with? CB: Oh, a paddle, broom handle, anything that was available. Just whatever was handy that would be it. Usually he palm of the hand. BG: It seemed to hurt the most I guess. 14 �CB: Well, like you said, I knew exactly where they were spanking. BG: Did your family dig roots too? CB: Dig roots? Oh yes, we used to dig ginseng. “Sang” we called it back then. S-A-N-G. Ginseng. That’s supposed to be a mysterious, great herb that the Chinese like so well. And then star root, and then we would also pull Galax. BG: Did the people use ginseng around here at all or did they just sell it? CB: I don’t know of anyone that used it, juts just one of those things. Maybe a few people do. I’ve found it. I’ve dug it up from time to time, but I don’t see that anymore. BG: I’ve got a few plants at my house. Got about four of them. Only one is getting a little berry on it. What do you do with the very if you want to say, increase your crop? CB: The seeds? BG: Yes. Are there seeds inside the little berries? CB: Yes, like holly berries. Same color exact. The ginseng is a pretty plant really, its just three leaves. And the seed part after they grow to a certain age, the seed comes up in the middle of he pant with al little flower, a little group of red berries. Those are the seeds. BG: Do you replant each of the red berries or is there just one, or several of them? CB: No, there are several in a little pod right in the center of this parent plant. And the birds sometimes plant them, or you can if you want to. And if a mole or something doesn’t get them, it’ll come up. My daddy used to have three or four old big hollow chestnut logs full of red soil that he grew ginseng in where we used to live. But the cultivated kind never did do quite so good as the just out in it s natural state in the woods. Well, the time it rained for three days, my dad’s old ginseng patch washed away. Those old hollow chestnut logs, they went down the river putting him out of the business. He said, “Well, I’ll just leave them where they are from now on, out in the woods in the cold.” Back in 1916, it rained so much that is caused a flood. Nearly washed everything thing down. The word got passed around, back at this time there were no telephones, but the word spread from one place to another. This old timer, our country church preacher got people together to pray at our little church for this rain to quit. He said, “Pray for the flood to stop.” It was really a rip-snorting flood! BG: Was it worse than the flood of 1940? 15 �CB: Yes, it was. I remember that one too. But in ’16 it was a little rougher. Well, it was rolling boulders half as big as this house down the little creek here. It just shook the earth, like an earthquake. Most of the foot-logs washed away. Finally one of the brothers said, “Well, looked like no more of us are going to get here. We might as well go in and start praying.” Then the preacher said, “We can go in and pray, that’s all right, but it ain’t going to do a bit of good as long as those clouds are coming from the north and from the southeast. It wouldn’t do a bit of good!” BG: Well, did you say it rained for three days? CB: Three days and nights. There was no let up to it. I was beginning to wonder what old Noah felt like. BG: Who felt like? CB: Old Noah, you know, the ark. I was beginning to look for a little mountain to climb onto. But the branches were all so full of water. I couldn’t think, or get to the mountain. One little branch of the creek above the house where we lived, it dried up every summer and it got so deep I couldn’t even wade. I was 19 years old and couldn’t wade in the creek because there was too much water in it. Rock, driftwood, everything coming down. BG: Did that hurt a lot of people for that year? Was it in the springtime? CB: It washed a lot of crops away. Corn and wheat, ruining so many farms down there in the valleys. A lot of the farmers they were do discouraged. They would have sold out if they could have found anyone to buy their place. But by and by they came accustomed to the change. Where rich level fields had been, it was nothing but rock. That creek was running everywhere. No sir, the bottomland as they called it. Nothing but rock. End of interview 16 � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Appalachian Oral History Project Interviews Description An account of the resource In 1973, representatives from Appalachian State University (ASU) began the process of collecting interviews from Watauga, Avery, Ashe, and Caldwell county citizens to learn about their respective lives and gather stories. From the outset of the project, the interviewers knew that they were reaching out to the “last generation of Appalachian residents to reach maturity before the advent of radio, the last generation to maintain an oral tradition.” The goal was to create a wealth of data for historians, folklorists, musicians, sociologists, and anthropologists interested in the Appalachian Region. The project was known as the “Appalachian Oral History Project” (AOHP), and developed in a consortium with Alice Lloyd College and Lees Junior College (now Hazard County Community College) both in Kentucky, Emory and Henry College in Virginia, and ASU. Predominately funded through the National Endowment for the Humanities, the four schools by 1977 had amassed approximately 3,000 interviews. Each institution had its own director and staff. Most of the interviewers were students. Outgrowths of the project included the Mountain Memories newsletter that shared the stories collected, an advisory council, a Union Catalog, photographs collected, transcripts on microfilm, and the book Our Appalachia. Out of the 3,000 interviews between the three schools, only 663 transcripts were selected to be microfilmed. In 1978, two reels of microfilm were made available with 96 transcripts contributed by ASU. An annotated index referred to as The Appalachian Oral History Project Union Catalog was created to accompany the microfilm. The catalog is broken down into five sections starting with a subject topic index such as Civilian Conservation Corps, Coal Camps, Churches, etc. The next four sections introduced the interviewees by respective school. There was an attempt to include basic biographic information such as date of birth, location, interviewer name, length of interview, and subjects discussed. However, this information was not always consistent per school. This online project features clips from the interviews, complete transcripts, and photographs. The quality and consistency of the interviews vary due to the fact that they were done largely by students. Most of the photos are missing dates and identifying information. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Collection 111. Appalachian Oral History Project Records, 1965-1989 Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1965-1989 Sound A resource whose content is primarily intended to be rendered as audio. Artist Bolick, Charles (interviewee) Greenberg, Barbara (interviewer) Duration Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.) 00:26, Making moonshine Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Interview with Charles Bolick, June 21, 1974 Subject The topic of the resource Bolick, Charles (1891-)--Interviews Farm life--North Carolina--Caldwell County--History--20th century Distilling, Illicit--North Carolina--Caldwell County Caldwell County (N.C.)--History--20th century Caldwell County (N.C.)--Social life and customs--20th century Description An account of the resource “Charles” Wesley Bolick was born on August 15, 1897 in the Mulberry Valley community of Caldwell County about ten miles from Blowing Rock, North Carolina. His parents were Emanuel (b. October 24, 1852 - d. August 16, 1926) and Mary Vienna Sherrill Bolick (b. April 1860 – d. August 27, 1934). He had four siblings and was married to Elizabeth “Libby” Gomer Bolick (b. October 7, 1881 – d. January 16, 1983). Charles Bolick died on April 29, 1996 at the age of 98. During the interview he talks about his parents and siblings, selling whiskey, making apple brandy, living off the land and making everything the family needed. He reflects on the Depression, and attending school. He also discusses making molasses, sleeping on a rope bed, courting, digging for ginseng, and the floods of 1916 and 1940. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Bolick, Charles Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a title="Appalachian Oral History Project Interviews, 1965-1989" href="https://appstate-speccoll.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/195" target="_blank">Appalachian Oral History Project Interviews, 1965-1989</a> Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 21-Jun-74 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource Copyright for the interviews on the Appalachian State University Oral History Collection site is held by Appalachian State University. The interviews are available for free personal, non-commercial, and educational use, provided that proper citation is used (e.g. Appalachian State Collection 111. Appalachian Oral History Project Records, 1965-1989, W.L. Eury Appalachian Collection, Special Collections, Appalachian State University, Boone, NC). Any commercial use of the materials, without the written permission of the Appalachian State University, is strictly prohibited. Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource MP3 Extent The size or duration of the resource. 16 pages Language A language of the resource English English Type The nature or genre of the resource Sound Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant <kml xmlns="http://earth.google.com/kml/2.0"><Folder><name>OpenLayers export</name><description>Exported on Thu Oct 24 2013 14:08:22 GMT-0400 (Eastern Standard Time)</description></Folder></kml>||||osm Caldwell County (N.C) 1916 flood 1940 flood Blowing Rock Caldwell County car chestnuts cooking courting Depression farming herbs molasses moonshine Watauga County N.C. Whiskey https://omeka-test.library.appstate.edu/files/original/11d2a7d693590e36fc8e3964164d2bda.mp3 d5fc2a65acdc244f09c9aa240c17ab22 https://omeka-test.library.appstate.edu/files/original/5529024b8af3927f0db09abbf5db45ec.pdf 1ff1ba879a7ad11aa89876d06d82abc2 PDF Text Text Oral History Transcript Appalachian State University • Collection 111, Tape 26/27 Interviewee: Bill Brinkley Interviewer: Lester Harmon 1973 February 8 Introduction Snow is falling outside and we have just settled down in the Brinkley home after a delicious dinner. Bill’s home with his wife Rosemary reflects his love for people and nature. Family portraits flank the walls. Bill, over six feet tall, is a very stalwart man. His hands tell the story of a life of hard work, and his eyes speak to you in an honest, cheerful way. He is very attentive to my questioning and is very interested in our oral history project. A very congenial and intelligent man, Bill has lived in Elk Park all of his life and runs a hardware store there. He has much to offer about the Elk Park and Avery County area and is very genuine and entertaining in is delivery. This is an interview with Bill Brinkley in Elk Park, North Carolina on February 8, 1973 for the Appalachian Oral History Project by Lester Harmon. LH: Lester Harmon BB: Bill Brinkley Pam: Pam ?? Mrs. Brinkley: Mrs. Brinkley LH: Would you give us the name and the birthplace of your parents and the number and names of your brothers and sister and their ages? BB: My father was D.G. Brinkley, and he was born in Grassy Creek, which is near Spruce Pine. He was born about 1885. My mother was a Carroll. She was born in Chester, South Carolina about 1888 or 1889. My oldest brother lives in California named Edwin who is about 70 years of age. My father was 91 when he died and he’s been dead about two years. My mother is still living; she’s 88 and living in Florida with my sister. There were six children; the eldest was Edwin. My oldest sister is about 65 and she lives in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida. My next brother is about 63 and lives in Los Angeles, California. The next child in line is another sister who is 60 years old; she lives in Los Angeles. Then my brother and myself are twins. We’re 56, born in 1917 in two different months – June and July. LH: Is there a story behind that? BB: We were actually born in June, but at that time of course the roads were very bad, and 1 �there was not much transportation. The doctor that brought us in, when he listed our birth in the courthouse in Newland, why, he must have gone over in August. He said, “Well, they were born the 27th of the last month.” So I have two birthdays. That’s the reason I get so many presents! LH: When did you come to Elk Park? BB: I was born here. LH: Can you talk a little bit about what life was like as a child? Did you live on a farm and grow your own food? Do you remember any scarce periods? LH: Well, as a child no. That was before the Depression. My father was a merchant, and we did raise right much food that we ate, but that was customary with everybody in this section, of course. I had a very good childhood. I had my twin brother, always had someone to play with, of course. So, as I remember, I had a very happy childhood. We didn’t realize any Depression until about 1929-30. It was about 1929 when the Depression started. It wasn’t too bad in this mountain area because people, most everyone had land, and they did raise most of their food. Maybe not a big variety, but a sufficient amount of food. Our worst period was between 1929-33. At that time, there was scarcely any money, and of course, we had very little clothing, except about one change, and that was it. But by 1935, we had about come out of the Depression, this whole area really. Although the WPA lasted until about almost up until World War Two started. The lady next door to us, she was a great hand at canning, especially peaches. She had several hundred cans of peaches, and she canned them all in usually ½ gallon jars, fruit jars, or quart fruit jars. She dated them all, and she had some that were 14-15 years old. She didn’t have any children, so it was just her and her husband and she canned peaches every year, no matter what. I’m sure when they both died; they still had some peaches in that basement. Pam: Would you tell him about the Sunday suit you had? BB: Well, the first suits we got were about 1933 or 1934; we each got a suit of clothes. My brother and I put it on to go to Sunday school. We got up the road a ways, at the time we lived across the street from here, and we looked at each other. One, I don’t remember which, but one called the other one and said, “Well, you look like a Philadelphia layer.” We just turned around and came back in, and took the suit off. We put on our overalls and went to Sunday school. That same suit after I had it just a short while. I was playing on Sunday, and it got warm, so I took it off and laid it across this fence and forgot it. Of course, we didn’t remember it, because we didn’t wear the suit except on Sundays, and it was on a Sunday when I took the thing off and hung it on the fence. 2 �The following Sunday, I couldn’t find the suit. I couldn’t remember where in the world that coat was, and it was during a rainy period. Oh, two or three weeks later, I happened to look up where we played that Sunday, just glanced up that way, and I saw the coat hanging on the fence. And of course it was ruined, so I didn’t have another suit until about 1937, somewhere along there. But, as I say, by that time, the Depression was over with as far as we were concerned, and most people in this section. I really don’t think the mountain people felt the Depression nearly as hard as the people in this section. We have been classified as a poverty area along with the Kentucky group and so on, but in my opinion, Avery County is really not a poverty stricken country, never has been. LH: You were saying that you were living here at the start of the Depression, and were all the kids in the family here, or did any of them leave home during the Depression, or did they leave home because of the Depression? BB: No, my two eldest brothers left during the Depression, but not because of it. They went west to seek their fortunes, and they’re still out there, living in California. But it wasn’t the Depression that made them leave. The oldest one I think left before the Depression even started. LH: Your father and your mother, did the Depression have a big effect on their jobs, or did they change the jobs during the Depression, or were you working during the Depression at all anywhere? BB: Well, my father had a store and of course my mother never worked. I graduated from high school in 1934 at the age of 16, and I went to work in that store soon as we were out of high school. Of course the Depression was practically over then, well it wasn’t over, but times were certainly better by 1934. But we didn’t have enough money to go to college, and we did have to go to work. LH: You’re talking now a little bit about school. Can you tell me if your parents went to high school or if they went to college? Tell me about your brothers, sisters, and about your school life and some of the teachers or schoolmates that you had and how the schools have changed around here in Avery County and Elk Park since you were there? BB: My father went to college two years at N.C. State. My brother went to Davidson, my oldest brother. He was going to be a minister but he changed his mind on that. None of the other children ever went to college. LH: Do you remember anything about how the schools were when you were in grammar school and some of the good times that you had and what the schools were like then? BB: Well, I remember of course, the first day that I ever went to school and remember my first teacher. Her name was Miss Bean. Back then it wasn’t the first grade, your first grade was called the “Primer,” and that was because of a book that you had was named The Primer. That’s 3 �why you never went to the first grade, you went to the Primer. Then you went to the second grade. The schools were very good, but by the time we were in fourth grade, they combined two grades, the fourth and the fifth. We had the same teacher for the fourth grade and the fifth in the same classroom. She’d teach the fourth half a day and the fifth grade half a day, and the other half of course was supposed to study. Then, that grammar school was here in Elk Park, and in the sixth grade we were transferred to the high school building. It started, you weren’t in high school, but the sixth grade was taught in the high school, and the seventh grade, and then your freshman year in high school started in the eighth grade, and of course we only had four years of high school, so you were out at the eleventh grade. LH: You graduated from Cranberry School? BB: Yes, Cranberry High School. LH: The building looks a lot like the one that my dad went to school in. I think he’s 59 now, but he graduated from a school that looked a whole lot like the Cranberry School out here. BB: Well, we had very good teachers in high school, I thought, and I still think so – looking back. We had an excellent English teacher. If I learned all that she tried to teach us, I would know a lot more English I’m sure. But her primary interest thought as in literature rather than English grammar. But she was an excellent teacher, and I had her for four straight years. But she was very hard, and a lot of students tried to get another teacher if they possibly could. So her classes were never too large; really we learned more in her class, I thought, than the other ones that went to the English teacher. LH: You say that when you got out of high school, you and Bob went to work at the store. After the store, what did you do? Or have you stayed with the store up to now? BB: I’ve never done anything else other than extra things that I’ve gotten into, but primarily I have never left the store. LH: How has the store changed since back then? A whole lot? BB: Of course we started in an old building, but we built a new store that we’re in now. We built in 1940, just before World War Two started, and since that time, I built on it in 1957, built an addition on the east end and built the post office on the west end. But the building is really comparatively new although it was, part of it was built in 1940, but it’s a solid brick building. The old store was a wooden structure, very commonplace with what you would think of as an old country store. 4 �LH: Wasn’t it a good grocery store then? BB: We had general merchandise. We had groceries, dry goods, shoes, a little hardware, practically anything you would want. LH: It’s mainly hardware now, isn’t it? BB: Yes. LH: What kind of churches were in the Elk Park area or in the Avery County area then? What was the main denomination of most of the people around here? What were the churches like and how much have they changed since then? BB: They haven’t changed a great lot. I’m Methodist, my father was Methodist, and my mother was Baptist, but we all went to the Methodist Church, and it’s the same church we’re going to today. Of course the first church burned; then it was rebuilt and remodeled. The Baptist Church, of course they have done quite a bit of remodeling on it, but it’s in the same place and primarily the same church as when I was a boy. And the Christian Church here was an old wooden structure when I was a boy; it was torn down and has been a new church built since that time, but the church – the Christian Church is approximately 65 years old. The first structure is primarily the same because it was a brick building, and it burned, and it just burned the inside out and the roof off of it. It was built back just like it was except a little more modern. LH: Did a lot of people pitch in and help build the church, a lot of community people? BB: Yes, it was built and rebuilt entirely by people, by members of the Methodist Church and some of the friends of Methodists from Memphis. There was no outside help at all except from the Memphis Conference did, I think – maybe gave us 1,000 dollars, something like that. The church burned about 1952 and cost about 20,000 dollars to rebuild. LH: Is that Elk Park Methodist Church (pointing)? BB: Yes. LH: How did Elk Park get its name? Do you know? BB: Well, I’ve asked that question to many an old timer and I don’t believe any of them really ever knew. But the only tale that I have ever heard was that they claimed that the elk, which was the deer of course, because we had no elk, never had, but the deer well, this was one of their stopping places. You know deer migrate and they usually run within a certain area, and they were supposed to have had a place here that they stayed for a time, and that’s why they named it Elk River. 5 �I really don’t know whether the deer had anything to do with the naming of all this Elk and Banner Elk. I do know that Banner Elk was named particularly from, mainly from the fact that it was – everyone that lived there practically were Banners; they settled the town. But Elk Park at the turn of the century was the hub of this whole section. The railroad came here. Elk Park was about three times as large as it is now. They had the railroad, which was narrow gauge of course, coming to the Cranberry mines, which was mining iron ore. The town had a depot, had three hotels, it had a bank, had a sawmill. It had three livery stables. A livery stable is where people went to rent a horse and a buggy or a horse. There were three large ones so everybody came into this area stayed in Elk Park, and the community grew out of here to the various other places in the area. Salesmen and so on came from Johnson City from wholesale places that came up here selling goods. They all rode that train to Elk Park. LH: What train was that? BB: Tweetsie. LH: Tweetsie, that’s in Boone now right? BB: That’s right. Narrow gauge and it ran to Boone, but we had a flood in 1940, either 1940 or ’41 and the flood washed the railroad out, practically all of it out from Cranberry to Boone. And it was beginning to be a losing proposition, so they were allowed to not build it back. Got certain laws and regulations about busses and trains; you can’t just stop them whether you lose money or not. You’ve got to carry on. So they came on the Cranberry for a number of years until 1950. I believe the last run that Tweetsie made was about 1952, and they were allowed to cut the railroad out. Of course it was really more expensive to get anything in on the railroad by that time than it was by truck, because it being a narrow gauge, everything had to be transferred. It came by rail, and it was transferred to Johnson City to this narrow gauge train. We sold sheet rock and bought it by the carload out of New York and it costs us less freight to get it from New York to Elizabethton or Johnson City than it did by rail from Johnson City on up here, which is only 30 miles away. Of course the mines were operating too at that time. LH: Mines around here? BB: The Cranberry iron ore mines that was only two miles from here. One of the biggest belts of ore in this selection known anywhere, magnetized ore that is. It is magnetized, but it’s a low grade, and that’s why they are operating. The cost is no greater to get out; in fact, it’s less because granite is so strong. 6 �They didn’t have timber in any of the mines; they just left a pillar of granite every so often. They didn’t have to timber the mine with wood, so it wasn’t any more expensive to get out but the grade was so low, the ore grades were so low that it got to where it wasn’t profitable to operate. Some of the mines closed sown about 1930, somewhere long then. LH: How did Elk Park start? I mean, who first settled here and was it because of mining that the town got started? BB: No I think…deer hunting, elk hunting. I don’t know where he went (telling a story of a local old timer), maybe to Montana or somewhere northwest, and he was telling this group of people when he got back about what all he had seen, how it was way out west, what a big country it was and said, “The forest was so thick,” he said, “You can’t even walk through them, the trees were so close together.” And he said, “Elk,” he said, “You’ve never seen such elk. They had horns this large” (used his hands as wide as he could spread them). Finally somebody stopped him in the middle of the story, and they laughed and said, “If the elk had horns that big, how did they get through those trees that were so close together?” This gentleman didn’t even slow down on his story, he just looked at the man and said, “That’s their story.” This was typical of the type of stories that he told, and I guess if somebody kept a record of all of them, it would really had been a best seller. He certainly was surely full of them. Oh, he told another story about hunting. He was a great hunter and said he saw twelve turkeys sitting on a limb and he said, “I checked my gun and only had one cartridge. I jerked up my gun and got all twelve of those turkeys.” Somebody said, “Well, how in the world (laughing) did you get all those turkeys with just one shell?” He said, “Well, I’ll tell you. I shot and split the limb and when the limb went together caught all the turkeys’ toes and held them there until I got up and killed them.” But he was full of stories. We have had lots of characters like that. LH: How about some of the community leaders or decision makers, like the rulers of the town and everything over the years? BB: Well, I have been mayor of Elk Park myself and an Alderman two or three times. I had the distinction of running for mayor against the only woman that ever ran for mayor. Of course she campaigned like everything and I didn’t campaign, but I still won. She is to my knowledge, the only woman who ever ran for mayor of the town of Elk Park. LH: How long ago was that? BB: That was in 1939 or ’40, about then. We’ve had some good men, had a Harmon by the way, good community leader. He taught Sunday school and taught the men’s class for about 15 or 18 years in the Methodist church. I was superintendent at the time, the superintendent for 17 years, of the Sunday school up until the time I went into the army in fact. But Mr. Harmon, he became a U.S. Marshall under the Eisenhower administration, and he had some sort of illness 7 �and died. He wasn’t too old of a man when he died, but he had left Elk Park of course when he became a U.S. Marshall and moved to Asheville. LH: You have said that Elk Park used to be bigger than it is now. Has the population decreased that much, or just the general size? BB: Well, Avery County has grown less in population until the last three or four years. Now, what happened there was, of course, a lack of jobs, and a lot of people who moved away to get these jobs during the war, stayed so the population went down from 14,000 to 10,000 at one time, and it was because of lack of jobs. There was no industry to amount to anything for a number of years, the mines had closed. After the war, they started coming back a little bit, but not too much, but then “tourism” has done more to increase the population – to get the population back to closer to the point where it was, than anything else. People who are retired want to come to the mountains to lived because they know this I the finest place on earth. A lot of people like to come here and there’s been a good deal of the land that’s been sold to outsiders who want to come here, and will be here for the rest of their lives. LH: Has the tourist industry had, in your opinion, a bad effect on the natural beauty of the mountains around? I know like Beech Mountain and some of the bigger places used to be, well nothing there and a lot of people feel like it has done more harm than good. I was wondering how you feel about that? BB: Well, of course there are several thoughts on that. The county as a whole felt like tourism was the only way out of growing. Naturally they wanted to grow and they hated to see the population decreased. So they tried to make it as attractive as possible for the tourists. But it was slow coming for the simple reason there were no accommodations and so people didn’t come because of that. And then on the other hand, people are afraid to build accommodations because the tourists aren’t coming. But it made a vicious cycle out of it. These resort areas such as Beech Mountain and Sugar, ski places, some people resent them because for one thing, it has made land go sky-high, and it’s gotten where it’s hard to even buy a piece of land in Avery County unless you pay what I would say, an exorbitant price for it. Really, in that respect it’s (tourist industry) hurt. Of course, there’s not, well, there a few fairly big landholders in the county, but the land isn’t for sale. Meade Corporation owns about 4,500 acres and they sell it sometimes. They are the biggest owners. LH: Who is that? BB: Meade Corporation – they are a paper company of course, and they recently sold 40,000 acres in Jackson County. That’s been a big, well, quite a bit in the paper about that because they didn’t sell it to the Forest Service, but they offered it to the Forest Service and they said they would like to have it but they didn’t have the money. Then Meade was ready to sell and 8 �these developers from Florida bought it and gave them five million (dollars) for it. And now, of course everybody over there’s hollering that they really didn’t give the government a chance to buy it – that’s neither here nor there, I don’t know how much truth there is to it, but I do know from personal experience that the government is tied up in too much red tape when it comes to something that they would like to have, that they don’t do anything about it until it’s too late. I had 500 acres in the middle of crops that they owned all around and they wanted to buy it. They never did buy it, and finally I sold it to another party. So, I expect that’s about what happened to Meade. BB: At the beginning of the Depression, for this area, when the government decided – I don’t know; they had been giving help elsewhere, but the way it was started here, the help situation from the government, they have you a little piece of paper that said that you were entitled to so much food money and you took that to the store. We took it just like it was a five dollar bill. For instance, this allowed you to buy that much food, or whatever it said. And of course the amount was given accordingly to the number in the family. Now this was a monthly thing. LH: Rations? BB: No, it was – I forget what they called it, but anyway – it was the largest amount that I can remember anybody getting was one man that had 13 children, he got $21 per month. He spent half of that for tobacco and snuff, his wife dipped snuff and he chewed tobacco. And he spent the rest of it for essentials that they could not raise. And they existed on it; nobody actually thought they were poor, poverty stricken, or anything else. So it just shows you that really – well, there was no great need for money. That man raised practically everything that they are, with few exceptions, but that $21 helped out with him using half of it for snuff and tobacco! LH: How many were in the family again? BB: Thirteen! He had 11 children plus himself and his wife. Then at a later date, I knew a man that had 19 children and he and his wife, and he was never on welfare and never had a job. He pulled moss, dug herbs, and that sort of stuff for a living and yet he raised 19 children. LH: You said welfare – are you talking about the… BB: I’m talking about a later date, such as when the welfare program started after the war. What we called the welfare program that started after World War Two. And this man was never on welfare, and yet he never had a job working for anybody unless he just wanted to. He made his living out of…well, off the land. Mrs. Brinkley: Did they pick Galax? BB: Yes, Galax and moss and dug ginseng and crabapple roots and so on. Ginseng is a root 9 �that’s very valuable, even to this day. The Chinese use it extensively for medical reasons of some reason or other, but that’s where it was all sent from, but it’s always brought anywhere from $15 to $40 per pound, and of course it’s very scare. But I had known people that found patches of it where they’ve gotten out 800-900 pounds and made themselves quite a bit of money. But that hasn’t happened but very few times. LH: Do you remember the change in the schools or the churches or the country stores around? Do you remember any great changes in those during the Depression? Working in the store (Brinkley Hardware Store), you probably saw some changes in the store there? BB: Well, I don’t quite know what you mean by change. We saw, naturally business get better as people got more money, and as the Depression ended. Of course, the war naturally created – between the WPA and the war – they created many more jobs and there was money around. So, the volume of business gained constantly. Pam: What about the packaging in the store? How has that changed? BB: Well now, that’s changed completely in my day. When I first started working in the store nothing was packaged. Sugar came in 100 pound bags and we poured it in a barrel. People never bought more than five pounds, something like that. Most people bought a quarter’s worth, which was about five cents per pound. You had to weigh it out on a scale and tie it up in a bag. Lard or shortening came in a 100 pound drum. You opened the top of it and there was a little paddle that you took, you put the lard in a tray and sold whatever the amount they wanted from a nickel to 50 cents worth. Flour was not sold in anything less than 25 pound bags. Meal was not sold in anything less than 25 pound bags. Self-rising was unheard of. Peanut butter came in a 25 pound can; you sold it similar to lard, in a little wax tray. Bologna didn’t have to be refrigerated; you had no refrigeration to start with. Rather it came in a white cloth sack and it would keep, we hung it from the ceiling. Bananas we bought by the stalk. Sold two, three, or four – they wouldn’t ask you for pounds. They would say give me five bananas or a half dozen bananas, or whatever. Pam: Do you want to tell him about the time when you stuffed your banana – was it a banana? BB: It was a banana yes, that’s a – I don’t know whether it’ll help his story or not. I was – that was before I was out of school of course, and my daddy had the store and we would go in there in the afternoons and try to steal us a little piece of candy or something. We didn’t have to steal it, he was very liberal – he would let us have it, but you would ask and he’d say how much you could have. So we got in this stalk of bananas, which was very unusually in that day and time. The stalk was as green as a gourd. But we wanted one so badly, he finally let us have one and I decided that I’d get me another one, and I didn’t ask for it. About that time I got it about half eaten, my daddy came around the counter. I just stuck all of it in my mouth and swallowed it, 10 �and that night I nearly died of a stomach ache. But, we finally had oranges and that sort of stuff at Christmastime – in the store. There was really nothing packaged. LH: Did you have the pickle barrel and the cracker barrel? BB: Had a pickle barrel, pigs feet – pickled pigs feet. Sold fish from a big barrel, salted fish that you could keep from now on. People had to take them home and soak them all night, and they usually ate them for breakfast. By the way, the main reason for that is they had to soak that salt out of them before they could eat them. They would soak the fish during the night and it was just a breakfast food to the mountain people at that time. Nuts, we never sold any nuts except at Christmastime. Oranges, tangerines, and all that – just Christmastime. Saw very few toys and we had a tin can for a car – played around with the bank and make a road out of it with a tin can, an empty tin can. Pam: What about buckeyes? BB: Buckeyes were very similar I appearance to a chestnut, except much larger. And a lot of people had the superstition that to carry a buckeye was lucky. This one boy was very superstitious. He carried a buckeye for about 20 years that I know of. But, he got in trouble one time, and he was telling the story later, he said, “I promised the great Lord and this buckeye that if I get out of this, I’ll never do it again!” You were talking about calamities…I guess the biggest calamity that ever hit this section of the country was the blight of the chestnut trees. I don’t know really what extent it was here, but I think the chestnut tree was about the majority of the types of trees all through the Appalachian area, probably and maybe all the way to the West Coast, I don’t know. LH: A lot of barns were built from wormy chestnut weren’t they? BB: That’s right. And now its worth anywhere from 1,000 dollars to 1,200 per thousand board feet. I bought it for $15 a 1,000 board feet, sawed and planed - $15. But the chestnut tree was one of the biggest losses we ever had in many ways. The loss of the timber, the loss of the chestnuts to the animals of course, the squirrel, deer. Practically all of the animals ate chestnuts and by losing the chestnuts, why, it badly affected the wildlife of this area. But, you really didn’t realize how many chestnut trees there were until they all died. I can remember going from here to Blowing Rock on what we call the Yonahlossee Trail, which is still there any is part of the (Blue Ridge) Parkway now. You can see a great distance along that road, up the mountain and below the mountain, and before the leaves would come out, or just when they would begin to come out, you could see all these dead chestnut trees. I’d say ¾ of the trees were chestnut trees. But they would stand out at that period you see, and you could tell that they were dead chestnuts. It was a great loss to the whole country. 11 �LH: What was it that caused the… BB: The blight? LH: Yes, the blight. BB: Somebody brought in a chestnut tree either from China or Japan, and it was diseased, and it gave the blight to the chestnuts in North America, and that blight spread. They never found anyway to stop it, and it killed every chestnut tree in the United States. LH: They can’t grow them anymore, can they? BB: Well, they have found one that’s blight-proof, but it’s really, its what they call an English Chestnut. It’s much larger than our chestnuts. You’ve got to plant it and take care of it, like you’re taking care of an apple tree or something. Pam: Well, what kind is it that the Penland’s have? They have one in their yard; we eat chestnuts from it all the time. I think it’s a Japanese kind or something? BB: Well, it probably one of those English Chestnut trees – they call them “Horse Chestnuts” because they’re larger. They are really not a true chestnut as far as the chestnut we had. I’ve never heard of anybody cutting the timber from them, because we don’t have that many of them. The chestnut timber now, if you can find any that were sound, some were found even years afterward, and they were able to cut a lot of the logs found on the ground or still standing and cut the sound wood out of them. It brought big money because it was scarce wood, and everybody like those worm holes. LH: My sister and her husband got a wormy chestnut bookcase for a wedding present and they said that was the best present they got. It’s really beautiful. BB: But, the funny thing about the chestnut tree. If it was cut but not soon enough, it got shaky and a shaky chestnut lumber was worthless and still is even today. If you had it, it would be worthless. In fact, a man offered me 40,000 board feet about five or six years ago. I had a wood working shop and we had a lot of demand for things made of chestnut lumber that was cut, so he offered the 40,000 feet for $35 a thousand feet. I didn’t know that much about it. So, I went to somebody that did and asked, “Out of 40,000 feet, surely to goodness you could cut enough good out of it to get five or six thousand feet,” and he said, “No, if it’s shaky chestnut, you cannot get anything good out of it. If you had ten million feet of it, you couldn’t.” So I didn’t buy it. About all you can use it for is for sheathing for a barn or something like that, but it won’t last anytime you see. Once it’s exposed to the weather, it doesn’t last. 12 �LH: Comparing childhood during the Depression days, when you were growing up – what did you like best about those days? What were some of your best days? What do you like best about living now and what did you not like back then? BB: It would take a long time to answer all than, but quickly: The Depression didn’t bother us because I was too young, and we were in a business where I guess, we made money faster than the common run of people. So I had a car when I was 17 and have had one ever since. The first car I ever bought was the only one I was ever able to pay cash for, I think. I guess that I was better off between 1935-45, than I ever have been since! LH: I guess that’s something you don’t like about now, the way everything cost a lot more. BB: Well, it’s really harder to accumulate anything or make any money this day and time than it was in those days because of high taxes and the high cost of living. Bought insurance back when it was cheap and had the money for it. If you had the money today it would be worth well, what is it worth now? A dollar is worth about 40 cents. I doubt that it’s even worth that. The government’s index claims that stuff has risen so much, that I can remember the first car that I bought in 1935, brand new Deluxe Ford cost 600 dollars. And of course, everything is not that much difference of course, but that is an example – that’s why I said with a little money back in those days, you could really have yourself a ball, because it didn’t cost anything. Go on vacation, I’ve gone to Florida and spent less than $200, now it will cost you that and a little more than that to buy a plane ticket there and back. LH: Or just to stay down there a while in a motel. Forty dollars a day in a motel for practically all of them. What do you like best, if you can pinpoint anything, about today’s lifestyle, the way things are now? BB: Well, I like the improvements man has made, certainly. A lot of people say the “Good old days.” When I say that, I’m talking about the fact that stuff didn’t cost much. But I still appreciate the fact that we have all these “luxuries” like dishwashers that do a lot for the housewife. But the trash-smasher, the dishwasher, the refrigerator, -- that’s one thing we’ve always had, so that doesn’t mean as much to me, but I do – from the fact that until after the war, there was more than 10% of the people outside of the town that had lights. Everywhere now rural districts have lights, and that is to be a very, certainly a luxury for them. Bound to be, and that was the first thing that everybody did after the war that could get them of course, these other things could come in such as washing machines, refrigerators, whatever. But I do like the fact that man has made all the progress he has. I’ve certainly seen more progress made in my lifetime than was made for previous, well, some people say millions of years. Some people say 10,000 years, or whatever. But that’s up to the individual to think what he wants to about it, but I think more progress has been made in the past 25 years than ever 13 �has been made before. And maybe in the next 25 years it will be – it’s hard to imagine, but maybe just as much or more. LH: If you could change something right now, what would you change? BB: Well, that’s hard to keep from thinking of personal matters, and that wouldn’t have anything to do with what you’re asking. 14 � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Appalachian Oral History Project Interviews Description An account of the resource In 1973, representatives from Appalachian State University (ASU) began the process of collecting interviews from Watauga, Avery, Ashe, and Caldwell county citizens to learn about their respective lives and gather stories. From the outset of the project, the interviewers knew that they were reaching out to the “last generation of Appalachian residents to reach maturity before the advent of radio, the last generation to maintain an oral tradition.” The goal was to create a wealth of data for historians, folklorists, musicians, sociologists, and anthropologists interested in the Appalachian Region. The project was known as the “Appalachian Oral History Project” (AOHP), and developed in a consortium with Alice Lloyd College and Lees Junior College (now Hazard County Community College) both in Kentucky, Emory and Henry College in Virginia, and ASU. Predominately funded through the National Endowment for the Humanities, the four schools by 1977 had amassed approximately 3,000 interviews. Each institution had its own director and staff. Most of the interviewers were students. Outgrowths of the project included the Mountain Memories newsletter that shared the stories collected, an advisory council, a Union Catalog, photographs collected, transcripts on microfilm, and the book Our Appalachia. Out of the 3,000 interviews between the three schools, only 663 transcripts were selected to be microfilmed. In 1978, two reels of microfilm were made available with 96 transcripts contributed by ASU. An annotated index referred to as The Appalachian Oral History Project Union Catalog was created to accompany the microfilm. The catalog is broken down into five sections starting with a subject topic index such as Civilian Conservation Corps, Coal Camps, Churches, etc. The next four sections introduced the interviewees by respective school. There was an attempt to include basic biographic information such as date of birth, location, interviewer name, length of interview, and subjects discussed. However, this information was not always consistent per school. This online project features clips from the interviews, complete transcripts, and photographs. The quality and consistency of the interviews vary due to the fact that they were done largely by students. Most of the photos are missing dates and identifying information. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Collection 111. Appalachian Oral History Project Records, 1965-1989 Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1965-1989 Sound A resource whose content is primarily intended to be rendered as audio. Artist Brinkley, Bill (interviewee) Harmon, Lester (interviewer) Duration Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.) 01:01, Buckeye luck charm Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Interview with Bill C. Brinkley, February 3, 1973 Description An account of the resource Bill Carroll Brinkley was born on July 27, 1917 in Elk Park in Avery County to David Brinkley (b. July 24, 1879 – January 1971) who was from Grassy Creek near Spruce Pine, North Carolina and Carroll Ivey Brinkley who was from Chester, South Carolina, and he had five siblings including a twin brother. He graduated from Cranberry High School in 1934 then started working in the family hardware store and served briefly in the U.S. Army enlisting in February 1945. He died on March 20, 2001 at the age of 83. During the interview he reflects on a happy childhood during the Depression partly because everyone was self­‐sufficient and raised their own food. He provides several anecdotal stories about his education, the family owned Brinkley Hardware Store in Elk Park, religion and local churches, the origin Elk Park, the railroad, the Cranberry mine, and tourism in Avery County. He also discusses collecting herbs and rationing during the Depression and relates stories about panthers and the Brown Mountain Lights. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Brinkley, Bill Carroll Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a title="Appalachian Oral History Project Interviews, 1965-1989" href="https://appstate-speccoll.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/195" target="_blank">Appalachian Oral History Project Interviews, 1965-1989</a> Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 3-Feb-73 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource Copyright for the interviews on the Appalachian State University Oral History Collection site is held by Appalachian State University. The interviews are available for free personal, non-commercial, and educational use, provided that proper citation is used (e.g. Appalachian State Collection 111. Appalachian Oral History Project Records, 1965-1989, W.L. Eury Appalachian Collection, Special Collections, Appalachian State University, Boone, NC). Any commercial use of the materials, without the written permission of the Appalachian State University, is strictly prohibited. Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource MP3 Extent The size or duration of the resource. 14 pages Language A language of the resource English English Type The nature or genre of the resource Sound Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant <kml xmlns="http://earth.google.com/kml/2.0"><Folder><name>OpenLayers export</name><description>Exported on Thu Oct 24 2013 14:11:05 GMT-0400 (Eastern Standard Time)</description></Folder></kml>||||osm Elk Park (N.C.) Avery County (N.C) Subject The topic of the resource Brinkley, Bill Carroll--Interviews Avery County (N.C.)--Social life and customs--20th century Depressions--1929--North Carolina--Avery County--Interviews Farm life--North Carolina--Avery County--Interviews Christian life--North Carolina--Avery County--Interviews almanac Avery County car Depression Education Elk Park farming folklore religion tourism https://omeka-test.library.appstate.edu/files/original/97152d942f5a0d9f9963f14014b0343d.mp3 609256f96d7501078431a09bdec71d14 https://omeka-test.library.appstate.edu/files/original/cb26a23146691a2df3890fb004e59b8c.pdf 6126ffc7836c5502694131982ebedb0b PDF Text Text Oral History Transcript Appalachian State University • Collection 111, Tape 19 Interviewee: Mr. and Mrs. Arlie Moretz Interviewer: Karen Weaver 5 February 1973 KW: Karen Weaver AM: Arlie Moretz MM: Mrs. Moretz KW: This is an interview with Mr. and Mrs. Arlie Moretz for the Appalachian State University Oral History Project by Karen Weaver at Boone on February 5, 1973. First of all we’d like to hear a little bit about your family life, when you were growing up as children. Where were you born? MM: I was born over here at Silverstone. It’s in Watauga County. KW: How many children were in your family? MM: Eight. KW: What about you Mr. Moretz, how many were in your family? AM: Ten, nine grew to maturity. The first one died in infancy. I was born near the Tater Hill Lake on the Meat Camp side. Granddaddy entered the land on which I was born; nobody had lived there except the wild creatures until daddy moved in there and cleared an area. Five of the children were born there. We walked three miles to school each day. I started at five and hiked six miles away round-trip. We went on the Meat Camp side now, not back near the Tater Hill Lake area, but in the other direction east of the Tater Hill. Very, very rugged mountainous terrain and we were poor, very poor. I can remember going with mother to gather roots and herbs so that we might have clothes and most of all (our clothes) were made with needle and thread, she didn’t have a sewing machine, mostly homemade clothes. Little tiny shirts and pants she ordered from a place called Proximity Mercantile Company in Greensboro. I didn’t know where Greensboro was in those days. KW: Did you grow most of your food and have a farm? AM: Yes, it was country. We grew our food practically all of it, everything. MM: We raised our own corn and beans and potatoes, and we raised some sheep and cattle 1 �and had horses, mules, and hogs – had our own meat. We walked to school about a mile. AM: Daddy was known for his hogs, he grew an enormous lot of tem, everybody in the country came to dad to but hogs. Not only did we have meat, we had cane “lasses.” Now, I didn’t say molasses, I said “lasses,” and we grew fields of buckwheat and we had to have pancakes made with the buckwheat. I remember how we cut it with a cradle, that’s a scythe sort of machine; we thrashed it with a flail. I called it a frail, and I remember how daddy made those things with a hickory spout, about as big around as your arm and beat it with a pole axe, the back of it, until it was limber. Wailed the daylight out of it that the grain and separate it from the straw and we didn’t have the windmill with which to clear out the trash and chaff, we borrowed one. We would take it home on a little sled or wagon and use it to clean up the grain. We not only used the buckwheat for pancakes, but it was ground and given to animals to eat too. We called it “chop,” it was ground grain. KW: What about your schooling, how much did you and your parents have? AM: Granddaddy was a highly educated man, he was a minister. Great grandfather came to the county, one of the first to move into the county and he was married twice and had 25 children. I know where he is buried, I helped select it. Myrtle and I together helped pick a gravestone and helped do the inscription on it. It’s near my original home in Green Valley on the Meat Camp. KW: What was his name? AM: His name was Jonathan Moretz. My grandfather was one of his children. He was a welleducated man, but daddy wasn’t. I think he went about to the third grade. I’ve heard him say. Mother was something like a seventh grader. And I don’t know how much education you would say I had. I haven’t done anything for the last 60 years except schoolwork. That’s quite a little while to spend isn’t it? I have a couple of degrees, a B.S. (Bachelor of Science) and a M.A. (Master of Arts), both from ASU (Appalachian State University). And I’m a minister and a schoolteacher with 39 years of experience under my belt. KW: What do you think about the way schools have changed from the way when you went? AM: Well, when I been to go to school, we had two to three, maybe four teacher schools where I went and I’ve taught in the same place for three years. And I’ve always taught in a one-teacher school for three years and we’re back to the one-teacher school concept now. The team teaching, individualized instruction, is practically the same thing that we had in those days in the one-teacher school. It’s the one-to-one “teacher-pupil” relationship. Frankly, I think we’re deteriorating some. I don’t think the concept is worth a “blanket-blank!” I can’t say the word because I am a minister. 2 �I don’t like teamwork. If the thing that we have done prior to this was good enough to develop the best technology on the face of the earth, and good enough to put a man on the moon and bring him back safely, I can’t see throwing it away. KW: When you were little, what did you hear about elections and politics? AM: Well, in those days we weren’t told much about why we held elections and in the schools… there was very little said about why we were voting. Frankly, I don’t think that we knew what it was all about in those days. I honestly can’t remember before the seventh or eighth (grade), know much about why an election was held. We may have learned a little bit in a casual sort of way, but I can’t remember anything. KW: What kind of transportation did you have when you were growing up? AM: The horse and the wagon. We rode horseback to church or in the wagon or we walked. Walking was the biggest thing. There were no automobiles when we were little. KW: Do you remember when you saw your first automobile? AM: Yes. KW: Do you remember what year it was? AM: No, I don’t. It was somewhere in the area of 1918, near the terminal point of World War One. I don’t remember seeing one before 1918. KW: What did you think about it? AM: We were fascinated by it. We hitched a ride on it if we got a chance. And the first airplane was just as fascinating. KW: Could you tell us some of the things about the “Potters” and the other bad men? AM: Booney Potter was one of the meaner ones and John O..J. was pretty bad to get drunk. I knew him personally. He told me one time that he was so drunk that he passed out and they thought that he was dead. They laid him out on a cooling board and dug his grave. He said that they had made his casket and put him in it. When he came to, he sat up and asked them what was going on, to those who were there, if it was some kind of joke. The people gathered told him that he would have been buried in another few hours, buried alive! John O..J. told me that he hadn’t been drunk any since then. I can remember him sending me to preach in his truck down in Bulldog, Tennessee. Quite an interesting deal, his grandson took me and we spent the night and the only time I ever caught the itch in my life was sleeping with him. 3 �KW: Do you remember any of the stories about the people killing each other? AM: I can tell you about an actual murder that occurred over there in Pottertown. I could tell you two. Let me tell you the one. Brown was his last name. I shouldn’t put the first name of the “Brown” in the story because I think he’s still living. He wanted to borrow his cousin’s truck to buy some more “white lightening” as they say. His cousin wouldn’t let him have his keys to the truck. They quarreled a little bit about it. The incident culminated in the death of one of the boys, the first cousin to the one who killed him. I was in the church preaching when that happened. The other incident involved a merchant whose last name was “Ellison.” He had operated a sawmill, a country, store and post office. He was practically an illiterate man, but he had a great deal of business acumen. Everything that he touched like King Midas “turned to gold.” I remember he went into a business transaction with a fellow named “Smith,” to manufacture little pins for the insulators of the telephone wire to be wound around, little pins about six or eight inches long. Mr. Smith didn’t live up to his end of the bargain and Mr. Ellison ran an attachment on some of the pins, some sort of legal transaction so that the workmen could be paid and Smith hopped onto Mr. Ellison with a knife and was about to whack him a little bit and Ellison shot and killed him. He came on to Boone himself and told the sheriff that he’s killed a man and he sent for me to come to the jail and talk to him about it. Later in the flood of 1940, he died and I went to do his funeral, had to wade the water up to Meat Camp Creek and across to Pottertown where he lived. I helped put him away. KW: You mentioned the flood, what can you tell us about that? AM: It was rather terrible. There were several people killed down in the Stony Fork area. I did a double funeral of two who were drowned in it up in the Howard’s Creek country on the rich mountains near the Tater Hill Lake. 4 � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Appalachian Oral History Project Interviews Description An account of the resource In 1973, representatives from Appalachian State University (ASU) began the process of collecting interviews from Watauga, Avery, Ashe, and Caldwell county citizens to learn about their respective lives and gather stories. From the outset of the project, the interviewers knew that they were reaching out to the “last generation of Appalachian residents to reach maturity before the advent of radio, the last generation to maintain an oral tradition.” The goal was to create a wealth of data for historians, folklorists, musicians, sociologists, and anthropologists interested in the Appalachian Region. The project was known as the “Appalachian Oral History Project” (AOHP), and developed in a consortium with Alice Lloyd College and Lees Junior College (now Hazard County Community College) both in Kentucky, Emory and Henry College in Virginia, and ASU. Predominately funded through the National Endowment for the Humanities, the four schools by 1977 had amassed approximately 3,000 interviews. Each institution had its own director and staff. Most of the interviewers were students. Outgrowths of the project included the Mountain Memories newsletter that shared the stories collected, an advisory council, a Union Catalog, photographs collected, transcripts on microfilm, and the book Our Appalachia. Out of the 3,000 interviews between the three schools, only 663 transcripts were selected to be microfilmed. In 1978, two reels of microfilm were made available with 96 transcripts contributed by ASU. An annotated index referred to as The Appalachian Oral History Project Union Catalog was created to accompany the microfilm. The catalog is broken down into five sections starting with a subject topic index such as Civilian Conservation Corps, Coal Camps, Churches, etc. The next four sections introduced the interviewees by respective school. There was an attempt to include basic biographic information such as date of birth, location, interviewer name, length of interview, and subjects discussed. However, this information was not always consistent per school. This online project features clips from the interviews, complete transcripts, and photographs. The quality and consistency of the interviews vary due to the fact that they were done largely by students. Most of the photos are missing dates and identifying information. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Collection 111. Appalachian Oral History Project Records, 1965-1989 Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1965-1989 Sound A resource whose content is primarily intended to be rendered as audio. Artist Mortez, Arlie (interviewee) Weaver, Karen (interviewer) Duration Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.) 01:13, Drunk man almost burined alive Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Interview with Alie Mortez, February 5, 1973 Description An account of the resource Arlie Earl Moretz was born on June 30, 1908 to Sion Gideon Moretz (b. January 16, 1880 d. October 29, 1950) and Virginia Dare Stanberry (b. March 16, 1883 d. February 2, 1970). He married Alice Myers Moretz (b. May 12, 1912 d. January 25, 1965) who was born in Crossville, Tennessee to the parents of Thomas Myers and Olive Dougherty. His great grandfather was one of the first settlers in Watauga County, having married twice he had 25 children. The Arlie Moretz family lived in the Meat Camp area of Watauga County. Arlie Moretz died on September 7, 1997 at the age of 89. Mr. Moretz earned B.S. and M.A. degrees from Appalachian State, and professionally was both a minister and schoolteacher with 39 years of experience. During the interview he reflects on how education has changed from the time when he was a youth through his career as an educator, talks about attending and teaching in a one-room schoolhouse, personal reflection on education, and local politics. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Moretz, Alie Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a title="Appalachian Oral History Project Interviews, 1965-1989" href="https://appstate-speccoll.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/195" target="_blank">Appalachian Oral History Project Interviews, 1965-1989</a> Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 5-Feb-73 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource Copyright for the interviews on the Appalachian State University Oral History Collection site is held by Appalachian State University. The interviews are available for free personal, non-commercial, and educational use, provided that proper citation is used (e.g. Appalachian State Collection 111. Appalachian Oral History Project Records, 1965-1989, W.L. Eury Appalachian Collection, Special Collections, Appalachian State University, Boone, NC). Any commercial use of the materials, without the written permission of the Appalachian State University, is strictly prohibited. Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource MP3 Extent The size or duration of the resource. 4 pages Language A language of the resource English English Type The nature or genre of the resource Sound Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant <kml xmlns="http://earth.google.com/kml/2.0"><Folder><name>OpenLayers export</name><description>Exported on Thu Oct 24 2013 14:14:31 GMT-0400 (Eastern Standard Time)</description></Folder></kml>||||osm Watauga County (N.C.) Subject The topic of the resource Moretz, Arlie Earl--Interviews Teachers--North Carolina--Watauga County--Interviews Clergy--North Carolina--Watauga County--Interviews Watauga County (N.C.)--Social life and customs--20th century Appalachian State University car Depression Education herbs and roots Meat Camp moonshine New Deal Pottertown Tennessee Wake Forest Watauga County N.C. https://omeka-test.library.appstate.edu/files/original/8ce868caa3bb235a0331b5f582ef5b9d.mp3 c9ce9654a8776c86953607e289fd98dc https://omeka-test.library.appstate.edu/files/original/5656556df1cc5591caba18d53eb02dc3.mp3 0405b511ed3b1722c99aba6cd30d4abb https://omeka-test.library.appstate.edu/files/original/80d43e4f322bc0409865ccec0f2cdd4f.pdf a6dbed0b4a31179b086b0d81d155bf02 PDF Text Text Oral History Transcript Appalachian State University • Collection 111, Tape 39, 40 Interviewee: Stanley Harris Interviewer: Bill Brinkley 20 March 1973 This is an interview with Mr. Stanley Harris, Hr., for the Appalachian Oral History Project by Bill Brinkley at Boone on March 20, 1973. BB: Bill Brinkley SH: Stanley Harris, Sr. BB: Mr. Harris, could you give us your age and place of birth? SH: Well, I was born in Johnson City, Tennessee, where the name of the place was Trade, which is just over the line from North Carolina, on October 31, 1882. BB: How long have you lived in this community? SH: When I was two years old, my father moved to what is now Montezuma, North Carolina and I stayed there until I finished high school and in 1902 I went to college at Athens, Tennessee which at that time was part of U.SH. Grant University, main part being located in Chattanooga, but the liberal arts department was at Athens. That has since changed to Tennessee Wesleyan College. I graduated in 1902, and took a postgraduate course as what was then the American University at Harriman, Tennessee. Later, that was sold and the American University was closed. At the close of the school in 1903, I went to work for a furniture factory in Harriman, Tennessee and a year later moved to Lexington, Kentucky and worked there in a furniture store as a salesman. In 1907, I became the assistant secretary of the YMCA at Frankfort, Kentucky and in 1912, became the secretary of the YMCA there. In 1916, became the state boys work secretary of the YMCA. In 1908, started a Boy Scout troop under the British Scout Association which troop was recognized and chartered in December 1908. And it became, so far as we can find any history, the first chartered Boy Scout troop in the United States. After I became the state boy’s work secretary, my headquarters were moved to Louisville and the Boy Scout troop in Frankfort was expanded and a council organization with four troops in Frankfort. In 1917, I went with the National Council as a special field commission and remained with the National Council of the Boy Scouts of America until October 1, 1947, when I was automatically retired because I had reached the age of 65. I spent a few months in South Alabama where I had a little property, then came back to Chattanooga, where I was associated with Jake Bishop in General Insurance, and for a time lived in Johnson City. 1 �In 1948, we came back to Watauga County primarily because in 1930 and 1931, we had built a very modern residence across Cove Creek from Henson’s Chapel Methodist Church. At that time it was called Amantha, and we lived there until we traded that property with Gene Wilson and officially moved to Boone. In 1949, Watauga County celebrated its 100th anniversary, and I was elected president of the Watauga Centennial, and we published a brief history written by Dr. Whitener as a history of Watauga County. In 1902, after graduation from the Grant University branch at Athens, I came back to Watauga County as principal of Cove Creek Academy, which was kind of a high school and taught school until about the middle of January 1903, when I went to the American University for a short post graduate course, and it was at Cove Creek Academy that I met Mary Swift, then a student, which in 1919 became my wife. We lived in Memphis for a while and then moved to Chattanooga and eventually came back to Watauga County to love, and the family has been here ever since. In 1949, I recommended to the Chamber of Commerce that we should develop industry to balance what was then a college and tourist business as about the only industry. The board of the chamber of commerce was not sympathetic at that time to developing industry, but within a year or so, that became one of their major projects, and as secretary of the industry committee I directed the campaign to supplement the purchase price of property for IRC, and had an important part in bringing industry to Boone, which was the first of the major industries coming here. Later, the industry committee arranged with Shadowline to establish a plant here, and after that, we found that Blue Ridge Shoe Company was disappointed in the location they had chosen as a new plant, and persuaded the management to investigate Boone. We did all the preliminary work necessary to get the Blue Ridge Shoe Company to come to Boone, including sale of bonds on their property, most of which was brought finally by the Northwestern Bank, though several thousands of dollars of bonds were brought by local citizens. Later, the industry committee was successful in persuaded Vermont American to establish their plant in Boone, and each of these instances; we had to supplement the land purchase for the new company. I had the privilege of conducting the finance campaign, all of which was easily successful. One of my big contributions to Boone and Watauga County was as a member and the chairman of the board of Watauga Hospital, and conducted the finance campaign to renovate and improve the then Watauga County Hospital building. This resulted in our acquiring our modern surgical department and a very successful surgeon. Also, with the help of the state and federal government to build a nurses home all of the county divided the money through bonds, the modern Watauga Hospital, this property was transferred to the college and later became a part of the equipment of Appalachian State University. If I have been any value to Watauga County, primarily it has been in developing these industries and providing opportunity for people in Watauga County to get employment at good wages, and this has resulted in many homes and smaller businesses that would not have come without 2 �these manufacturing industries to provide the employment. I’m still secretary-treasurer of the industry committee and a member of the board of most of the organizations that continued to have a responsibility except to encourage and promote them. We built the building for Shadowline and they operated it on a rental basis for a few years and then bought it, and we built the building for the Blue Ridge Shoe Company, which they still operate on a rental basis. Same is true with the Vermont American that is operated on a rental basis as far as the building is concerned. The “Echoes of the Blue Ridge” finally developed into “Horn in the West” and has been one of the great advertising projects for Boone and Watauga County. It resulted from an invitation to Kermit Hunter to be the speaker at the Chamber of Commerce where we persuaded him to write the story, and we conducted a finance campaign for the money to build the theatre for the “Horn in the West” and again I had the privilege of being the director of the finance campaign. That’s about the story of my connection with the development of industry and the “Horn in the West.” I have remained as an active worker in the Chamber of Commerce, but recently no major projects. Now, what other questions do you want answered? BB: Were you also connected with Coleman’s Tobacco Warehouse? SH: Well, soon after I came here probably in 1950, Coleman employed me as a sales supervisor and at that time had the radio program promoting the tobacco warehouse and Boone as a tobacco market. I’m still the sales supervisor for Coleman, though we have not had a radio program as such for the last five years. Before warehouse #1 burned, the year before that we sold in excess of six million pounds of tobacco ant the Boone market. Less than 1/3 of that tobacco came from Watauga County, and a considerable proportion of it came from Tennessee and Virginia, but the tobacco warehouse in Boone has been a great help to the farmers, not only in Watauga County, but in this whole section, and last year sold in excess of four million pounds for mighty close to $3 million. BB: You organized the first Rotary Club, is that correct? First director? SH: I was one of the group that organized the Rotary Club in Boone and because I had previously been a Rotarian was elected the district governor for District 780 which included all of Western, N.C. from Charlotte and West Jefferson through to Murphy, some 40 clubs. BB: What I’d like to ask you now is a few questions on the Depression. When did the Great Depression start as best you can remember? SH: Well, the Depression started in 1929. We had a very prosperous period after the war closed, and things were going great when the Stock Market had a tremendous setback, and by 1931 we were in perhaps the worst Depression we had ever had. This Depression didn’t seriously affect me because I was then employed actually by one of the Rockefeller 3 �organizations, and they didn’t cut my salary, but salaries went down in many instances, more than 50% and thousands of people were out of work. It was during that time I decided to build a rock house over in Cove Creek and believe it or not, purchased well finished lumber at $14 a thousand, employed labor only one carpenter on the job got more than 35 cents an hour, and he as the foreman in building the house made a little more than that but not much more. Common labor could have been had for ten cents an hour, but I couldn’t persuade myself to go quite that low and paid 15 cents an hour for common labor. The rock that built the house was delivered to the site for a dollar a yard, and even the rock mason made about 75 cents and hour, which is not much more than 10% what the same would cost today, and while we later sold the Cove Creek house to Gene Wilson and his wife, we decided to live in an apartment, and not finding what we wanted, we bought the lot on W. Queen Street and built West Apartments, which five or six years ago we sold to a corporation which now owns them, but I still manage the apartments. BB: Where were you living at the start of the Great Depression? SH: Well, we were living on Cove Creek though I was travelling out of New York and came home about once a month for a few days, and sort of kept track of things, but Mary and the children ran the house. BB: How many were in the family at that time? SH: We had two children: Stanley, Jr. who was born in 1923. Wait a minute, he was born in 1920, and Martha was born in 1923. BB: Was there a scarcity of food during that time? SH: No scarcity of food. The scarcity was anything but, and since my salary was continued, I made more clear money from 1930 to 1936 than I had ever made prior to that. BB: Did you raise crops? SH: We had a big garden, but as far as farming is concerned, I didn’t do any farming. Anything that was done on the farm was done on a rental basis, and that was not a cash binder, but a percentage of the income. But we had a big garden, and I got some prestige as a grower of roses, for we had a very beautiful rose garden. BB: What animals did you have on the farm? SH: Well, part of the time we had a milk cow or two which Stanley learned to milk as a ten year old youngster, and we usually kept a horse that we could ride or plow, but we made no attempt to be farmers, but we did have a good vegetable garden along with the roses. 4 �BB: We’re you familiar with any of the government projects during the Depression? SH: Not too much familiar with government projects during the Depression, though during World War One, I was a federal director of the boy’s working reserve, which organized boys to work to produce food during the war, and a big part of that was done by Boy Scouts who produced the gardens especially the big garden in Washington, D.C.. The garden was down on the peninsula that furnished vegetables not only for the White House, but Walter Reed Hospital, major hotels in Washington, and was honored frequently by a visit from Mrs. Wilson, wife of the president, and on a few occasions President Wilson accompanied Mrs. Wilson to the garden for she always picked up her own vegetables twice a week. I didn’t do the technical work that was done by a man from the agricultural department who supervised that big garden, but I promoted the idea of boys doing things for the government not only making gardens, but distributing literature, making Black Walnut surveys, and numerous sundry other things, but I had very little to do with government projects during the Depression years. BB: Were prices higher or lower during the Depression? SH: They were down at the bottom. I don’t know the figures, but certainly meat prices weren’t much more than 10% of the present price today, and as far as I have any memory, there was abundance of food if you had to pay for it. BB: Did new ways of making money arise due to these conditions. SH: I didn’t make any money except my salary until I retired, but since I retired I made considerable money out of projects I’ve been interested in. BB: Do you remember any of the banks closing? SH: Oh, yes. The Watauga County Bank in which my wife and children kept their deposit was closed, and their deposit frozen. That’d didn’t affect me very much because I had continued to keep my account in a bank in Chattanooga which, while it was frozen for a short time, reorganized and went right on in business, and from my frozen deposit was promptly reinstated. But there was another bank or two in the county that was closed and if the Northwestern Bank hadn’t taken over the assets of the Watauga County Bank, there would have been a worse Depression in Watauga County. But the Northwestern Bank took over the assets of the Watauga County, and some months earlier Mrs. Harris sold her stock in the Watauga County Bank, but most of the stockholders, in fact, I suppose all of the stockholders lost their stock, and not only that, they had to put up an amount equal to the base value of their stock, which was $100 a share before the Northwestern Bank took it over. And that was a real Depression. BB: What were the community reactions to the bank’s closing? SH: Well, of course, everybody that had any interest in the bank, particularly the stockholders 5 �were very much concerned and some of them very bitter at the officers of the bank. By they had loaned too much money to too many people that couldn’t pay and therefore there was nothing that the officers of the bank could do but accept the closing when that was decreed by the federal government. BB: Whom do you blame for the collapse of the bank? SH: Oh, I think the officers of the bank were too liberal in their loaning money, therefore, had a very good many notes that weren’t collectable. I don’t think that there was any one individual that was particular responsible. It was the policy of the bank to loan money particularly to farmers and a number of the farmers not only couldn’t pay their notes, but some of them lost their farms and that was one of the reasons they go so bitter at the bank. BB: Did the schools change very much during the Depression? SH: All the schools went on as far as the country schools are concerned, teachers were paid $25, $35, or $45 a month, but that was in line with other things at that time, so as well as I observed there wasn’t much let down in public school situation. BB: Did the businesses and country stores change very much? SH: Well, some of the businesses and went into bankruptcy, but not too much change in the major businesses. They weren’t making money, but nobody else was making money at that time, so they went along with the crowd. BB: What do you think caused the Depression? SH: Well, I had an experience in connection with the Depression that always stood out with me. I went as the guest of a very prominent stockbroker to a dinner in Dallas. Everybody was asking him questions about how to get rich on the stock market, and he finally got a little irritated at that attitude and gave them a good lection about trying to make money without working for it, and told them that if that attitude kept up there was going to be a Depression, and hence I was sort of close to it. What happened was, as he told me later, he went back to New York, and had the stocks that he held analyzed and began to sell the stocks that they thought were dangerous, and as they began to sell, prices began to go down. I’ve always thought that the fact of his starting to sell stocks was one of the basic reasons why stocks began to go down. Because if he were selling stocks at a lower price, pretty soon everybody was looking for them at that price. And as a result, stocks went down, and that was the beginning of the Great Depression. Fact of it is, I had some stock that I paid as much as $20 a share for that went down to $1.25 a share. I didn’t sell mine for several years after the Depression was over and finally sold them for $60 a share instead of the $1.25 that I would have gotten for them in 1931, or 6 �1932. And that was an illustration of what happened in the stock market. BB: Who was hurt worst by the Depression? SH: Well, the common people are always hurt worst. Laborers, small investors, small businesses. They were the ones that were really hurt. BB: Well, what do you think was best about the Depression? SH: What was that? BB: What do you think was best about the Depression days? SH: Well, it probably brought out the stamina of the American people and showed that by hard work, they could still live, even if they didn’t live like they had been accustomed to living. But I think it emphasized the importance of hard work and striking with it that would be valuable today. Most of our troubles today are because people don’t want to work and a good many people don’t want to put out their best at work, whether it be in building a house or running a business. BB: How is life different today from life during the Depression? SH: Well, it’s only different in the luxuries we have. Very few people had automobiles. You could buy a good Ford or a Chevrolet for four or five hundred dollars, but most people didn’t have four or five hundred dollars. BB: What do you like best about today’s way of life? SH: Well, I like the comfort of feeling that I have a reasonable income, likely to have as much as I actually need as long as I live. I hope to be at least another ten years because I’m only 90 and I want to get to be 100. BB: If you could change anything about the way things are now, what would you want to change and why? SH: I’d want to change the willingness to work more than anything else, and I think people are happier and live longer when they’re working and that’s the reason I keep working now, because if you keep busy whatever your job may be and try to put out the best you can. You don’t have so much time to worry about the aches in your knees and your back and so forth. There could be a different attitude toward life and willingness to do anything that needs to be done. BB: I would like to ask you some questions concerning your childhood. 7 �SH: As a kid, I was connected with a lumber company. There were seven of boys and we did whatever work there was done on the farm, but I happened to be down among the younger ones and older ones didn’t like farm work, so by the time I was 12 or 13 was the ‘chief on the farm.’ What little farming we did and one of the big jobs was to get my younger brothers to do what I thought was their part in taking care of the farm. Father did encourage us to get through high school and we all did. I was the only one of the three younger boys that finished college, but we all got through high school. We didn’t have any of the luxuries and we worked even as kids. I think one of the troubles with youth today and I don’t think there are nearly as many of them as people think, but one of the troubles is that children are given too much and are not required to make an adequate return for it. I think you can spoil the child by giving him too much maybe worse than if you made it pretty hard on them. BB: Could you give me the name of your parents and their birthplace? SH: My father was William J. Harris and he was born out in the county from Abingdon, Virginia, where his father owned considerable farmland. My mother was born just this side of Mountain City, Tennessee, on the road about two miles this side of Shouns (Tennessee). Their education was limited to grade school. I don’t think either one of them ever went to college, but they appreciated the importance of their children getting an education, and while they didn’t have back in those days much money to help them through college, they did encourage us to make our own way so I worked my way through college and that was good for me. BB: How much schooling did your brothers and sisters have? SH: All of them went to high school, what in those days was considered high school. My brother Kemp went to college to study to be a minister and had the best education of any of us, including me, but he didn’t go to college until after he had decided to go into the ministry and that was when he was 25 or 30 years old. He was like a lot of other ministers now, young ministers, he went to college and pastored a small church some place, and managed to get through college that way. BB: Wen you came to this area what sorts of churches were there? SH: Well, over in Cove Creek where I taught school and where I lived, there was a Methodist and a Baptist church, Henson’s Chapel and Cove Creek Baptist Church that is still there. So far as my knowledge is concerned there was an Episcopal church, a Methodist church, and a Baptist church in Boone. But I did not know too much about them even when I was teaching at Cove Creek. BB: To which church did most people in the community belong? SH: Baptist. 8 �BB: What were they like at that time and how have they changed? SH: I don’t see too much change so far as the religions attitudes concerned. I think they’re a little bit more liberal toward other churches than they used to be, that’s true to both Baptist and Methodist. I think my father tried to give me the impression that all Catholics had “horns and trails” and I learned that people in the Catholic Church were just as fine as the people in some other churches so that seems to be a drifting of not being so antagonistic toward some other and I think that’s true between the Baptist and the Methodist, all the others. BB: How did this community get its name? SH: Well, as far as I know it was the legend of Daniel Boone that gave this particular community its name. How much Daniel Boone really ever stopped here is still a question. He undoubtedly passed through a few times. BB: How and why was it formed in the first place? SH: I don’t know the answer to that; I suppose it was just sort of grew up as most places do to start with. I think that the Dougherty boys and the school had had a tremendous influence on the building of the town. They just had vision, they didn’t have much to work with back in those days but they got a school started and kept it going. BB: How had the community changed over the years? SH: Well, it has changed a lot in the comforts of the people that lived in the community, other than that I don’t see too much change. A large proportion of the people now are making pretty good wages and they’re living them up pretty large. Businesses have grown, some of them tremendously. BB: Who have been the community decision makers? SH: Well, the folks at the Northwestern Bank have been a tremendous influence in making the community. Alfred Adams has been chairman of the industry committee, and from a business standpoint there is nothing that has even approached the importance of the industry committee of the Chamber of Commerce in building the community from a standpoint of industry. BB: Have the Dougherty’s been in this decision making group? SH: Yes, very definitely. One of the interesting things to me was that back when I first came here, Dr. Blan Dougherty was very much opposed to developing industry, but a few years later he had a very definite change of mind and particularly in the promotion of the International Resistance Company (IRC) and a very important promoter of industry. Of course he had one love, and it was above everything else, and it was the college, which he built up from a little 9 �grade school to a quite sizeable college and laid the foundations for a tremendous growth that happened under Dr. Plemmons as president and is still happening under Dr. Wey. BB: Could you give me any other names of really important decision makers in the community? SH: Well, I think Clyde Greene and Russell Hodges were of tremendous importance, and the Winklers have been important promoters, especially Ralph and Gordon. The three Wilcox boys – Herman, Charlie, and Dempsey have been tremendously important people in developing this community. BB: Would you list the Farthings and the Councills among these also? SH: Well, the Farthings and Councills held a lot of property and Grady Farthing has been tremendously important as president of the Watauga Savings and Loan which, when I first became connected with it, had assets of very much less than $500,000. Now I understand their assets are listed at about 36 million. Grady Farthing has been tremendously important in that connection. Home of the best citizens in the county were Farthings, but Grady stands out as the high man so far as promoting the community is concerned. BB: Are there any minority groups in the community? SH: Oh, yes. There are minority groups, but they’re much better off than they are in cities, and we don’t have much trouble with the minority groups whether they be black or something else. BB: Were some families poorer than others? SH: Oh, sure! That’s true today. Home families barely lived while others were living in luxury. BB: Did the others look out for them to a certain extent? SH: A little, not much. BB: How many people were in the community? SH: Well, the first time I came to Boone, there must not have been over 300 or 400 people living in what is now Boone. There weren’t any paced streets or even “MacAdamized” streets, there were just mud roads and when it rained they were really muddy roads. BB: Has the population changed greatly? SH: Numerically, of course, it has changed greatly. A large number of people now living in Boone lived in the county but a greater number of people lived outside. From an educated standpoint, there’s a very tremendous difference. Back when I first came here there was very few that you could called educated. Now, a large portion of the population is at least high 10 �school educated. A very large proportion of the high school graduates go on to college. BB: Do you think there was a certain time that the population changed was greater, or was there a sudden influx of people, or was there a gradual change over the years? SH: Well, while there was a gradual change, there have been two or three instances where there was an influx, and the last five years have properly been the worse, or the best whichever one you want to put it. BB: Concerning transportation, how did people get around in the community? SH: Back then they walked, or rode a mule. Home of the better ones had a buggy. The automobile finally came, and very few had automobiles, but it kept picking up and picking up and automobile companies have probably sold more new cars this year, ten to one than there were in the county in 1947 when I came back here. BB: Where did the roads and railroads run? SH: Well, of course 421 was mapped out east and west of Boone, 321 and 221 were mapped out but they weren’t paved or fixed up. The road to Blowing Rock was one of the best, but that was organized as a toll road and you had to pay a toll to go over it. The county roads were generally poor and generally dirt. Paving the roads has been done in the last 20 years, mostly. BB: When were the railroads built? SH: Well, the Tweetsie Railroad built into here, I think, was built back in the teens, and was built primarily as a lumber road, though they had passenger coaches. Fact of it is, the railroad didn’t come beyond Cranberry when I was a boy and the first train that I ever road on was the Tweetsie from Elk Park all the way to Cranberry, but I remember very well how afraid I was of it. My brother carried me onboard, and I got down to Cranberry, and that was about 81-83 years ago. They built on up here (to Boone) after the William Ritter Lumber Company had developed Pineola, which they called Saginaw largely, and the Linville River Railway came on into Boone, but both of them from Cranberry to Boone was primarily built for lumber. BB: Are you familiar with any of the mountain crafts or customs? SH: No, not familiar enough to talk about it. BB: Are you familiar with the folktales, legends, or superstitions of this area? SH: Well, I’m not too familiar with that. 11 � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Appalachian Oral History Project Interviews Description An account of the resource In 1973, representatives from Appalachian State University (ASU) began the process of collecting interviews from Watauga, Avery, Ashe, and Caldwell county citizens to learn about their respective lives and gather stories. From the outset of the project, the interviewers knew that they were reaching out to the “last generation of Appalachian residents to reach maturity before the advent of radio, the last generation to maintain an oral tradition.” The goal was to create a wealth of data for historians, folklorists, musicians, sociologists, and anthropologists interested in the Appalachian Region. The project was known as the “Appalachian Oral History Project” (AOHP), and developed in a consortium with Alice Lloyd College and Lees Junior College (now Hazard County Community College) both in Kentucky, Emory and Henry College in Virginia, and ASU. Predominately funded through the National Endowment for the Humanities, the four schools by 1977 had amassed approximately 3,000 interviews. Each institution had its own director and staff. Most of the interviewers were students. Outgrowths of the project included the Mountain Memories newsletter that shared the stories collected, an advisory council, a Union Catalog, photographs collected, transcripts on microfilm, and the book Our Appalachia. Out of the 3,000 interviews between the three schools, only 663 transcripts were selected to be microfilmed. In 1978, two reels of microfilm were made available with 96 transcripts contributed by ASU. An annotated index referred to as The Appalachian Oral History Project Union Catalog was created to accompany the microfilm. The catalog is broken down into five sections starting with a subject topic index such as Civilian Conservation Corps, Coal Camps, Churches, etc. The next four sections introduced the interviewees by respective school. There was an attempt to include basic biographic information such as date of birth, location, interviewer name, length of interview, and subjects discussed. However, this information was not always consistent per school. This online project features clips from the interviews, complete transcripts, and photographs. The quality and consistency of the interviews vary due to the fact that they were done largely by students. Most of the photos are missing dates and identifying information. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Collection 111. Appalachian Oral History Project Records, 1965-1989 Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1965-1989 Sound A resource whose content is primarily intended to be rendered as audio. Artist Harris, Stanley (interviewee) Brinkley, Bill (interviewer) Duration Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.) 03:07, Depression; 01:44 Work ethic Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Interview with Stanley Austin Harris, date unknown Description An account of the resource Stanley Austin Harris was born on October 31, 1882 in Trade, Tennessee, and reared in Avery County. The son of a Confederate officer, after graduating from Tennessee Wesleyan College in 1903, he worked for the Young Men's Christian Association (Y.M.C.A.) in Kentucky where he was introduced to the British Boy Scout movement. He chartered a troop from the British Scouting movement in 1908, two years before the Scouting program was established in the United States. He started working for the Boy Scouts of America in 1917 until his retirement in 1947 at the national office in New York City. In 1926, he was the director of the Interracial Service where his responsibility was to build positive relationships with African American and Native American communities across the nation. The Harris family lived in Boone while he worked in New York City, but would commute by train every few weeks. In 1942, Stanley Harris was awarded an honorary doctorate of humanities from the historically black university Tuskegee Institute; the first Caucasian to receive this honor. Upon retiring, he lived in Boone and was very active with local businesses and civic groups. During the interview he focuses largely on his retired life and talks about his childhood, the Depression, and Boone history. Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a title="Appalachian Oral History Project Interviews, 1965-1989" href="https://appstate-speccoll.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/195" target="_blank">Appalachian Oral History Project Interviews, 1965-1989</a> Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource unknown Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource Copyright for the interviews on the Appalachian State University Oral History Collection site is held by Appalachian State University. The interviews are available for free personal, non-commercial, and educational use, provided that proper citation is used (e.g. Appalachian State Collection 111. Appalachian Oral History Project Records, 1965-1989, W.L. Eury Appalachian Collection, Special Collections, Appalachian State University, Boone, NC). Any commercial use of the materials, without the written permission of the Appalachian State University, is strictly prohibited. Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource MP3 Extent The size or duration of the resource. 12 pages Language A language of the resource English English Type The nature or genre of the resource Sound Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant <kml xmlns="http://earth.google.com/kml/2.0"><Folder><name>OpenLayers export</name><description>Exported on Thu Oct 24 2013 14:22:23 GMT-0400 (Eastern Standard Time)</description></Folder></kml>||||osm Avery County (N.C.) <kml xmlns="http://earth.google.com/kml/2.0"><Folder><name>OpenLayers export</name><description>Exported on Thu Oct 24 2013 14:22:23 GMT-0400 (Eastern Standard Time)</description></Folder></kml>||||osm Watauga County (N.C) Subject The topic of the resource Harris, Stanley Austin--Interviews Boy Scouts of America Watauga County (N.C.)--Social life and customs--20th century Watauga County (N.C.)--History--20th century Avery County (N.C.)--Social life and customs--20th century Tennessee--Social life and customs--20th century Avery County Boone Boy Scouts of America Depression Kentucky Rotary Club Stanley Harris Tennessee Wesleyan College Tennesssee Tuskegee Institute Watauga Centennial Celebration Watauga County N.C.