JF:  This is an interview with Clem Kaufman.  It's March 16, 2002.  I'm Jean Freedman.  I'm recording this for the Jewish Women's Archive’s Weaving Women's Words project.  We're in Baltimore, Maryland.  Okay.  I always start out my interviews the same way, and that's by asking the person I'm interviewing to tell me their full name and when and where they were born.

CK:  My full name – was named after both my grandmothers – is Clementine Alice Lazaron Kaufman.  I was born in 1924 in Baltimore County, which is where we are right now.

JF:  Okay.  Can you tell me something about your family and your background?

CK:  Yes.  My mother was born in Wheeling, West Virginia, and was an early college graduate.  She graduated from Barnard College in 1912.

JF:  That was unusual?

CK:  It was unusual.  There were elven people in her graduation class.  I still have her graduation documents, and they're just darling.  But, at any rate, my father was born in Savannah, Georgia, and went to Hebrew Union College and graduated about 1912, or something like that.  1912-1913.  His first pulpit was Wheeling, West Virginia.  My grandfather was president of the congregation.  So, first he married off my mother to my father.  Dad was in Wheeling for literally one year.  Baltimore Hebrew’s rabbi, Rabbi Guttmacher, had died in the pneumonia epidemic of 1914.  They were going through a year of inviting rabbis to come and preach and have the congregation hear them.  Dad had not planned – and so, he wrote the congregation – you wrote in those days, did not talk on the telephone.  My father always thought you had to talk loud when you talked long-distance, [laughter] even until he was ninety-one.  At any rate, Dad said he'd be glad to fill in for them.  He did not want to be considered.  He came, and he had a wonderful speaking voice.  He was a very liberal Reform Jew.  They came back to Wheeling, and BHC made an offer to him, which my grandfather encouraged him to take.  This was one of the big reform congregations.  It was an honor.  He was very young.  He was twenty-seven years old when he came here to this then-350-member family congregation.  That was large for those days.

JF:  Yes.

CK:  This is 1915.  A year later, he married my mother.  All of my father's ushers came from Baltimore to Cleveland –

JF:  Cleveland?  

CK:  I'm sorry – I don't mean to Cleveland – I mean Wheeling.  Wheeling, West Virginia.  Meanwhile, my uncle-to-be had become the rabbi – Abba Hillel Silver – and then, grandfather proceeded to marry his next daughter off to the next rabbi. [laughter] And then I think he was no longer president of the congregation, and there were no more daughters.  So that's a little bit of the family background. 

JF:  What was your family doing in Wheeling?

CK:  Well, my grandfather was in the wool business.  He came over in 1865, landed in Baltimore, and went to the Lloyd Street Synagogue because it was Yom Kippur.

JF:  Where did he come from?

CK:  He came from a little town outside of Heibrun; it's southeastern Germany.  Mother had written a history of grandfather when he was seventy.  And, in the history, it said that grandfather was from Freidenthal.  Well, there is no Freidenthal.  And we were in Heibrun, where grandfather was doing some work, and I knew that from the history.  He'd been sent off to be an assistant in a cloth merchant's business.  He sold some cloth to a woman who was a seamstress.  Apparently, they got a little discount.  He didn't give her the break, and so the owner of the store beat him.  He ran all the way home and said he wasn't going back.  He'd do something else.  Meanwhile, one of the uncles – one of the brothers – his older brothers – had come back to Germany from the USA.  The two oldest brothers were already here in Wheeling, West Virginia.  So grandfather left and with this other – one of the brothers.  He was the last of four boys who came to this country.  He initially – as a thirteen or fourteen-year-old – went up into the hills of West Virginia, bought wool from the sheepherders, and carried it down on his back.  That's how that business began – which I've always thought of as a very fascinating.

JF:  That is fabulous.

CK:  He ended up being – in the 1920s – very successful.  Wool business.  They were a middleman.  They bought the wool, and then the cloth manufacturers came in and purchased it.  But every time the Ohio River overflowed, the warehouse was on the river.  And the family – some of our family in Baltimore – used to rush over to Wheeling, taking the B&O Railroad to help move all the wool up to the second or third floor [laughter]so that it wouldn't get flooded.  That's an early family thing that I remember.  But Wheeling was a nice Jewish community.  I don't know.  I think it's much smaller today.  Dad had a very happy year there, obviously.  Unfortunately, my mother died at a very early age of something that no one dies from anymore.  It's something called Erysipelas.  We'll have to check the spelling on that.  It's a blood infection.  And it just went whipping through her system.  She died within four days of contracting this disease.

JF:  Oh my.

CK:  So, I was eight, almost nine years old.  I was born on my parents' wedding anniversary.  So, it was a tough thing for Dad, I think, to handle. 

JF:  Yes.

CK:  But he didn't do such a bad job of raising a daughter and two sons.

JF:  Let me go back just a bit.  After your parents were in Wheeling for a year and then came to Baltimore –?  What year was that?

CK:  Actually, Dad was here a year without mother – married her in 1915 – May 1st, 1915.  My oldest brother Morris was born in Baltimore – exactly nine months and twenty days after my parents were married.  He was the first child.  By then, we had the Women's Hospital here.  My brothers always used to say – very embarrassing to have been born in a Women's Hospital.

JF:  [laughter]

CK:  [laughter]  But I might add hospital births were not so usual.  People were still having babies in their homes.  But Mother, being a kind of educated woman, wanted her babies born in a hospital.  Actually, when our children were born, the doctor who delivered our first child had been Mother's doctor.

JF:  Wow.

CK:  He said that was a very nice tie-in.  Although anatomically, I don't think he recognized any resemblance. [laughter] We very successfully had two children.

 JF:  Okay, let me get your parents' names.

CK:  Morris Samuel Lazaron.  L-A-Z-A-R-O-N.  Pauline Horkheimer.  H-O-R-K-H-E-I-M-E-R.  Oh, I started to tell you – when we were in the town where my grandfather had worked in Germany, I walked up to a bus stop and saw that one of the suburbs of this town was Horkheim.

JF:  Ah.

CK:  So, I said to my husband, "Guess where we're going tomorrow?"  He said, ”Where?”  I said, "We're going to Horkheim."  And he looked at me and said, "Yes, we are.”  We went, and we found Freudenthal Alley, which must have been the little street that Grandfather's – and it was an alley.  You couldn't have gotten even a horse and buggy down it; it was so narrow.  The houses were still – the old houses – and it's a suburb of Heilbronn.  But it was interesting.  The things that grandfather had described to Mother were still there.  There was a castle on the hill, and they went and described sledding down the hill to the stream below.  It was exactly – except that somehow the names got reversed.  But then, I got it straightened out.

JF:  Okay.  Now, we were talking a bit before we started turning on the machine about your father's background, which is a bit unusual.  So I wonder if you'd mind telling me a little bit about your dad's background.

CK:  Well, Dad's family is sort of fun.  It doesn't buy you coffee today.  But is probably, purely Sephardic, or close to it.  I think there's a tinge of Polish blood in there.  In fact, I'm sure there is because my great-great-grandfather married a Polish Jewess.  But Dad's family – and I have the family tree in nice writing if you want to look at the de Sola side.  His mother was a De Castro.  Her father was a de Sola.  So that's where that – and that tree has been widely studied. 

JF:  I'd love to see it.

CK:  I'll show it to you afterward.  They go back to the 9th century.

JF:  The 9th century?

CK:  I mean, it's ridiculous.  Because 9th century - then it says 11th century, and then it says 13th century.  But we do know a fair amount about the family.  One of the members of the family was supposed to have been a navigator on Columbus's second trip to the United States. [laughter]  So that was pretty interesting. 

JF:  So you're an old family?

CK:  And we are an old family.  And the De Castros, interestingly enough, die out, as far as I can figure – and my cousin, also, has worked on it.  Our ancestor died in Leghorn, Italy, about 1750.  But the De Castros and all the many relatives – and his brothers and so on – go back a long way.  The family were lawyers.  One was a doctor, supposedly – and I don't know whether this was true – to Catherine of Aragon, who was married to Henry VIII.  I'm not sure if that's accurate, but it sounds wonderful.  Another one was a very well-known Jewish commentator in the 11th century – Judah Ha-Levi is in the family tree.  Whether this is accurate, I can't justify – except to say to you that Malcolm Stern feels that this is the family lineage.  And the one I got the biggest kick out of was Hannah Spinoza married a brother of my great grandfather's.  My great-grandfather's.  And both she and her husband are buried in the cemetery in Curaçao.

JF:  In Curaçao.  And Hannah Spinoza is a  –

CK:  Half-sister.

JF: Half-sister?

CK:  Of Spinoza.  So, it's fun.

JF:  Okay.  It's a very colorful background. 

CK:  The Lazaron side is sort of fun because they probably went across the Mediterranean.  Whether they went on the African side or the European side, I don't know, but ended up in what was then Constantinople and then worked their way up to what was known then as Königsberg.  It's the little piece of Prussia that has been fought over for many, many years.  Immanuel Kant is their great person for the town.  His grave is in the cathedral.  My great-great-great-grandfather – three greats back – was a man named Wolf Lazaron.  I have his picture hanging in the library.  His picture was hanging in the new synagogue that they – the rooms that they used today.  I was in Kaliningrad/Königsberg last year.

JF:  And Kaliningrad is the current name of Königsberg.

CK:  For Königsberg.  And Wolf Lazeron had eight children.  He was one of nine, I think – nine or ten children.  I have all the names and who they married.  His father was named Sol Laseron.  L-A-S-E-R-O-N was the spelling then.  Sol Laseron sent two of his sons back to Constantinople to help him run the amber business.  This is really one of the major amber-producing places in the world.  They have a beautiful amber museum that I saw last year when I was there.  I had the privilege last year of speaking to what is the remnant of the congregation that was my great-great-great-grandfather's.  It was a thrill for me. and I'll never forget it.  They were so thrilled to have me talk a little bit about the family.  My great-grandfather was named Morris Laseron, and then grandfather was Samuel Laseron.  And then, Dad's Morris.  So, the name goes, in typical Jewish fashion – I think – in memory of whoever may have died to keep the names alive.  So, incidentally, Wolf Laseron married a Polish Jewess, and that's why –

JF:  And this is your great-great-grandfather?

CK:  This is my great-great-grandfather.  He married a Jewess who was from Poznan, Poland.  Their family was in the liquor business.  The liquor is still manufactured today in Poland.  It's called Kantrowitz.  Her name was Berth – B-E-R-T-H –¬ Kantrowitz.  I don't know, but it was spelled both with a "C" and a "K" depending on who has written the letters.  I've got a couple of letters describing all of this family.  But they eventually left, came to the United States after the DeCastros – they left Curaçao, St. Thomas – probably stopping in St. Eustatius, and came to New Orleans and then up to Savannah.  There were at least two other relatives in my grandfather's generation.  There was an Isabel who – in the notes of the congregation, there's several books on Savannah Jewry – was in the choir, and was very active, and was a teacher in the Sunday school.  And then, there was Uncle Will.  Uncle Will must have been – I don't know what – but he must have been a colorful gentleman who never married.  I have several notes from the Mayor of Savannah, recognizing various and sundry deeds that he did.

JF:  [laughter]

CK:  But there is another piece of the family that is sort of fun.  My grandmother's – one of her sisters was married to a Mendes.  That's a very typical, Sephardic name.  One of this lady's brothers was Catherine Mendes – I mean, don't hold me to that name – who was Judah P. Benjamin's mother.  I have three portraits of Judah P. Benjamin.  One, when he was in the U.S. Senate.  One when he was in the cabinet of the Confederacy.  And one after he'd fled the United States to England after the Civil War.  He’s in a white legal wig. He was part of the Middle Temple in London, and he had a whole other career after the war.  One of my great desires is to go to Paris and see the grave of Judah P. Benjamin.  But it's an interesting – and I have a little photograph that says – "To my favorite cousin Alice De Castro."  There were twenty years difference.  She must have been a very little – that was my grandmother – little girl – when that happened. [laughter]

JF:  Wow, that's quite a background.

CK:  But the family tells stories like – they fled Atlanta when Atlanta was run over by the North.  They fled in a boxcar to Savannah from Atlanta, Georgia.  So, they must have gone New Orleans, Atlanta, Savannah.  But if you know the South – and, I really didn't know the South until I grew up – every city, it seems to me, that I've ever visited in the South, my father would say, "Oh, you have relatives there."  I was once on a UJA speaking tour, and I was hitting Chattanooga, Louisville, Knoxville, and Nashville.  In every single one, [laughter] I had family in it.  I was really funny.  Some of them were people that I knew.  Two of them I'd never seen in my life.  They were second cousins of my father.

JF:  Certainly, Savannah has a very old Sephardic community.  Were they part of that?

CK:  Yes.  They were very much a part of that.  And, I've had other people from Savannah say – "Oh yes, we knew about you." [laughter]  But, the rabbi, who was named – who was a Mendes, also – Jacob Osario Mendes was the rabbi.  He married my grandmother's sister.  I have her picture.  She's one of the ugliest women I've ever seen. [laughter] Anyway, I have this little photograph of her – and my grandmother was beautiful  – absolutely.  Grandmother Lazaron.  She lived on Auchentoroly Terrace where they moved to Baltimore.  They followed Dad to Cincinnati and lived there a little while.  And then, when Dad moved to Baltimore, they moved here.  And grandmother died in that house on Auchentoroly Terrace.  Then, Grandfather came to live with us, had a stroke, and died within about twenty-four months of my grandmother – Grandfather Lazaron.  Grandfather Horkheimer lived until he was well into his eighties.  It’s interesting because my father was fairly short.  And mother was shorter – Dad probably was about 5'5.”  Mother must have been 5'3.”  Grandfather was over six feet.  And, proportionately I was the same height as my oldest brother.  My other brother was average, but there is both short and height in the family.  I'm on the tall  – I was on the tall end growing up.  I've shrunk.  As you get older, you shrink a little bit. [laughter]

JF:  Tell me about your brothers.

CK:  I have two brothers.  Both of them are dead at this point.  My oldest brother was brilliant.  Went to Park School.  We all three went all the way through Park School, starting at age four and low kindergarten and high kindergarten.  Morris Lazaron, Jr. graduated in 1934.  Graduated from Princeton in '38.  He was an All-American lacrosse player – all in the Princeton team.  He graduated with honors, I think.  He was, let's see – Frank was Magna Cum Laude.  He wrote his senior thesis on comparing a French author and an English author, and I've lost the – let's see.  Madame Bovary was written by Flaubert.  I can't remember who – but a comparable English writer.  Very interesting thesis.  After he graduated – 

JF:  And this is your brother, Morris?

CK:  Morris, Jr.

JF:  He was born in what year?

CK:  He was born in 1916.

JF:  1916.  Okay.

CK:  Is that right?  No, February of 1917.

JF:  1917.  Okay.

 

CK:  And, then my – well, Morrie had a very interesting career.  He was in the Merchant Marine and worked for the United Fruit Company.  Before we went into the war even, he was in the first V-7 class, it was called, and went to Annapolis for four months.  [He] ended up being the captain of a weather-patrol ship in the North Atlantic.  He never talked about it.  But right before he died, he did write his memoirs.  They’re interesting.  They're not exciting reading – unless you're a naval something or other.  It was a very treacherous, scary, interesting job to have this little ship moving in and out of rather dangerous waters.  Then, he got sent back here – oversaw the building of another boat, which he eventually – it was built in the South and launched somewhere, either New Orleans or somewhere on the Gulf.  He and his crew took it through the canal and into the North Pacific.  He turned it over to the Russians right before he came home, which was after Japan had surrendered.  Morrie was the captain of this boat.  There were Russians and Americans on the boat.  And my mother died, as I said, when we were young.  Dad got remarried in July of '45.  My brother asked "leave" to come home.  His Admiral said, "And why do you want to go home, Captain?”  And Morris said, "My father's getting married."  The Admiral said, "It's about time."  [laughter] Which I always loved.  Another family – I'm giving you all my family stories.

JF:  [laughter]  Oh, these are wonderful.  And what about your other brother?  When was he born?

CK:  My other brother was – that's Harold.  Harold Victor Lazaron.  He was born almost legally blind.  Very albino.  But he had perfect pitch and an extraordinary voice.  Also, an amazing ability to play piano without seeing the notes.  You could hum him a tune.  He could also write with wonderful verbiage and rhyming.  He was a Gilbert & Sullivan enthusiast.  He was on Broadway with Richard Tauber, and he got pneumonia, and the show closed.  He came back to Baltimore, graduated from the Peabody Conservatory, then went to the New England Conservatory and got a degree in musical therapy.  [He] ended up back here after a not-so-great marriage and two adopted children and worked at Rosewood. which was a hospital for retarded children and worked there for almost twenty years.  Then he had been on the radio.  He had been on TV for the Clasters.  He was a great guy.  And this fall – since he retired – he'd been performing in nursing homes and some of these retirement communities.  He was on his way to go over to Good Samaritan to perform, and he was run over by an automobile this fall.

JF:  Oh.

CK:  In the fall of 2001.  It was awful.  But he was very happy, and had a wonderful second wife and very happy, good marriage.  It's a tough way to go because it was unexpected.

JF:  Was he also older than you?

CK:  Yes.

JF:  Are you the –

CK:  Harold was born 1920.  And I was born in 1924.

JF:  Where was your family living when you were small?

CK:  Well, the only place I ever remember – it was in Pikesville.  It's now called – it was called Naylors Lane.  It was called – I mean it is now called Old Court Road.  It was Naylors Lane.  And the name of the place was Tel-Elim.  T-E-L – Hill of Oaks.  Elim.  E-L-I-M, I think.  There were twenty-eight oak trees.  But my parents moved there six weeks after I was born, so I don't remember anything else.  I understand they lived – Dad lived in the Esplanade apartments.  Then, on Linden Avenue, where my brothers were born.  And then, they decided to move out to Pikesville.  Then I – after I got married – moved within a block of where my father and stepmother were living. [laughter] So, I've lived for thirty-five years of my life within a block of one area.  And then, we moved here about twenty-some-odd years ago – twenty-three years ago.

JF:  So, you've always lived in the county?

CK:  Always lived in the county and always lived with woods and trees and animals.  We had about four acres of land.  We had chickens which were my responsibility.  I had to collect the eggs with gloves on so that I didn't get pecked.  We killed our chicken in the kosher style.  I was just thinking about that.  We had three kinds of chickens.  We had Rhode Island Reds – which were pretty good egg-layers – and something called Plymouth Rocks and then White Leghorns.  We always killed a White Leghorn for Passover – or more than one, usually.  And watching them killed – and then pulled the feathers off and singed it. [laughter] It sounds wonderful, but it was awful.  But we had an asparagus bed.  We had strawberries and peaches and sickle pears and wonderful sledding in the winter.  The lower field was our big athletic area.  We played lacrosse and baseball.  It was a lovely area to live.  People liked to gather there.  A great big, rickety old house.  But it was fine.

JF:  Were there many Jewish families in the county in those days? 

CK:  Dumbarton was built in my youth.  I don't remember that exactly.  But I had a lot of friends who lived there.  On Naylors Lane – I can always go down the road.  There were the Naussauers on the corner.  That's the Kemper family also – related to each other.  I don't know exactly how.  Then, Dr. Lee Cohen – C-O-H-E-N – who was, I think, an ear, nose, and throat doctor.  And then the Hartmans.  And then, the rest of the road was the Gaylord Clarkes.  The Fosbenders.  The Randolph Bartons.  The McHenrys.  And then, our house – that's coming up the other way.  We were surrounded on three sides of our property by Pomona, which was the Albert Hutzler Sr. property.  So, were there a lot of Jews? [laughter]

JF:  [laughter]

CK:  But Randolph Barton had been a major in World War I.  He had a daughter whose name was Betsy.  He decided he wanted to teach me how to ride.  He taught me how to ride bareback without my father knowing it.  He had me absolutely geared to riding, which I adored.  I still do when I get a chance – there are horses over here – that I can get on an old nag and play around.  I do it secretly because I don't like people to think that – well, they know I do it, but because I wouldn't do it without the owners knowing.  But I miss it.  I loved it, and it was great fun.

JF:  Okay.  So you say there were not – it was definitely not a Jewish area then, the way it is now?

CK:  No.

JF:  What was that like? 

CK:  We never thought about it.  It seemed perfectly normal.  Dad exchanged pulpits all over the city when it wasn't done.  Some of his close friends – the Unitarian minister, Dr. Waldemar Argo.  The presbyterian minister was Dr. Guthrie Speers.  They were all close friends.  My father went to then Palestine in either 1921 or '22 with the head of the Episcopal Church.  That was unheard of.  I mean, it was in the newspapers and headlines, and they were interviewed when they came back.  I was just so –I've grown up in both these worlds.  And then, when I married my husband – the law – we'll have to stop and say – I went to Park School.  That was predominately Jewish.  It was started by the Jewish community because, except for Friends School, there were almost no Jews in any of the other private schools.  That's not true today.  It was just starting to break – open up after World War II – it took all that time.  The same thing was true, I think, in the business community.  I think a lot of people saw people professionally – but we had what we call “the five o’clock shadow.”  I'm sure you've heard of that.  My husband went to Harvard Law School, and before that, to Dartmouth College.  He had graduated from Friends School.  So, he had an enormous number of friends, particularly in the legal profession, who were not Jews. So, from the very beginning, our life included everybody.  I might add my father had the same thing at Passover after Mother died.  We had a lot of family growing up.  After Mother died, I don't remember those years so well   When I got to be about fifteen, sixteen, seventeen, Dad had been with the National Conference of Christians and Jews.  He was in the original trio.  We had the world – Irving Berlin was a regular visitor at Passover, with his wife and three children. even though the kids were raised Catholic.  In the biography that Mary Ellen Berlin wrote – I forget what her married name is –she mentions, "and we always went to Rabbi Lazeron's for Passover."  Which they did.  We had always a guest of honor.  I remember we had [Benjamin] Sumner Welles, who was then Secretary of State.  We had [Edward] Stettinius, who was the head of the Lend/Lease Operation and, I think, an Assistant Secretary of State at one point.  Senator Millard Tydings.  Oh, there was always some honored guest like that.  I also remember my father entertaining the editor of The Afro-American.  And I was old enough then.  But I had run our house from the time I was fifteen on.  I had governesses from the time Mother died until I was fifteen.  Oh, I had a year off when I went to boarding school in Switzerland.  But other than that, I had a series of governesses.  That’s a whole long story.  But it's an unbelievable way to be raised.  And Dad was always off on these speaking tours.  Not always, but a lot of the time.  Being a rabbi is a very full-time job and don't have a lot of privacy.  I never knew who was going to be there for breakfast.  My parents had something called "Our Crowd" – and it was made up.  I don't know whether this is important, but I can give you these names.  The Milton Helles.  The Milton Erlangers.  His wife was my mother's first cousin.  Armand Kemper and Elise Kemper was from Savannah.  Milton Gundersheimer.  I think they were both Baltimoreans.  Jacob and Hilda Blaustein.  They were all called aunts and uncles.  They celebrated things like the Fourth of July.  They would have picnics.  We did all kinds of things as a group.  All of these women – the wives – all had children, more or less, around the same age.  So that there were – Marian Kemper and Susan Frank are two of my closest friends.  I don't see both of them very much.  They're not in Baltimore.  But, at my brother's Harold age – there was Sandy Frank and David Kemper.  My oldest brother – there were a whole group of young – Nancy Brager  – I forgot now – Stanley Brager and Aunt Rita.  But that was their group.  There were lots of these little groups.  I don't remember if that was typical of the non-Jewish community.  It was certainly typical of the Jewish community.  The Lansburghs were part of this and Ethel and Ray Katz.  It was just a group that enjoyed being together and did a lot of things together.  Went to Maine to the same place to resorts.  So, it was wonderful growing up.  A lot of fun.  And, all these women, when my mother died, sort of felt responsible for me, so they all had a hand in making sure that I [laughter] looked right and I had the right clothing.  I remember they gave me a bedroom set as a surprise for my birthday.  It was so ugly.  But they had all pooled their money.  It was after the Depression.  I felt the Depression.  Dad took a cut in salary.  But we always had help.  Help was very reasonable.  So, we had a couple usually.  The man waited on the table, but he also drove us because Dad wasn't around to drive us.  Mother was gone.  I don't remember a governess ever driving us, particularly.  Maybe that was just as well – remembering those governesses.  But, at any rate, it was an interesting household.  The seders were unforgettable.

JF:  Tell me about them.  I mean, not many people have Irving Berlin at a seder.  Can you tell us –?

CK:  You end seder with “Ein Keloheinu” and then "My Country 'tis of Thee.”  And we don't sing all – we sing the first and last verse.  Then, we sing "God Bless America," which comes out of Irving Berlin.  I'm not wild about any of those songs.  So, I make everybody sing "America the Beautiful" – [laughter] at least one verse.  So, we have a whole musical ending to our seder.

JF:  It sounds wonderful.

CK:  [laughter] That I've created.

JF:  [laughter]

CK:  But it's fun.  Everybody giggles about it.  But it's fun.  Heaven knows in this year – we've certainly used some of those songs a lot.  They've become new hymns for us, I think – particularly "God Bless America.”  Irving Berlin would come.  He would stay at the Belvedere Hotel.  They would hire a chauffeur, and they'd come out in their limousine.  I remember always having lunch the next day – and it was at the Belvedere.  Of course, there was no matzah served.  I never knew what to do.  So, I sort of had – I didn't eat any bread because I used to take matzah sandwiches to school.  Peanut butter and jelly.  And matzah's good – cheese and matzah is okay – not great.  Anyway, I survived the eight days of Passover [laughter] with my matzah.  Everybody always wanted to taste my sandwiches.  I don't remember anyone else in my class doing this until Gloria Kolker came along.  She had to do the same thing.  She went to Chizuk Amuno.  Most of these other people went to Reform synagogues around the city.

JF:  Okay.  Well, you have given me a whole lot of questions that I want to ask you.  First of all, what was your father's congregation?

CK:  Baltimore Hebrew.

JF:  It was Baltimore Hebrew, okay.  So, that's a very prestigious –

CK:  Yes.  It's the oldest.  Lloyd Street was the original congregation.  When when the congregation in the 1860s decided to move uptown because the community had moved from southeast Baltimore, Baltimore Hebrew probably was the first synagogue to move up to Madison and Robert Street.  Chizuk Amuno then broke away because Baltimore Hebrew was becoming too liberal.  It was the beginning of Isaac Meyer Wise and the Reform movement.  But there was the mixing of seating.  There were voices, women’s voices, in the choir, and the whole movement became, in a way, more Americanized, or absorbed – whatever word you want to use.  The first Reform congregation, however, was Har Sinai.  That was the oldest Reform congregation.  I don't think Baltimore Hebrew could ever call itself fully Reform – any more than Oheb Shalom could.  That was the other big Reform congregation.  Because Dad wore a robe.  But he did things that – I remember, he took his hat off – his kippah off to pray.  He wore a tallis, but he didn't wear any of the other accouterments that are part of the Orthodox Jewry.  We did not celebrate Christmas.  I used to have to go to one of my friends to have Christmas.  She came to me for Hanukkah.  I was given only books at Hanukkah.  I would get eight books.  One year – I think it was – I must have complained in front of him.  Uncle Aaron Straus, who was a great philanthropist in the city and really, a godfather to the congregation because I must have complained – gave me my own Compton's Encyclopedia.  My brothers had The World Book.  I had my own private – [laughter] Dad had an Encyclopedia Britannica, which was very hard to read when you're ten or eleven.  It got better when I was in college.  But not good [laughter] when I was little.  So, my Compton's I loved.  They were very good books.

JF:  Well, it sounds as though – tell me if this is correct.  It sounds as though Baltimore Hebrew was sort of Reform with Orthodox touches.  Is that fair?

CK:  I think that's fair.

JF:  How about at home?  Did you keep kosher?

CK:  No.  Actually, Dad raised pigs during the war, which was – we had Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and David. [laughter] I won't tell you what the other names were – but they were similarly Jewish. [laughter] And that was mainly to have meat.  My father did not keep kosher.  Although I think Grandmother Lazaron did.  I'm not dead sure.  I sort of have this recollection.  I know that my Uncle Abba didn't keep a kosher home, but they did not eat any pork or shellfish.  However, when they came to Baltimore, they ate oysters and crabs.

JF: [laughter]

CK:  So did Grandfather Horkheimer.  And I think that has – everybody was much more conservative going back two and three generations.  But grandfather – I remember we used to have spareribs and sauerkraut.  When you're little, you don't really like that kind of food.  But that was Grandfather's favorite dish.  We still have a lot – I have all these recipes that have come down several generations.  Wonderful brisket recipe that we don't – it's not a Pesach – it's with ginger snaps.  But I have all these family recipes.  My charoset at Pesach is made with bananas and raisins.  I looked in the Panamanian community – we have family in Panama now – cookbook, which they sent to me.  It’s not exactly the same, but it is much closer to what I do than the typical apples, raisins, and nuts.

JF:  So, it's a more Sephardic charoset.

CK:  It's much more Sephardic.  Our Passover service as a child – had some Papiamento songs.  We have only one left, which I discovered when I was in Spain – with the Elderhostel – is still a popular song, sung in Sephardic communities in London and in Portugal.

JF:  What's it called?

CK:  It's called Bendigamos.  It's a Friday night – welcoming of the Sabbath or welcoming of the holiday.  

JF:  Can you sing it?

CK:  Yes.  But I won't do it now. [laughter]

JF:  Oh. [laughter] OK.  Oh gosh, there's so many questions.  Can you tell me – memories you had with your mother?  Your relationship with your mother?

CK:  Mother was very busy.  But I have some outstanding experiences.  One was she must have been a wonderful cook.  I've just finished writing a little story about that, which I'll give to you if you'd like, and you can see what you want to do with it.  It's just the beginning preparation – I mean, we had gefilte fish.  It was started from scratch with the fish coming home in a bucket of water and so on.  And matzah balls up to her elbows.  But then, the congregation, the second night, would have a seder, and one of my real memories is of these six or seven women buried in matzah meal and stuff – to make matzah (gloze?).  Not the little balls for the soup.  But it's spelled sometimes – C-L-O-S-E or G-L-O-S-E or G-L-O-Z-E.  But it's called matzah (gloze?).  It's a dumpling by any other name.  

JF:  Who would these six or seven women be?  Your mother and relatives?

CK:  No, they were women in the sisterhood. 

JF:  I see.

CK:  Mother was a sisterhood president.  And they did all the cooking.  Today, the men do the cooking at Baltimore Hebrew, and they're called "The Chicken Flickers.”  But in those days, when my mother was around, they would have a seder for one hundred, hundred and fifty people, the second day.

JF:  I see.

CK:  It was fun.  My father had a gorgeous speaking voice.  He would have different people do different things.  I had scarlet fever, and Mother dropped everything to take care of me.  That apparently was a very scary disease in those days.  So that was a privilege, and I remember all my toys had to be burned when I was through.  She was very tender.  She was a wonderful gardener.  She helped start the Child Study Association.  And she used to help to – start the Mt. Washington Pediatric Hospital, so she had other interests in the community and must have been a real leader as well.  I know both my parents were members of the English-Speaking Union.  Both of them spoke fluent German, which was the language that was used when they didn't want us to understand.  But we understood anyway.  They would go into their German, "Mit der Kinder" [with the children], [laughter] and then we'd go from there.  We always spoke French in our household because the kids couldn't.  I went to school for a year in Switzerland.  I think my French is very good.  I picked up. [laughter] My husband spoke French from having been in Diplomatic Service.

JF:  So, when you didn't want your kids to understand you spoke French?

CK:  That's right.

JF:  I see.

CK:  Yes.

JF:  [laughter]  OK.  So getting back to your mother, do you have any other memories?

CK:  Oh, she was beautiful.  I have her picture over there.  I guess I heard about – I have her [inaudible].  She had long, sort of reddish-brown hair.  Mother's sister was a real redhead, Aunt (Jinx?).  Mother and Aunt (Jinx?) went with grandfather to Bermuda, I guess – for something.  They both got their hair cut.  Dad had a fit, I think, because he loved Mother's – and I don't remember her hair being very short.  But I remember them getting dressed to go out and Dad having trouble – you had to put your studs on, and you had to hook the collars in separately, and he always had trouble.  The thing would swing out, and Mother would have to hook it for him.  She was always very gentle.  But also lovely with us.  And wonderful at things like anagrams and games that we played.  The entertainment in the household was singing German lieder and Gilbert and Sullivan, and whatever else seemed to [laughter] fill in.  My brother played the piano, or Mother did sometimes.  And Dad played the violin.  Other people pitched in with the singing.  That was entertainment, as was ping-pong and hide-and-go-seek, and other things as well.  Let's see.  With Mother?  She was part of a carpool that a number of these women that I'd mentioned before were also.  I remember her picking us up at school.  In fact, the last time, really, that I saw my mother, she came to school.  This disease had started in the nose, whether it was a pimple or an infection.  You could see the red just starting.  I didn't feel well, and Mother took us home.  I went to bed with what was called "the grippe.”  This thing just [snaps fingers] went so fast; it was incredible.  Within about forty-eight hours, I remember waving to her.  She was taken away in an ambulance.  That was the last time I saw her. 

JF:  Gee.

CK:  And then, Dad, trying to be gentle – told us Mother had gone on a long, long trip.  I didn't realize that she'd died.  I just thought she'd gone away.  Then, one of my friends nicely told me, "Oh, your mother is dead."

JF:  How did that feel?

CK:  It was awful.  I couldn't take it all in.  When you're eight years old, you just sort of bite your lip and go on your way, at least, I did.  I didn't want to cry.  I don't like to cry in front of other people.  I'm sure I did a lot of things wrong.  Growing up, Dad tried to steer me and raise me properly, but I don't think it was always easy.  I'm pretty headstrong. [laughter] I guess what I remember most about Mother – I remember she had a pink dress with a white collar and cuffs – short-sleeve.  She had this gorgeous – we had a porch, and then you walked down the steps, and then, there was a garden that was on two levels with a natural sort of stone wall.  I remember Mother working in the garden and showing me how to plant plants – pinks and larkspur and – she loved that.  We went away every summer.  Dad had the whole summer off.  He spent a good part of the summer working on his sermons.  I don't know how Mother felt about things like Dad resigning from the ZOA [Zionist Organization of America].

 

JF:  The ZOA?

CK:  Yes.  He resigned in about 1929.

JF:  Now, tell me what the ZOA is?

CK:  Zionist Organization of America.

JF:  Okay.  And why did he join and then resign?

CK:  Well, I think that he thought the Theodor Herzl dream was certainly an ideal.  He did not believe in this establishment of a "Jewish State" because he was worried about a theocracy, which, unfortunately, he was right about.  He did feel that there was an enormous need for some kind of a Homeland.  And, Dad, early on, had a feel for what was going on.  He'd been in Europe in '32.  Mother died in '33.  And in '35, he took a sabbatical [and] went to work for the Joint Distribution Committee.  My oldest brother was at Princeton.  My next brother and I were put in school in Switzerland.  Dad went to Germany.  In his paper that he had – in the Jewish archives at Hebrew Union College are these letters, some of which were saved, that he wrote about what he was doing in Germany.  It was an extraordinary year.  It was an extraordinary year for us.  I was forbidden to speak English.  I had a Nazi as my guidance person at Boarding School.

JF:  Literally a Nazi?

CK:  Literally.  After these letters kept coming from Frankfurt and from Vienna and from Berlin, she said "Vat is your father doing in Germany?”  She said it in English to me.  And I said, "Je ne sais pas” because I did not know.  I had no idea.  Dad never did – can you stop that for one second?

JF:  Sure. [Recording paused] So he never told you –

CK:  He never told us.  I was eleven, twelve years old.  It was an extraordinary year. 

JF:  Where in Switzerland were you?

CK:  I was on what we call Lake Geneva; they call Lac Leman.  I was at a school called La Pelouse, which was largely girls with a few boys.  They had a high school which was much larger.  And then there, what would have been lower school, which we call middle and lower today, I guess had maybe fifteen kids.  I had a Belgian roommate who spoke Flemish.  The only thing I can say for me was that my French was better than her French.  But neither of us were very good. [laughter]

JF:  Was that the language of the school?  French?

CK:  French.  This is French Switzerland.  We went over in the fall.  Christmas break, Dad met us in Paris.  We really got shown around, my brother and I.  And then, spring – I went skiing.  I learned how to ski.  And skied on the Jungfrau.  In March or April, we had a month's break.  Dad had been to the Stresa conferences in Italy.  He met us – we got on the train, my brother and I.  We met dad in Bologna.  Dad got on the train. We went down to Rome and met Dr. Everett Clinchy, who was my father's closest friend, who was a Presbyterian minister and the founder of the National Conference of Christians and Jews.  We stood in the main square opposite the Victor Emanuel monument in Rome and watched Mussolini's return from these conferences.  We were standing on this monument.  I kept backing up and backing up because I don't like crowds too much.  I was little.  I was eleven years old.  And then, Mussolini came out on a balcony.  The place was packed – people to people.  It was unforgettable.  You didn't say "Heil Mussolini.”  I don't know what the salute was.  But both my father and Dr. Clinchy had interviews with Pius XII.  We were all invited to Easter services in the Sistine Chapel.  I'll never forget that as long as I live because Dad and Uncle Ev were in tails.  And Aunt Winn, his wife – Dad had not remarried – was in a black dress with a sort of mantilla on her head – a lace mantilla – and I was in my best long-sleeved dress with white collar and cuffs.  I had knee socks on.  I remember we got to the door, and they said, “No, no.  She can't come in.”  It was because my knees weren't covered.  We had to go all the way across the Vatican Square, and there was a little novelty shop.  Aunt Winn didn't speak any Italian, and neither did I.  But the woman behind the counter – took one look at me – it was like seven o'clock in the morning, and pulled out a pair of lisle stockings, which I had for years.  I don't know where they are.  They're somewhere.  I put these things on and spent my whole time in the service, pulling [laughter] up my stockings because I had no garters to keep them on.  I don't really remember the service.  It was all in Latin anyway.  But then, after the service in the main sanctuary, the Pope came out on the balcony.  We stood in the square with all these thousands and thousands of people.  First, the Swiss guards come out.  And then, about three hundred boys had marched from Germany to Rome to recognize the Pope and have that be a part of their lives.  When they got home – it was in the newspapers – they were all killed.  I've never forgotten that.  Meanwhile, here I am at boarding school, and I have not told my father about this woman who was whipping me weekly with a hairbrush because I wouldn't tell her what Dad was doing.  It's interesting sometimes the things you don't tell your parents.  But I didn't want Dad to be upset.  I got to the point where I could take it.  It just didn't bother me anymore.

JF:  It didn't?

CK:  It hurt originally because I'd been raised without a spanking.  I only had one spanking.  I ran away with the gardener's son when I was six.  But other than that – oh, I didn't tell anybody.  We just went to Pikesville to buy lollipops.  But, at any rate, here we were.  I had a dentist in Lausanne.  I might add, in those days, you had every single tooth with a little brass cover.  I had rubber bands to help keep me – because I had been a thumb-sucker – pull my teeth back so they'd be nice and straight.  I went to this dentist whose name was Dr. David.  He had been here in Baltimore at the University of Maryland at the School of Dentistry.  I went to see him about once a month.  He checked my teeth.  I could hardly sit down, I had gotten so sore.  And he asked me in French what was the matter.  And I said, "Nothing."  Then, he said, “Something's wrong.  I'm calling my wife.”  So she came in.  Her name was Josephine.  She said, in English, "What is the matter?"  I showed her my rear end.  She said, "I'm going back to school with you."  I said, "No, it's not necessary."  She said, "Yes, it is.  This can't keep on."  I hadn't looked at – must have not looked terribly attractive, I must say, because it was with a hairbrush that I was whipped.  She went back and talked to the headmistress.  This woman was no longer – I had no contact with her after that.  But it was my own personal Hitler experience, I suppose.  It was not a happy one.  I haven't talked about it.  I don't talk about it very often.  It was a tough year.  Very lonely year. 

JF:  It sounds like it must have been – how was it emotionally?  To be taken from your very tight-knit community in Baltimore and to be in the school where you are separated from your family.

CK:  Well, Dad, the year Mother died, had sent me off to camp.  I was about five years, the youngest child in the camp.  So, already I'd had that experience of isolation.  Although I might add, Ann Burgunder Greif – was Ann Burgunder – was my big camp sister.  She was so loving and adorable with me, that it gave me a sense of warmth.  But you learn how to stand on your own two feet.  I was talking with a doctor not so long ago, and I said, “I don't think I've ever really wept over the loss of my husband,” for example.  I think about him every day.  But you learn to take things in a way when you're that young.  It makes you internalize instead of letting things hang out.

JF:  Would you like me to stop?

CK:  No.  I'm fine.

JF:  You said you saw Mussolini on the platform.  Were you aware of what Mussolini stood for?

CK:  Yes, even at that age.  I was actually twelve on the day I returned to La Palouse.  It was my birthday, the first of May.  Yes, I was very aware.  Why I would have been at that age, I don't know, except that the conversation at home at the dinner table was always – you were informed.  I remember declaring in 1928 when everybody in the family was voting for – they were against Al Smith; they were voting for – what was his name?  Thomas.  He was the Socialist candidate.  Because Hoover was the Republican candidate and Al Smith Democrat.  And that didn't do at all. [laughter] They were –

JF:  That's interesting.

CK: – voting for whatever his name was. 

JF:  Norman Thomas.

CK:  Norman.  Didn't want to say Lowell because I knew that was wrong. [laughter]

JF:  [laughter]

CK:  I said that I was going to vote for Lindbergh.  I remember that.

JF:  [laughter]

CK:  Because he had just come back from that solo flight.  I thought he was the most glamorous thing that ever – but there was an awareness.  I'll never forget when I was in the second grade at Park School, which was 1932, Reds Wolman was in my class.  He grew up – his household must have been equally political.  Both of us, again, persuaded the class that they ought to vote for Roosevelt and not for Hoover.  And there was a little headline – the way the Sun paper still does – "Second  Grade in Park School votes for Roosevelt." 

JF:  [laughter]

CK:  And I wondered always – I thought over the years, I wonder what these parents thought, who carefully educated their children as to what they were to do?  But we taught them all.  We were absolutely unanimous for Roosevelt in 1932.  We were six years – six and seven years old at that point.

JF:  So, your family was very political?

CK:  Very conscious of it.  I remember Dad helped in a number of Thanksgiving Day sermons for Roosevelt.  He was the Jewish rabbi or the Jewish minister, I guess you'd say, at the burial of the Unknown Solider in 1922 or '23.  It was the big highlight of his life.  There was a big brouhaha because there was only one other Jewish chaplain in World War II; neither one of them ever went overseas.

JF:  World War II or World War I?

CK:  World War I, I mean.  Excuse me.  World War I.  Dad would have loved to have gone overseas, but he didn't.  This other man was an Orthodox rabbi.  Some of the organizations felt that Dad was not representative of the Jewish community, but he'd been asked by – was it Harding?  I think so.  I always get Harding and Coolidge mixed up.  Coolidge – well, whomever.

JF:  Whoever it was in '22?

CK:  Yes.

JF:  I think it was Harding.

CK:  Are you good with those dates?  I don't know who followed Woodrow Wilson.

JF:  It would have been Harding.

CK:  Harding.  He decided he'd been asked, and therefore, he was going to do it.  And then he wrote the most beautiful poem about this, which I have somewhere – a copy of.  Really marvelous.  Anyway, it was a very politically active, consciously active family.  I always said to my husband –and this is really jumping ahead – that I was going to join the Communist Party in 1945.  But I am perpetually late, as my friends will tell you, and I missed the bus [laughter] to go to the meeting.  I often thought – maybe he would not have made his judgeship if they'd known that his wife had been a member of the Communist Party.

JF:  [laughter]

CK:  [laughter] One of my good friends in college just told me this was really the way we ought to go.  This was 1944.  Well, anyway, that's beside the point.  I was very aware of who Mussolini was.  When I went, not so long ago – within the last three or four years – to the Holocaust – there's another Holocaust Memorial in New York where they have the voices of the '30s.  I remember sitting and listening to Gerald L. K. Smith, Father Coughlin, and the voice of Hitler with those crowds yelling "Sieg Heil."  It was absolutely deafening and also frightening.  So, the radio, we gathered around, and we had one of those old radios.  There are sounds that would – I'll never forget.  That experience with Mussolini was incredible.  I thought my father had forgotten my birthday, which he was not good about, I might add, because it was his wedding anniversary.  I got off the train in Vevey to go to school.  It was Vevey.  And I didn't realize that [Pierre] Laval, who was the Prime Minister of France, was on the train.  He got off the train, and I heard him say in French to the porter or to somebody, “Why are we stopping here?”  Well, my brother had gotten off at the stop before me.  I guess it was Montreux because I don't know what the order was.  Harold had gotten off, and then I got off, and they're like ten minutes apart.  He said, "Ah, petite fille" and got back on again.  A little girl.  I went back to school.  And there Dad had told the headmistress of the school to buy me a doll, a Swiss doll.  And there on my bed was the kind of doll – it was twenty-four inches long, and she had long, blond braids, and she was dressed in the typical Swiss peasant costume.  It was the kind of doll that any little girl would have given her eye teeth.  I kept it for years.  I think I gave it to my daughter.  I don't know where it is now.  But it was wonderful.  And he did not forget my birthday.  But that whole experience – I mean, we went to opera in Rome.  We went to Florence.  We went to and saw – I remember looking up at the David in all his gorgeous beauty.  And then, seeing him twenty-five years later, and he didn't look as big [laughter] because when you're little, and you look up – but I remember going into the Borghese Gardens in Rome, and seeing the statute of Paulina Bonaparte.  And then, we went to the opera again in Milan.  That was incredible to be at the opera house there.  Unforgettable.  And then, we went to Venice.  It was pretty cold for Venice.  But the Europeans take their weather differently than we do.  And so [laughter] there were people out there.  Women did not always have tops on their bathing suits, even in 1936, we are by then.  It didn't upset me.  I was fascinated. [laughter]  But it was not – we were not doing those things then.  I had a feeling my father thoroughly enjoyed it. 

JF:  [laughter]

CK:  [laughter] I have to tell you – I don’t know that for a fact.  But it was a very exciting time, an extraordinary experience that – our school was right at the foot of two great mountains that still are at the end of the lake that you can see outlined.  One was called the Dante de Midi because the sun came over it in the middle of the day.  And the Dante de Minuit, which is another strange rock formation, was where the sun set, which moved, I might add.  But those were the views.  It was wonderful.  I had good friends.  I still hear from two of them.  That was a long time ago.

JF:  Where were your brothers?  Were they at the same school?

CK:  Well, no.  My older brother was at a school above Vevey and Montreux called Ecole Foyers.  My oldest brother was at Princeton.

JF:  So, you really were on your own?

CK:  I was on my own.  I'd already been through that kind of experience.  So, it wasn't the first time.

JF:  When did you come back home?

CK:  We came home in the end of July of '36.  I went to day camp.  I was twelve.  I went to Park Hill Camp.  I haven't thought about that.  Frenchie Snyder, who's still around here in Baltimore, was one of my counselors.  I had such a crush on her.  We play golf still and see each other.  She's fun.  All my friends were there.  We went to Crestmont Camp.  And then, the next year, I guess it was Crestmont Camp that we went to.  Park Hill was earlier.  And then the next year, I went off to Trip Lake Camp for four years – no, three – no, four.  In the middle of that experience, Dad took us on the great western tour.  He took all three of us.  We went from here to the Middle West [and] shipped the car to Denver. We went to Yellowstone, Zion, Bryce, Grand Canyon, and there we had a wonderful experience.  We went down in mules and slept in the bottom.

JF:  Oh, wow.

CK:  Dad met us on the other side.  [We] went to Albuquerque and Santa Fe.  We put the car on the train back in Denver.  And then, we put the car on a train and went to San Francisco and then down to Yosemite and camped there.  And down to Santa Barbara.  And then, I had my date with Freddie Bartholomew, which was the biggest disaster of my life.

JF:  [laughter]

CK:  [laughter]

JF:  The Freddie Bart? 

CK:  Yes.

JF:  You mean the Lassie Freddie Bartholomew?

CK:  The Freddie Bartholomew. [laughter]

JF:  [laughter] How did you meet Freddie Bartholomew?

CK:  My dad knew everybody.

JF:  [laughter]

CK:  We went to Eddie Cantor's for brunch.  I met Bobby Breen.  I remember saying to Dad, because we went to opera – Faust directed by – Reinhardt had staged something in the theater outside.

JF:  Max Reinhardt?

CK:  Max Reinhardt, who my father also knew.  But that whole world – he knew Al Jolson.  I think he had a terrible crush on Norma Shearer.  He once went out to Hollywood, came back, and he told the sisterhood what Norma Shearer had worn, which was a housecoat.  But he described it in great detail, which Dad could do – the lace at the throat and how far down it came.  I remember that.  There was a lot of discussion by the sisterhood – whether Morris Lazaron was having – [laughter] what was going on, I guess it the proper way to put it.

JF:  What was going on?

CK:  Nothing. [laughter]

JF:  [laughter]

CK:  But at any rate, then, we sold the car.  Went down to San Diego. 

JF:  But would you tell me –?  Did you finish telling me about your date with Freddie Bartholomew?

CK:  Oh, it was a disaster.

JF:  [laughter]

CK:  I don't remember a lot about it.  He didn't want to talk to me, and I was trying very hard to make a little conversation.  He said, ”Have you ever been to England?”  I said, “No.  But I've been to France, Switzerland, and Italy,” which was all that I had.  He said, “But if you've never been to England” – I'll never forget it.  “If you've not been to England, you haven't been anywhere." [laughter] It was terrible.  I can't tell you.  He was a snob, and I was equally bored with – I mean, I wanted to meet Tyrone Power. 

JF:  [laughter]

CK:  And people – Franchot Tone.   I mean, Freddie Bartholomew – come on. [laughter] It was a funny way.  We then sold the car, got on a boat, and came back through the Panama Canal back to Baltimore.  That's a tough summer, isn't it?

JF:  Yes.

CK:  Can you imagine that kind of a trip?  That was incredible.

JF:  How did your father meet people in those Hollywood circles?

CK:  I think some of it was due to the National Conference of Christians and Jews.

JF:  I see.

CK:  They'd been the trio of ministers – they'd been in the movies.  The way I got to see Dad when he was – he went on a sixty-city tour the first time they went out – Dr. Clinchy, Uncle Ev, Father John Ross, and my father. 

JF:  And this was for the National Conference of Christians and Jews?

CK:  Christians and Jews.  And people had never seen a rabbi, a minister and a priest on the same platform.  It was just unheard of.  Now, you expect it.  We've got to add Muslims to that little – it ought to be a quartet.  Although I just spent yesterday at a Muslim Mosque.  Very worrisome.  But, at any rate, it was just a piece of being – they got to meet all these people.  They were all interested in developing more closely the relationships.  There was so much commonality.  There really is between Christianity and Judaism.  We just don't happen to believe in the – that Jesus is the son of God.  But other than that, I think that religions – there is a one-God belief.  So many of the prayers are the same that it's incredible.  It's interesting.  But I had this man explain the Koran yesterday, and I kept thinking, “Oh, it's just going back to the Old Testament.”  A lot of the same language.  They don't like to recognize that that is the common ground.  But Dad wrote a book out of his experiences with the National Conference called Common Ground.  It's interesting.  There have been at least two other books by that name  over the years.

JF:  It’s a good title.

CK:  Then he wrote another one called Bridges Not Walls on the same topic.  Then he wrote a book on the Middle East.  He went to the Middle East with the editor of the Catholic Review – John Cogley, Ev, Clinchy, and Dad.  And that book was called Olive Trees in Storm.  And there he proposes that a – well, he thought that there should be some sort of Jewish homeland.  But he did not think there should be a theocratic state.  That was the problem.  That was why the congregation had this terrible split with my dad in 1948.  

JF:  Well, we'll get to that in a bit.  Let me ask you – you spent this one year in Switzerland.  You said the rest of the time, you had governesses and went to the Park School.  Can you tell me about both of those?  Can you tell me about the governesses and the Park School?

CK:  Well, the Park School is marvelous.  The governesses were – I had a French governess first.  Well, she didn't fit.  We really needed a housekeeper/governess, and she couldn't handle that.  Then, we had Miss Stevens, who was a secret alcoholic.  Then we had somebody for a little while.  We went off to Europe.  I went to Europe for a year.  When I came back, I got Miss Pauli, and she was wonderful.  She had been, I might add, Gloria Vanderbilt's governess before she was mine.  I remember one spring break when Dad wasn't home, and Miss Pauli took me up to Newport, and we stayed in the Vanderbilt mansion.

JF:  [laughter]

CK:  One of the Vanderbilt houses. [laughter] In the help's quarters, I want you to know. [laughter] Nevertheless, I looked at these grand palaces.  They were grand beyond.  But Miss Pauli was lovely –

[Recording paused.]

JF:  This is disk number two, the interview with Clem Kaufman.  I'm Jean Freedman, recording this for the Jewish Women's Archive Weaving Women's Words project.  It's March 16, 2002.  We're in Baltimore, Maryland.  Miss Pauli was a woman who was almost six feet tall.  I have no idea why she left Gloria Vanderbilt or why she came to us, but she did, and she was lovely and ran the house and did all the things that Dad really needed done.  Dad had brought over the last Jew to graduate from the law school at Heidelberg.  His name was – isn't that awful?  Hans Kellerman.  Anyway, he and Miss Pauli had an affair, and she got pregnant.  She resigned.  And then, he left – this was by – I guess this was '39, '40 – maybe '40, into 1940.  He left, and they got married before the baby was born.  Then they had another son or two.  Hans Kellerman had a very successful career, working with one of our agencies – not the CIA, but whatever its predecessor was during World War II – because of his fluent German.  He was a lawyer and got his law degree here.  I haven't seen a lot of them.  But I really loved her.  She was wonderful.  When she departed – must have been fairly close to summer and off I went to camp.  1940, I went to – that's right – or '39, whichever it was.  I said to Dad, “I think I've had enough of this, and I can get on the phone and run this house for you.”  We had a nice couple.  We had them, and I ran the house from the time I was about fifteen until I got married – before my father – did the marketing, menus, etc.

JF:  And what did the couple do?  Did they live in?

CK:  Yes, they lived in.  We had rooms on the third floor of the house, a whole sort of suite.  There are two bedrooms, a living room, and a little kitchenette.  We also had a tenant house on the place.  So that it was pretty good coverage.  I think we stopped having – well, during the war, the house got closed.  It was too big to heat.  We moved down to the Belvedere Hotel.  I moved in with a cousin of my mother's.  Dad took one large bedroom or something or other.  It was bigger than a bedroom.  Because I remember – he did weddings.  He was the only rabbi in Baltimore County.  So, if you wanted to have a wedding by a rabbi – he didn't have any wine down at the Belvedere.  It was during the war.  This couple appeared.  And Dad loved Pernod.  So, this couple, to their amazement, I guess – when they went to drink the wine during the ceremony [laughter] got a taste of licorice rather than – but I witnessed weddings.  In fact, once, when I got in my car – when I was about seventeen or eighteen – I was arrested for speeding in Pennsylvania.  And the policeman said,  “Let me see your license.  Let me see your registration.”  And he said to me, ”Is your father Rabbi Lazaron?”  And I said, ”Yes.”  He said, “He married me.  Don't ever let me catch you speeding in Pennsylvania again.” [laughter]

JF:  [laughter]

CK:  So we were a kind of – he was the only rabbi in those days.  Everybody was downtown.  And lived down – lots of people lived downtown.  Pre-World War II.  The big movement of the country came after World War II.  The Jewish community lived in Pikesville and Windsor Hills.  They didn't live in other parts of the city.  We were self-ghettoized to some degree.  And some of it was actually an inability to buy in Guilford and Roland Park.  That was that.  Park School –

JF:  When did you start Park School?

CK:  When I was four.  It was a very nurturing environment.  I must say they took particular care – it was a smaller school.  They were looking for students.  I was wondering whether we were on some sort of semi-scholarship because I don't think Dad could have paid the full freight for us.  But at any rate, I was a good athlete, and I had no idea.  I always got terrible reports.  "Clem is not very polite to the other students in her class.”  When you know the answer to something and the teacher is going slowly around the classroom asking, it's hard to wait your turn.  I guess I wasn't good about that.  But I had fun.  I had a lot of jobs.  I wanted to be head of the student council, but my friends thought I had too many other things, so they elected one of my best friends, Marian Kemper, who I mentioned earlier.  She ended up with mono, and I ended up running the student council anyway.  I was captain of the basketball team, which was not my best sport.  I was head of the assembly committee.  I was on the staff of the "Brownie," which was the yearbook.  I wrote for the PS, which was the magazine.  I had no idea whether I was bright or dumb or what until I took the college boards.  All of a sudden, I discovered I could go to any college that I wanted to.  It was a big surprise to me. [laughter] I don't think that I'm that bright today.  My friends say to me – and I think what Park School gives you – or gave me, anyway – was this curiosity of mind.  I was just as interested in the Science Section of The New York Times today, as well as art, movies, fashion, and food – I love food – as I was at Park School.  Park School taught you how to cook, and I learned how to cook there.  It did not teach me how to sew very well, but I can sew a little bit.  Early on, I might add, I knew how to weave in a hole in a sock.  But after I did it, my husband got blisters.  So, we quit that, and I said, “When you get a hole, we'll throw the socks away, or if you have another pair, maybe we can save them.”  So, I never had to mend his socks, which was very nice.  But I can sew buttons on, I can crochet, and I can knit and needlepoint.  I've done all that kind of stuff.  It's a waste of time now.

JF:  [laughter]

CK:  I remember once going out to Cleveland, I was crocheting, and my Aunt Virginia said to me, "I would like you to read a book while you're here.”  She had no idea that that was the best news she could have given me because I didn't like sewing that much. [laughter] We had wonderful fun.  Park School was fun.  I was popular enough to have a lot of dates.  I had boyfriends, but I didn't go steady in those days.  But I didn't seem to lack for dates and had a terrific time.  It was really very happy.  I wasn't a wallflower, and I didn't sit home very much.

JF:  Can you tell me about particular memories of friends, boyfriends, or teachers?  Or anything that particularly stands out?

CK:  Well, there was Madame Lash.  And after I came back from Switzerland, Madame Lash would come Thursday nights for supper at our house.  I would have to talk French with her.  If she came, Dad didn't eat with us, he ate someplace else.  He never entertained on Thursday night.  I guess he went to concerts or something.  I started to go to concerts with Dad when I was about fifteen, and I'm still going.  I love it.   She was wonderful.  She was one of my advisors.  I loved Miss Foster, who was the history teacher.  She allowed me to write – I cannot believe she did this – the history of Christianity. [laughter] When I was a junior in high school.  I mean, this was really ridiculous.  But I worked very hard and ended up – Dad got his secretary to type it up for me.  I'm sure she corrected my spelling.  I handed it in and got it back, and Miss Foster wrote, “You’ve done a very good overview.  Did you have any help?”  I'm sure I did. [laughter] But I must say I didn't plagiarize, which is an issue, I might add, as we speak, this time.  But I did a lot of reading, and it got me going with this curiosity about the world we live in, everything from nature to bocci ball. [laughter] I loved it.  I was very happy there.  I went on the Experiment in International Living.  We were supposed to go to France.  I guess that was '40/'41.  I forget what year.  And France fell, so we ended up in Nova Scotia.  That was a very interesting summer.  We lived in a cooperative community.  I learned how to milk cows.  I taught catechism, or whatever – in the two churches that were part of our community.  I got Dad's permission.  I did my very best.  I want you to know when the bishop from Louisburg – this was on Cape Breton Island, in Nova Scotia.  When the bishop came down for this great ceremony in these churches, he was very polite and thanked me at the first church.  And we got to the second church, and he lectured the girls and said, "You must never wear a two-piece bathing suit.”  Guess who had a two-piece bathing suit.  And then he said, “I want you to promise not to drink.”  Well, that was no issue.  And then he said, ”And you must always have straps on your bathing suit.”  Why was he so hooked on this bathing suit?  It was not the period that we have now.  It had one wide strap that sort of started on the left and crossed over to the right, so that nothing would fall down.  And, it had a skirt on.  I mean, it was not exactly a revealing item.  But we would go swimming in something called Bras D'or Lake, B-R-A-S – Golden-Bras D'or – golden arms, I think is what it meant.  That's in the middle of Cape Breton Island.  But we learned how to square dance.  We were the representative from that part of Nova Scotia in our group in our American group.  We went to a place called Antigonish, where they had Highland Games.  It was very exciting.  I had my first marriage proposal.  I was sixteen years old.  I was very excited.

JF:  From someone in your group?

CK:  No. [laughter] Some Nova Scotia farmer who thought I ought to stay. [laughter]

JF:  You didn't, clearly?

CK:  Apparently not.  Apparently not. [laughter]  Now, I remember talking in an assembly at school, and two of the boys from school had gone on the trip with me, and one of my good friends.  I was describing square dancing with one of my friends.  And one of these men asked her to marry him. 

[Recording paused]

JF:  So you're telling me about Nova Scotia. You were how old?  You were sixteen?

CK:  I was sixteen.  Yes, it was fun.  I went off to Bennington to college, thinking I wanted to be a modern dancer.  I had taken modern dance all the way growing up, with a little bit of ballet but a lot of modern.  I got up there, and I knew this was not what I wanted to do.  And, after the first week – I was on a scholarship – I went to see my advisor.  He was nice enough to go to the – I guess whatever committee it was – and they let me kind of fool around.  They had an extraordinary group of people there.  I took economics, and I took English and French and philosophy.  It was incredible.  It was a marvelous school.  But it was so undisciplined in terms of organized learning.  Unfortunately, Park School was very much the same way.  So that my grammar, my punctuation all needed a lot of work.  None of which I got at any point while I was there.  During my winter work period, I worked on The New York Times.  I lived in New York with a girl named Marianna Packard of the family.  We started out at the Barbizon for Women and ended up in her aunt's duplex in Greenwich Village, which was pretty nice.  I had an awfully good time and came home – that was the summer of '43, and that's when I met Frank.  That summer.  I got a detached retina, which left me flat on my back, blinded for six weeks.

JF:  Could you tell that story for the record?  You told me that story earlier.  We haven't recorded the story of your detached retina.

CK:  Oh, yes.

JF:  Now, you weren't – were you still at Bennington at this point?

CK:  It was between Bennington and I was going to go to Vassar.  But I ended up at Goucher because I had a detached retina.  They had just learned how to repair them.  I was Dr. Allan Wood's first retinal detachment.  But I had started to date Frank a little bit.

JF:  And how did you meet?

CK:  He came to see my father.  I came trotting in from school in my spring lacrosse tunic.  There was this nice-looking man in my dad's library.

JF:  You were still in high school?

CK:  No, I'd finished.  I'd had one year of college.  '43.  We were invited to the same dinner party.  I was brought home by my cousin.  Frank was dropped off.  We all lived – they lived in Dumbarton, and I lived nearby.  And then, Frank asked me out, and we dated.  Then he went overseas.  I think he liked me a lot.  But he wasn't going to have – I was too young.  Much too young.

JF:  He was how much older than you?

CK:  Eight years older.

JF:  Eight years.  He was already a lawyer?

CK:  Already a lawyer.  Out of Harvard Law School – 1940 – and had been in Turkey for eighteen months as Lend-Lease Representative to Turkey.  So, he'd been going around with the likes of Clare Booth Luce.  Ambassador Steinhardt.  I don't know how I fitted into that picture.  Anyway, he went off to the wars.  I continued my dating.  It sounds terrible to talk about.  One Christmas vacation, I had six proposals of marriage.  That wasn't because I was all that attractive.  It was that a lot of guys wanted to go away knowing they had a gal.  I wrote lots and lots of letters.  And saw lots and lots of men just for fun.  It was nothing more than that – movies and dancing and Glenn Miller and Benny Goodman.  It was a different world.  We lived differently.  And, then Frank came – Frank's parents and my father were friendly.  I guess when he came back in '45, I had been dating somebody else pretty seriously, but I took one look at him, and I thought, “I've made a big mistake.”  He went over to see one of my neighbors, actually – across the road.  And then, came over to see me.  I had set the stage.  I turned the lights down low, lit the fire in the library, and put pillows on the floor.  We sat and talked, and he proposed.  But he always told everybody – like our children and everyone – that I had proposed to him.

JF:  Why did he say that?

CK:  I think because he thought that was funny, and it was sort of funny.  I had set the stage very consciously.  At any rate, when he was seventy-five, and there was a big party in his honor at the Peabody Library, he told everybody that he had proposed, that I had not proposed.  I'll have to tell you that I really wasn't sure after – that was almost close to fifty years of marriage – whether it was true or not. 

JF:  [laughter]

CK:  But it was funny.  It was sort of an in-joke in our household.  That I had made this – but I really felt, when I looked back, that it was a bit of an arranged marriage.  I went to see his parents regularly while he was overseas.  First of all, I thought his father was one of the handsomest men that I knew.  I didn't know his mother as well.  But I will tell you she was the most perfect mother-in-law you could – I could do no wrong.  She was generous, lovely, and wonderful.  We were lucky to have her.  She had two boys.  She was glad to have a girl in the family.  And then, Frank's brother got married to a very nice girl too.  So that was fine.  Then, she died, unfortunately, of cancer.  But we had a lot of fun that first summer.  We played tennis.  We had a wonderful marriage.  We had a small wedding because Frank's father had died in March, and we got married at the end of April. 

JF:  This is '45?

CK:  This is '45.  We got married on the 22nd of April.  Roosevelt died about a week before we were married.  Then while we were on our honeymoon, World War II was over in Europe.  I remember my father calling and saying, “Don't you all know the war is over?”  We said, ”No, we didn't.” [laughter]  But it was so funny.  Ebbie Halle was on the train, we took a train down to Daytona Beach.  One of my good friends – where I'm going tonight for his eightieth birthday – was on the train.  He saw my luggage, which had my initials, and then Pikesville, Maryland, which is where I lived.  He invited us out to have a drink.  So, he was on our honeymoon with us, at least for the first day.  I'd very carefully taken off my corsage when we walked into the hotel.  There were all these elderly people living in this hotel in Daytona Beach.  You could drive under the hotel to get on the beach, where they have these wonderful motor races.  But I remember, I thought, “Oh, we look like everybody else.”  As we came in, the man behind the desk announced to all these people in their rocking chairs, "Oh, here's our honeymoon couple." [laughter]

JF:  [laughter]

CK:  The first night – I have to tell you – the hotel was a little run-down, and our bed – the box spring and mattress landed on the floor.

JF:  [laughter]

CK:  [laughter] It was very embarrassing, I must say.  But, anyway, those are the joys of living during wartime. [laughter]

JF:  If we could just go back a bit.  We sort of skipped over your college years.  You had spent a year in Bennington?

CK:  A year at Bennington.  Then, I went and took – that year, I had a lot of – I had to be careful with my eye because when you had a detached retina in those days, they singed it back into place.  And then, you had to lie for six weeks with sandbags on either side and be blinded. 

JF:  You had to lie down for six weeks?

CK:  You were in bed.  In bed.  I was in the Wilmer Clinic.  When you lose one of your senses, the others become heightened.  So that my ability to tell who was walking down the steps – down across the hall – I could say who was coming.  I could tell what you were eating – even though it would be something that you would not even think important or have a particularly strong odor – your sense of smell, your sense of taste – and then, you lose them again once your vision comes back because you have other senses to pick up.  So, there I was, and I could say, “Oh, you're having a peach.”  I remember Dad was reading a book – that was so funny.  Called Our Hearts Were Young and Gay, which is an adorable book.  He said to me, "Now when people come to read to you, don't let them read this book.  I want to know how it turns out."

JF:  [laughter]

CK:  I remember that.  It was so cute.  

JF:  What year was this?

CK:  This is '43.  I went to Goucher –

JF:  So he got married the same year you did?

CK:  The same year I did. 1945.

JF:  And how did he meet his wife?

CK:  My stepmother's father was responsible for bringing Dad to Baltimore.  And one of her children – her daughter was one of my closest friends.  We're still – we just went away together.  She's still one of my absolutely best friends.  She's wonderful.  She had gotten married the year before to a wonderful man who was concertmaster of the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra.  So, she had a wonderful marriage.  He just died.  He was about twelve years older than she.  It was a big wedding year.  My oldest brother, Morrie, had been married in November of '44.  I was married in April.  And Dad was married in July.  And Ellie had married actually in May of '44.  And Lee, her step-brother – he was adopted – got married sometime that same year.  So, everybody but my other brother, Harold, all in that one-year period.  But I started out – I think I took a course in biology.  I was at the graduate level in French.

JF:  And is this still at Bennington?

CK:  No, this is in Baltimore.  I was stuck, and I didn't want to do something where I had a lot of reading.  So, I took biology at Hopkins.  I don't know how that happened.  I don't remember a lot, except that we had a frozen rabbit that I had to dissect.

JF:  If you'll just excuse me for a minute.  I've gotten a little lost.  You went to Bennington for a year.  Then, you got the detached retina, and that kept you from going to Vassar.

CK:  Yes.  So, I went to Goucher.

JF:  So you were headed for Goucher.  And that was in what year?

CK:  '43.

JF:  '43.  And so, while you're a student at Goucher, you could also take courses at Hopkins, is that correct?

CK:  Yes.

JF:  Okay.  Now, I can understand.

CK:  I took the courses at Hopkins because of the transportation thing, which was very difficult.  Goucher was downtown then on Charles Street.

JF:  Oh, I see.

CK:  But there wasn't an easy way to get there from Pikesville.  But during that period, we moved down to the Belvedere.  So I was able to shift to Goucher in January.  I went to Goucher from – and I took essentially my second year at Goucher.  And by the summer of ‘44, I went up to New York and took two courses at Barnard at summer school.  And that was really fun.  I had a marvelous time.

JF:  Who did you stay with?

CK:  I stayed in a dorm.

JF:  Stayed in a dorm - at Barnard?

CK:  At Barnard.  At 116th Street and Broadway.  And I really loved it.  There were lots of guys in New York.  I had a swell time.  And then, I went back to Goucher for the next fall and winter term.  It was on three – I don't know how you get three semesters.  Anyway, [laughter] it was a trimester.  Frank's father's funeral was right during exam period.  I had had straight C's.  I think it was a philosophy course.  I blew the exam.  Totally.  I remember the professor saying to me at the beginning of April, “I'd like you to take another exam because I have to fail you if you don't.”  Because the exam, I guess, was more than fifty percent of the grade.  Oh, I don't know how she worked it.  So I re-took that.  I didn't have a failure.  I had straight C's in college until I got married.  I want you to know.

JF:  So, you got married, and you were still in college?"

CK:  Yes.  We got married in April.  Went on our honeymoon.  Came back.  We didn't have a big wedding.  We were going to have a big wedding in June.  And I said, “This is silly.  I can't study.  You're commuting.”  And so, we got married in April, went on our honeymoon, and then moved to Washington because Frank was working in Washington.  And then, I got pregnant over that summer.  He was debating whether to stay in Washington.  The war was over in August, I think – yes, the Pacific war.  Because I remember – it was a wild night in Washington.  I have another wonderful story.  The Duke of Windsor came to Washington without the Duchess and was greeted and hailed and what-have-you.  Everybody went out on the streets.  I went out in the streets.  This is so typical of my father.  I mean, there were hundreds of people standing on whatever street I was standing on, and he went by, and we all waved and cheered.  When I came back, Dad called and said, “How are you?  What's going on?”  I said, "I just saw the Duke of Windsor.”  Dad said, ”What did you wear?” [laughter] And here I am, thousands of Washingtonians, so I said, “I had on my Bermuda shorts.”  And my father said, "How could you?" 

JF:  [laughter]

CK:  It was so typical of my father and that world.  You always had to have the right – I love that.  Anyway, in the fall of that year, we came back to Baltimore.  Frank joined the law firm of – it was called then – Frank, Skeen, and Oppenheimer.  It changed names a number of times.  It was Judge Eli Frank, and anyway, then it became Frank, Conaway, and Bernstein.  Then it was Frank, Conway, Bernstein, Gump, Kaufman, and Goldman.  And then about two or three – or maybe it's been longer than that – maybe as much as ten years ago, it dissolved.  That was the end of that.  But Frank practiced law, had a wonderful time, and, I think, was quite successful.  Very much a leader in the community.  When he went on the bench, I remember all these things he had to get off of.  He was a vice president of Sinai Hospital.  He was a vice president of the Maryland Institute.  He was on the board of Goucher.  You couldn't do all those things and be a judge.  I think he got off of everything but Goucher.  And then, of all things, he then landed in court with a Goucher faculty complaint.  They closed, I think, the German department.  He offered to turn the case over to somebody else.  And they said they thought he would be a fair judge of whatever happened.  

JF:  When did he become a judge?

CK:  1966.

JF:  '66.  Okay.  So, we're jumping ahead.

CK:  We had two children.  One in '46 – a boy.  Frank, Jr.

JF:  Let me get your husband's full name. 

CK:  Frank Albert Kaufman.

JF:  Frank Albert Kaufman.  Okay.  And so you say you got pregnant the first summer you were married, right?

CK:  I wanted to.  Because all of his friends were older and had kids.  I didn't want to be totally out of step.  And we weren't.  There were a whole slew of kids, the same age as Frank, Jr., who were born within that year or so there.

JF:  So, you completed your final year at Goucher while pregnant.

CK:  No. [laughter]

JF:  No?

CK:  I quit Goucher from '46 – from '45 to about '48.  Peggy was born in '48.  I guess I went back in '49.  I'd take a course or two a term to finish up.  I had my senior year – most of my senior year ahead of me.  I had been to G.W. while we were living in Washington.  I took some courses there.  So I'd had a lot of college experience. [laughter]  And, when I got – about 1952, I think President Otto Kraushaar said to me, "Clemmie, you've been going to Goucher a long time, and you have enough credits to graduate.”  I'd go for two terms, and then I'd quit because I was playing golf.  I was very serious about my golf.  He said, “You've got to go three terms in a row.”  So that year, I went three terms in a row and got my degree.  After I had finished in '53, the class of '46, which was my class, invited me to be a member of their class.  So I did come back for that.  My two big returns were going back to Goucher.  The year we were married, I was Peter in Peter and the Wolf in their dance program that they were doing in May.  I was allowed to come back and play that role.  They didn't have anybody else to do it, I guess, is what happened.  Because the woman who taught us dancing said to me the other day, "Do you remember when you were at Goucher?” [laughter] And I said, "Yes, I do.”  I've never forgotten that because it was sort of nice to be invited back that way.  I had a good time.  After I was married, I brought almost straight A’s home.  So it made me feel better.  I had a very bright husband.  He graduated first in his class at Dartmouth.  And way up in his class at Harvard.  I just could not not do well.  

JF:  What was your major at Goucher?

CK:  International relations.

JF:  How did you pick that?

CK:  I liked the idea of an interdisciplinary major.  I'd always been interested in world affairs.  I wrote a paper for something that was called "The League of Nations Association," and I won twenty-five dollars for my paper for that, which I talked about – what we would call globalization.  I talked about one world in that paper.  The need for us to live that way.  If you take political science today, you can get some of the same things.  I had to take courses in political science.  That was the top of my major.  But I had political philosophy from the philosophy department.  I had economics in the economics department.  I had to know another language, which I had already –

JF:  And that was?

CK:  French.

JF:  French.

CK:  I loved English.  That was my other thing.  I like writing, but this was fun.  It was very hard.  You had the final exam.  That was really tough.  I had a whole section in French, which I did apparently very well.  I loved it.  I loved going to school.  I'm back at school, so you know I like it.  And you don't know – the middle of my life, but I went back to school later on.  In 1948, Sam Hoffberger, who was a member of Dad's congregation, wanted to do something for my father.  Dad said, ”Well, Sam, there's nothing you can do.  You can give money to the synagogue.”  And that was not what he had in mind.  So, he said, ”Well, do something for Clem and Frank.”  So he had me put on the Montrose Training School Board.  I knew as much about delinquency as these dogs do.  But it was a girls' training school.  Mrs. Guttmacher, whose husband had been the rabbi at Baltimore Hebrew, preceding Dad, was head of the board.  She took me under her wing, and I hated it.  Everybody was over eighty.  I was all of twenty-four years of age.  So, I went to meetings, not so regularly.  I was in line to be president of the sisterhood of the congregation.  I really was not totally comfortable in this other venue, as my husband would say – [Recording paused.] I remember the judge of the juvenile court, Judge Waxter, saying to me, “Clemmie, you have got to go to those meetings and regularly.  We are heading into difficult times, and we need you on that board.”  So, I stayed on.  I remember riding around the countryside, looking for a bull because we had a big cow herd, and our bull had died.  You need to have a bull to keep a cow herd going.  I remember going out with the girls when they went to pick apples.  The whole entrance to Montrose School had been laid out by Jerome Bonaparte when he was supposed to be married to Betsy Patterson.  And the property was – Montrose was part of the Bonaparte interests.  

JF:  What was your role supposed to be? 

CK:  Just a board member.

JF:  Just a board member.

CK:  And, but the school –

JF:  A very active board member, it sounds like?

CK:  Well, they wanted me – they had in me somebody who could keep up with these kids.

JF:  I see.

CK:  In 1953, I urged that – and I remember, I was the only one.  I urged that we integrate our faculty.  We had a chance to – and it seemed to make sense racially to do this.  So, we did.  You could see the writing on the wall because of the Brown decision.  And, by '55, I was president both of the Montrose Board and the Barrett School Board.  We had two schools.  One for Black girls and one for White delinquent girls.  Then, I integrated the two schools because we built a whole – they built a whole new school.  The next thing I knew, we were having a riot in the school.  My superintendent was very upset by this.  She was on her way to having a nervous breakdown.  It got to be April of '58, I think.

JF:  A riot?  About what?

CK:  Just the whole - it was a period of great tension.  The same age girls.  The one thing you could see – and I think it's still true today, to some degree – is that often, certain girls become more mature, more rapidly.  And, often, the African-American, as we would say today – the Black girls in our school were physically bigger and also physically more sophisticated.  It made it very hard to run a school that way, and yet we had to deal with what we were dealing with.  We were pushing to get as many girls to get their GED or their high school degree because it was important.  You could keep a child in an institution like that much longer – I mean, a year was nothing.  We often kept girls for two years.  Because we didn't have any group homes.  And it was that or foster care.  The arrangement was that the Department of Welfare, as they called it – we'd say Social Services today – handled the budgeting for the school, except that we would be a part of it.  We handled all the policy issues.  Well, it was getting more and more complicated.  When I was doing both of them, it was bad.  In 1958, or '59, my superintendent had a nervous breakdown the day before we were to present the budget.  I had to present the budget to the legislature, which was for about $1,100,000.  I remember coming home and saying to Frank, “I'm never going to do that again.  I faked my way through that.  I didn't know what I was doing.”  He said, “I don't want you to do it either.  What's happening?”  Well, there had been commission after commission that we start a single department for these juveniles who were in trouble with the law.  So I got my board to vote themselves out of existence to create this new agency, which was a tough thing, but we did do it.  We were the first ones to say, "Yes, this should be created.”  There had been already – there'd been two reports, and this was the final one – "The Raisin Report.”  Out of that came the Department of Juvenile Services, it was called.  And that's about 1964, '65.  It was very hard.  The courts had to give up their individual probation.  What they call after-care – what do they say?  You're getting on probation or you can get on – well, some sort of supervision.  We had a whole different set-up than we'd had before.  We were out of business, which was fine.  There were lots of other things that were going on in my life.  I had, by then, become head of the – I'd been chairman of campaign, head of big gifts, head of the Women’s Division for the Associated Jewish Charities.

JF:  Were these all volunteer?

CK:  All volunteer.  The only thing you got out of the Montrose – was that you'd get a lunch.  We had meetings about eight or nine times a year.  These kids really learned to cook.  We really taught them how to cook, I will say that, and how to do some other things that they didn't know how to do, like sewing.  I was teasing about mine, but I was very firm on this.  Because these kids came in looking like nothing you've ever seen.  I remember I got – I think it was – Pan Am Airways stewardesses to come out and do fashion shows with our kids.  It was fun.  We were starting to do other things.  At any rate, I was on the national board of the UJA – Women’s.  I had had some training in "training."  I got sent first on a speaking tour to raise money and then to do this training on how to solicit.

JF:  This is mainly fundraising for the UJA?

CK:  Fundraising for the UJA.

JF:  Is that also what you were doing for the Associated?

CK:  Yes.  So I started out with my own little group here.  And then, we went from that, and they've come a long way since I was involved in it.  In '61, I went to Israel with the UJA Women’s Mission.  

JF:  What was the purpose of the Women’s Mission?

CK:  It was to familiarize ourselves with what was going on in Israel so that we could talk to our local community.  But this gave you a much bigger picture.  We started out in France and went to an orphanage.  Saw some of the African community that had fled to France in terms of the problems there.  And met with some of the people from the "Joint."  And my father had asked me – Dad had been instrumental in starting the American Council for Judaism.  They were collecting money and sending it overseas, which was then to be distributed carefully for those Jews who did not want to go to Israel.  They had a Paris office.  Dad asked me, on my own, to go to the office.  So, I'd been at the office of the Joint Distribution Committee.  I go over to this office, and I see this same man again.  I said, “What were you doing at the office of the Joint?”  He said, “I have them handle everything for me.”  I said, "And what does that mean?”  He said, "They send me money overseas.  But I don't know how to give it away.  So, I send it over to the Joint, and they distribute it for me." [laughter] I came home and told my father that.  He was furious.  Anyway, it was just as well.  They didn't know what they were doing.  But it was a wonderful trip.  It was a wonderful introduction to Israel.  Golda Meier was not prime minister.  Ben-Gurion was prime minister.  We went to the opening of Technion.  I have a picture of Ben-Gurion saying, ”How-do-you-do?” to me.  It looks like he's kissing my hand.  It was the year of the mink stoles, so there I am, dressed to the nines.  And there he is, a typical Israeli, you know?  White shirt with no tie and unbuttoned. [laughter] It was wonderful.  But it was fun and exciting.  And I got so homesick.  I'd never done anything like that.  But it was a good beginning.  And, from that, I went on to other things.  I was on the board of the Council of Jewish Federations and Welfare Funds.  I ended up being chairman of the General Assembly Committee, which is their annual big meeting.  Did that for three years.

JF:  What did that involve, being the chair?

CK:  That meant having special meetings and planning all of the sub-meetings that were going on in the course of a UJA meeting. The staff did all the work.  I remember the year we brought Elie Wiesel for the first time was incredible.

JF:  I'll bet.  What did that involve?

CK:  Well, he was delighted.  It was one of his first speeches in this country.

JF:  You're kidding?

CK:  So, it was very exciting.  I came upstairs absolutely undone.  Frank had come to that meeting with me.  He didn't always do that.  They're always held in big cities all over the country.  It was incredible because he described Shabbat in his shtetl.  He said, ”And, that will never – nothing will ever be like that again.”  It was incredible, and I thought, “Nothing will ever be like my home Shabbat again either,” where Dad, with his voice, and the blessing of the candles, and our own special blessings that we have. 

JF:  What were your Shabbos like?

CK:  We always had all the family on Friday night.  Dad had a 5:30 service.  And then he would come home and have dinner, and anybody who was in town was invited.  It was always a big meal.  Four or five courses.  It just was a piece of our lives.  It was interesting – because, after I got married – Dad had moved out of town by 1948.  We went to Frank's mother's.  

JF:  What?  For Shabbos?

CK:  For Shabbos.  They'd never really done that.  Like many Jews, they were what I call a secular Jew.  They went to synagogue a few times a year.  They belonged to a congregation.  Frank had been bar mitzvahed.  He didn't know he was going to marry this girl who was a temple-goer and all of that.  But he was very nice about it.  He used to try to explain to me that he was an agnostic, but he really believed in something because he thought there was something bigger than everyone else, than all of us.  So, he really wasn't an agnostic.  But I would listen. [laughter] He never went to work on a major holiday – Yom Kippur or Rosh Hashanah.  I really was glad that he did that.  Even as a judge, he didn't.  As a judge, he was very successful.  I mean, he was invited the first time around to join the Maryland  Club, which was non-Jewish.  So, he was constantly pushing for –

JF:  What was the Maryland Club?

CK:  The Maryland Club was a non-Jewish institution downtown –

JF:  Was it –

CK:  Very social.  Very social.

JF:  Were Jews barred?  Or were they simply not there?

CK:  Yes, just not there.

JF:  Was he the first Jew?

CK:  He with Bob Levi and one other person.  Three of them went in all at the same time.  It may have been Walter Sondheim.  I'm not sure.  He was constantly doing that.  The court used to regularly have a meeting at what was called the Maryland Club.  There were no Jews in that club.  My husband said, “I'm sorry, but I'm not going to go.  I can't go.”  So, they changed it, and had their meetings at the courthouse, which was much better anyway.  

JF:  Can I ask you a few more questions about your father?

CK:  Sure.

JF:  Were you close to him?

CK:  Yes.  Probably, initially closer than most children because I was running the house.  I was the only daughter.  I was home through a great period of – when the boys had gone off to college and what-have-you.  Dad was very interested in my life.  I mean, we had arrangements.  I had to be home at whatever hour I said I was going to be home.  If I wasn't, our arrangement was that I would call.  I mean, it was eleven o'clock, or twelve o'clock, or sometimes one o'clock.  I mean, there was no problem about it.  But I always tell the – that's how we raised our children also.  It makes life easier if you have these rules that have some give.  Dad was wonderful about that.  He was terrible about helping me manage money.  I must say that.

JF:  [laughter]

CK:  But he was wonderful about everything else, I think, and set a wonderful example for all of us.  He was a lovely, caring human being who loved everybody.  I mean there was no – in spite of all the Sephardic – it didn't matter.  He loved the congregation.  Dad finally resigned from the congregation in '48.

JF:  How did that come about?

CK:  They asked for him to only speak on his point of view about the establishment of the Jewish state.  This is in '46, '47.  That he not do it on the High Holidays, which is when you have the largest congregation, and Dad felt that was inhibiting his free speech.

JF:  And was he opposed to the establishment of the State of Israel?

CK:  He was not totally opposed.  But he felt that it would cause enormous difficulty if you have a theocratic state.  And Dad, Judah Magnes, and Henrietta Szold all talked about having a tripartite state, which never caught on because the ZOA and the Jewish Agency were well established.  By '48, when the UN voted – even though the lines of the state were terrible, it was a fact and a fait accompli.  From then on, Dad contributed regularly, but nobody knew that.  He had a lot of hurt.  He'd have a meeting, and he'd be invited to speak, and then they would cancel on him because of his position.  What he was invited to these meetings for was not to talk about Israel but to talk about inter-faith relations.  So it was not a nice picture.  But he was newly married.  My stepmother was extraordinarily well off.  They had a wonderful, wonderful life.  Dad took up art, and this painting, and that painting, and all the paintings in the den – not all – not everything in this room – are by Dad.

JF:  It's beautiful.

CK:  He became very accomplished.

JF:  Yes, it is.

CK:  I have a few other things sitting around there.  They had a very good life.  My stepmother got her Ph.D. from Columbia at the age of seventy-one.

JF:  Good for her.

CK:  And Dad was busy taking art.  They'd spent a year in Paris.  He'd studied with a French Impressionist.  She'd finished her doctorate.  And then, when his eyes started to go bad, he went and studied with Hans Hoffman up in Provincetown and became an abstract painter, as you can see. [laughter]

JF:  So, in '48, he was asked to resign because –

CK:  No.  He resigned.  He was not asked to resign. 

JF:  Oh, I'm sorry.  He was asked to only speak about –

CK:  Something other than his position on Israel.

JF:  And he felt –

CK:  That inhibited his freedom of speech.

JF:  So he was – you said they left Baltimore?

CK:  They left Baltimore and went to live in New York.  They had an apartment in New York, a house in Palm Beach, and a house in North Carolina.  And then it was – we all visited.  I went down to Palm Beach two or three times a winter.  Blowing Rock was a big summer experience my kids have never forgotten.  It's in northwestern North Carolina.  It’s a lovely spot.  No water, but it was great for my golf, so I had a lot of fun there.  I played on the Blowing Rock golf teams.  It was a good experience.  My stepmother was extraordinarily generous.  She gave each of us a sum of money, which we were to use for travel, not for anything else.  It enabled us to do all kinds of trips.  Every year, we did something wonderful.  It was exciting.  My husband – am I jumping ahead too far?  You want to talk about Dad a little more?

JF:  I just wanted to ask you a couple of more questions.  When you were growing up, did you have two brothers?

CK:  Yes.

JF:  You were the youngest, and you had two brothers.  How do you feel that your experience differed from [theirs] because you were a girl and they were boys?

CK:  I think they let me – now they're gone.  But I ran the family, and I still do, to some degree.  I don't want to; it's just landed on my lap.  My step-sister, whom I'm very close to, runs her side of that, but, in the final analysis, it's – well, we're very close.  I'm not going to have a problem over that.  I don't want to run her side of the family anyway.

JF:  [laughter]

CK:  We have enough problems of our own.  But none of them are earth-shaking.  But, I had this – I mean Dad knew who I was dating.  He loved clothing.  He had a very good friend in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, who had a gorgeous women's dress shop.  He sent me to her.  And then, later, I would go to her.  And Frank nearly died when he first saw what my clothing bills were.

JF:  [laughter]

CK:  [laughter]  Over the years, we seemed to have worked that out.  But was called Mary Sachs, and it was a treat. You never looked at clothing; they'd look at you and bring out what they thought you would like.  And then, out came the hat, and the gloves, and the pocketbook, and the shoes, and the coat, and the scarf, and the pin. [laughter]  It was terrible, but it was wonderful.  And thank God, she finally died, and I didn't have to – [laughter]

JF:  [laughter]

CK:  But I still love clothes.  I think it's fun to look nice, it's kind of – I'm not very elegant today, I guess.  But this is comfortable too.  He was very – It's funny.  When I was growing up, I always felt that I didn't look quite right.  When I went to dancing class, I was taller than most of the boys.  It seemed to me that I was always resting my chin on somebody's head.  Then, all of a sudden, I started to date people a year or two older, and the whole thing sort of straightened out.  I guess I have a sense of humor about life, and that keeps you going.

JF:  It does.  It does.  You mentioned that your father was very proud of his Sephardic background.  How did that affect you?

CK:  That meant nothing.  I really didn't get involved in the genealogy until about ten or twelve years ago.  And then, I got all hooked on the Sephardic thing.  My husband was sent to St. Thomas to sit for a month.  Five years in a row.  Actually, St. Thomas of the Virgin – American Virgin Islands are part of the Third Circuit.  Maryland is part of the Fourth Circuit.  But the people in Pennsylvania got tired of going down there.  They had to cover the bench because the islands could not fill the vacancy that they had.  So, one of Frank's good friends, who was from Wilmington, Delaware – the Third Circuit is Delaware, Pennsylvania, and New Jersey.  I think that's it.  Maryland is Maryland down to South Carolina, including West Virginia Beach, and so on.  So we'd go down.  I loved it.  I had a ball.  I set up a docent program in the synagogue.  It's a marvelous old synagogue.  I got friendly with the island historian.  She gave me the original records of the synagogue, which are now sitting in the UMBC Library, but I think they're finally going to go somewhere because one of the leaders of the congregation in the community is an archivist now.  She wrote and called me and has sent me e-mails.  We've been emailing back and forth.  So, finally, they will find a home, and they're not going to go back.  I was very anxious that they not go back to the Islands because of the storms.  You've got to be able to keep – these papers are invaluable.  So I've raised enough money to have them microfiched, so that we put these films at our archive here in Baltimore, at Hebrew Union College, Brandeis, and the synagogue in St. Thomas.  And then I gave one to the UMBC.  I was working at UMBC at that point, so that's how they got involved.  They've been very nice and never charged me for taking up the space.  They've kept the things all these times.  So, anyway, I had fun down there.  The people were very, very nice.  And I got to know relatives that I didn't know, but not a lot of them.  And then, the last year we were down there – it was something – the 150th anniversary of the congregation.  Is that about right?  I guess that's about right.  Well, whatever.  Ruth Bader Ginsburg was to be the speaker.  Frank arranged to have her come down to the islands.  All of a sudden, out of the woodwork came these relatives who I'd never met of every color and sex and shape.  It was wonderful.  It was really fun.  I learned a lot more that way than I would have normally.  I heard all kinds of wonderful tales.  It was a great joy, that little piece.  It sort of got me going on family history.  It was fun.

JF:  Okay.  Could you tell me some more about your early married years?  About your children and early married life?

CK:  Well, we had two children right away.  Frank, Jr., who initially was diagnosed by Friends School here as being retarded, which we found very hard to accept.  Our doctor said he didn't think he was.  He had some kind of learning disability, but he was not retarded.  Well, today, we'd say he was dyslexic.  But we didn't know what to do with dyslexia in 1951-'52 – whenever.  So we pulled him out of Friends and put him at Park, which was much smaller.  It was a smaller school and more personal attention.  And they heavily tutored him.  By the sixth grade, he was reading – it was like a curtain fell.  But by then, he had real terrible self-esteem.  But he's turned into a lovely man.  He really is a darling guy, who still has some problems, but not the kind that he can't handle.  He has nice children – two children.  A boy and a girl.  His wife left him for a woman, and that was a terrible blow.  So those things have hit him in the way, where my daughter hasn't had a problem in the world.  She's beautiful.

JF:  And when was she born?

CK:  '48.

JF:  And what is her name?

CK:  Peggy Kaufman Wolf.  And the other's Frank Kaufman, Jr.  They each have two children.  They each have a girl and a boy.  Peggy's children are divine.  And it's a gorgeous family.  I'll show you their pictures.

JF:  Yes.

CK:  And life has been sort of their oyster.  She married the son of a couple from Philadelphia that we've been intimate with all our lives.  So these kids have known each other since they were like two and four years of age.  But they have a very good time.  The oldest child is now married and living in Boston.  She has a master’s degree and is teaching at a school for autistic children.  The next one, Matthew, has just graduated from Wisconsin, had been in the stock market, and is now going to law school in the fall.  I don't know where yet, but he's in several places.  And Frank's oldest, Kathy, is at Bryn Mawr in her second year and doing absolutely beautifully.  Andy will finish high school next year.

JF:  And where do they live?  Where do your children live?

CK:  They live here.

JF:  In Baltimore?

CK:  Yes.  Frank lives in a condominium ten minutes from here.  Peggy lives about twelve minutes over in Guilford.

JF:  Lovely.

CK:  Yes.

JF:  Now, you said you wanted to have children right away.  And you quit Goucher, and you stayed home?

CK:  I stayed home.

JF:  Tell me.  What was that like?  In the early '50's?

CK: [inaudible] I loved it.  We had a play group two days a week.  I remember that.  We had a little bit of ground in our other place.  About two acres of land.  We had dogs and cats. [laughter] All the things that were sort of funny.  And the kids.  We'd write poems for all birthdays – well, mainly birthdays and anniversaries.  My mother-in-law got sick.  That was hard to handle.  My Dad lived until he was ninety-one.  He dropped over dead in London.  He really died within three or four hours.  He was celebrating the hundredth birthday of an old friend of his.  So that was lovely.  It was a wonderful life up until the very last minute.  In the '50s – what was it like?  I remember car-pooling, and I was being very active with being a lady volunteer.  I started right off – I mean, before I knew it – the fall of the first year I was married, we used to have a Bible study, which the rabbis led.  We stayed in the congregation, even though Dad left town.

JF:  You stayed in Baltimore Hebrew.  But was that difficult?

CK:  No.

JF:  No?

CK:  But I explained to Dad – Rabbi Lieberman, who succeeded Dad and who was a Zionist, had been my babysitter when I got older because I didn't have a governess, and he was unmarried.  He’d come and stay at the house while Dad went trotting off on some speaking trip.  Or to Europe or whatever.  There were all kinds of things that my father was always doing.  So, Uncle Morrie would come and stay with me. [laughter] And then, all of a sudden, there I am – and I'll never forget it.  You called all your parents' friends "aunt" and "uncle.”  And the woman who'd been president of the Sisterhood was a great Jewish leader in her day – Mrs. Hugo Dalsheimer – and Aunt Helen had a big hand in raising me.  Because if Morrie Lieberman, the rabbi, couldn't come, I would move down to the Dalsheimers, and I became the daughter in that household that had two sons.  She was wonderful to me.  That was lovely.  There was another lady named Aunt Marie Rothschild.  Aunt Marie was running Bible study.  I did a paper on the Samarian Jews, a group of Jews that are really not totally Jewish living in Israel today.  That's one of these tribal – they're not really joined this modern world.  I described their seder, where they go up on Mt. Sinai, and they kill a lamb.  But Aunt Marie gets up and she says, "I'm now going to introduce someone to you who you all know.  Clem Frank.” [laughter] But that was all right.  And then, I got to be president of the sisterhood.  I was head of the program committee and then vice-president.  And I loved writing shows.  I do a lot of that kind of stuff; it comes very easily to me.  I was calling Rabbi Lieberman – “Uncle Morrie.”  He came, and he said he wanted to have a meeting with me.  Very serious.  I thought, “What have I done wrong?”  Uncle Morrie says to me – 

JF:  But when was this?

CK:  This is about 1953.  Maybe 1954.  I was just going to be president of the sisterhood.  I was president – that's about right – maybe a little later, not much.  '52.  He said to me, “I think it's time that you stop calling me Uncle Morris in front of the sisterhood." [laughter] So, I said,  “All right.  I'll call you Rabbi Lieberman.”  He said, "That's much better.  You can call me Morrie – whichever you prefer.”  So, it was cute.  I'll never forget that.  But we had a good time.  We had one car initially.  And we had a boxer named Duke, who had been Frank's parents’ dog.  When Frank's father died, it became my father's dog.  And then, when we moved back to Baltimore, it became our dog.  And that poor dog lived – all these houses are within half a mile of each other.  Duke would take off.  Somebody would find him in Pikesville with his little chain and our address.  Call me.  I would call the Pikesville cab, and Duke would come home, riding in the back seat, sitting up straight.  The cab driver would get out, open the door, and the dog would – he would step grandly out. [laughter] I'd pay the bill, and that was that.  Because, as I said, we only had one car. 

JF:  [laughter]

CK: [laughter] Life was fun.  Anyway, life had lots of jokes and lots of humor, and an awful lot of fun.  Our friends were all getting married.  It was after the war – those years – it was a very happy, wonderful time. 

JF:  And you remained at Baltimore Hebrew.  Did you celebrate Shabbat at home?

CK:  Yes.

JF:  Did you celebrate Passover?  What was that like?

CK:  We still do.  I have an enormous group for Passover.  We had forty-one last year.  I'm trying to keep it down.  I've had the same - we had the same two families since we got married – the (Lansburghs?) and the (Greifs?) and their children and their grandchildren.  At one point, when Aunt Selma Burgunder was still alive, Dad came up.  We had four generations.

JF:  Oh, lovely.

CK:  And now, our kids are all grown up.  There are no children in Baltimore.  There are almost no grandchildren.  I mean they're no grandchildren in Baltimore, except for Andy Kaufman.  He's the youngest, and the only one left.  So, now that Rachel got married, and now Carol (Greif's?) daughter's getting married.  So, we'll maybe have another generation coming along.  But, we have our own seder.  We take the old grey Haggadah – not new.  I use a little bit of a Haggadah that Elie Wiesel edited.  I've seen them mix it up every year.  I try to have a few non-Jews.  And then, these two families.  And sometimes, the (Hutzlers?).  It depends.  They moved out of town – now, they're back.  We'll have to see how that – by the time I have these families on over – twenty-five.  But it is the same meal, more or less, each year.  As we speak, my briskets are already in the freezer because I thought I better get them now.  I was worried about getting them at the last minute and cooking them.  So, I'll defrost them, cook them, and then get them sliced, bring them back, and then do all of that. 

JF:  [laughter]

CK:  But it's a very nice occasion.  It’s certainly different than when my father had Passover.  I think it's meaningful.  These are not temple-goers.  But they all like – people say to me – could I come to you?  I always have to think – because I can't handle – I don't want to have forty people.

JF:  [laughter]  It's a lot.

CK:  It's a lot.  It’s a lot of dishes.  For a while, I was using all of my china.  Last year, for the first time, I rented everything.  I didn't like it as well.  I have to decide by Monday.

JF:  [laughter]

CK:  [laughter]  What I'm going to do about it.  But I have tablecloths that I use.  It’s a holiday that we all look forward to.  It's nice.  Nice gathering.

JF:  Now you said that Shabbos was always special in your father's home.

CK:  The mat –

JF:  How was it like that?

CK:  Well, I don't like to entertain on Friday night.  We have given up having a weekly something where the family gets together.

JF:  Did you do that when your children were small?

CK:  No.  We didn't do it until Peggy got married, and they were living in Washington.  Frank, Jr. went into the Army.  Came out.  Went to school down in North Carolina.  There were no children here.  I will go out on Friday night, but I really like going to services.  It's very different than when I grew up. 

JF:  And Different in what way?

CK:  Well, I don't think there is the – and our extended family went to 2nd, 3rd, and 4th cousins.  But they were all so used to inter-mingling with each other that it was a piece of their lives.  Dad's house was the center of all of this.  I guess I could create that.  I'm close to all my cousins except one.  I don't know what made it fall apart.  Part of it was when Frank's mother didn't want to have Friday night – but wanted to have Sunday dinner.  Nobody liked that.  Frank was very athletic.  Liked to have his tennis game on Sunday, but we didn't like to say "no" to her.  So that was one issue.  But it was important to keep something – keeping the family together.  Frank's brother married a Catholic and converted to Catholicism.  And that didn't cause any schism, but it made things different.  I mean, they didn't care about Passover.  We don't give a hoot about – I've died Easter eggs, but that's it.  We don't do Christmas.  So, that's where we are.  It's a different kind of a feeling – Hanukkah's still our holiday.  We started out celebrating Christmas because Frank wanted to.  I hated it.  I cannot tell you.

JF:  [laughter]

CK:  But wanted it – and I still have downstairs the Christmas ornaments that I've put away that I'm going to give to my granddaughter, who is married to a Catholic because they are doing both.  I don't know what they're going to raise their children as.  But it's important.  Last year, they came down for Passover, Rachel and her husband.  Brian went to services on Easter.  I don't know how we worked that out –

JF:  [laughter]

CK:  But we got it all in for them because I want them to love Judaism.  I love Judaism.  I want them to have that sense of belonging.  They're up there with his family, [who] are Catholic.  You hope things will – it's a wonderful marriage, and that's the most important thing.  Does that give you that picture?

JF:  Yes, I think it does.  Now, I want to get back to your chronology.  We talked about all your volunteer work that you did during the '50s.  But we haven't yet gotten into your paid career or your going back to school.

CK:  Oh, and I'll have to tell you the rest of my volunteer work because it really was wild.  I was on the board of the Union Memorial Hospital.  I was on the –

JF:  And what did that involve?

CK:  I became assistant treasurer - and, if that wasn't ridiculous.

JF:  [laughter]

CK:  You can't imagine.  It's a big hospital here in Baltimore.  It was the private hospital for doctors who were using Hopkins but had patients with less severe things like – I don't know what – but it was not a – it's still a good hospital.  It used to be called the Protestant Women’s Infirmary, and it's a big, good.  It's one of our good hospitals in the city.  I was one of two Jews on that board.  A lot of my friends were on that board.  I got asked to join the women's Hamilton Street Club.  Frank was in the men’s Hamilton Street Club.  They were special clubs where you have to be sort of – the word isn't "intellectual" – but involved in community activities.  The men originally were Hopkins doctors, Sun news reporters, and lawyers.  Then, it got to be Hopkins professors.  I think it still is that today.  But it's a different world –

[Recording paused.]

JF:  This is disk number three.  The interview with Clem Kaufman.  I'm Jean Freedman, recording this for the Jewish Women's Archive Weaving Women's Words project.  It's March 16th, 2002, and we're in Baltimore, Maryland.  Well, we've been talking about your volunteer work.  I don't know if you’d finished with that, or if you wanted to continue.

CK:  Oh, I don't know. The only other two things I've been involved nationally.  I was president of something called the Association of Voluntary Action Scholars, which came after I had done volunteer work.  It was a fascinating experience.  I was involved in the international association, and that was fascinating.  The founder of that – I think it's kind of gone out of existence.  But it's too bad.  It was a good program.  The other thing that I loved – I was on for eight years – the Florence Heller School of Social Work at Brandeis.  I loved that.

JF:  You were on the board of that?

CK:  Yes.

JF:  What did that involve?

CK:  Just being a board member and listening to what they were doing and – it was fun.  It was before I had become a social worker, myself – so.

JF:  Tell me how that came about.

CK:  My husband went on the bench.  We had two kids in college.

JF:  When did your husband go on the bench?

CK:  '66?

JF:  Was he elected?  Or appointed?

CK:  Appointed by Lyndon Johnson.  Oh, I realized that we were going to be tight.  The cut in salary was enormous compared to what he'd been earning.

JF:  Had he been at the same law firm?

CK:  Yes.  He was one of the top lawyers in the city and very involved with the American Bar Association, which is a whole other piece of my life.  Anyway, I went to work for one year – inner city.  I taught inner-city school.  I taught young women who had been school dropouts, who needed to get their GED, and this was an introduction into coming back to school to try to get them to do it. 

JF:  This was after – this was in '66?

CK:  This is '66-'67.  I quit in January of '68 because my daughter was getting married, and that's a full-time production. [laughter]  I'm going to alert you.

JF:  [laughter]

CK:  I had not been trained as a schoolteacher.  Lesson preparation is not exactly my thing.  I also was trying – they gave us materials for children who were in junior high school.  These were women who were somewhere between eighteen and twenty-four.  The materials were for – it was just – it didn't match.  I tried to do things with them.  We did a cookbook, and we set up a store with empty cartons.  Well, that was just not acceptable to the school's – I was a rebel, I guess, in the school system.  So, I got out before I got fired.  I think I would have been fired.

JF:  How did the children like it?  How did the girls –

CK:  The kids loved – oh, they loved it.

JF:  They loved it, but the school board didn't?

CK:  So then, I got invited to be the administrative assistant to the director of the agency that I helped set up – the Department of Juvenile Services. 

JF:  And that was a paid position?

CK:  That was a paid position.  I started out three days a week and ended up five days a week.  I developed a newsletter for them.  I developed a whole volunteer services program involving college students who did work with delinquent kids in any area of the agency that you can think of.  Who would take courses so that they could get credit for their community service?  Which is something that I really believe in, but there are a lot of people think if you get credit, then that's not pure volunteerism.  Be that as it may, [laughter] I did a course.  Mark Shriver was the name I wanted to – excuse me – in the middle of all the – And I worked there from '68 to '76.  The first director, who's still a wonderful friend of mine, left.  His successor was an African-American named Bob Hillson, and he said to me, "Clem, you've got to go to school and get a Masters.”  I said, "What for?” [laughter] Anyway, he made me go.  I took one course.

JF:  What was his reply to "what for?" 

CK:  He said, “You should have the discipline and those letters in back of your name.  It'll make a difference.”  So, I did.  I went to school.  Well, they sent me to school and paid me a salary.

JF:  Did you continue to work?

CK:  I continued to work.  So, it took me three years, instead of two, to get my degree.  I had one year of clinical and then two years of administrative work.  I ended up in administration.  I got a degree in Social Work Administration or Public Administration.  And then, the Dean asked me whether I'd like to get my Ph.D.  So, the next thing I knew, I was supposed to be teaching; only I reorganized the Alumni Association, which had never been organized properly and opened up a Job Bank for him.  I never was allowed to teach at all, which I loved doing.  I really do like to teach.  So, then, I wrote – I saw an ad in one of my husband's magazines for a grant for ten thousand dollars for people writing on papers and dissertations.  I wrote away for one and got it. [laughter] I don't know whether it was because of – I didn't mention my husband.

JF:  It wouldn't matter.

CK:  I don't know.  Anyway, I got the grant.  I finished all the course-work in '76.  

JF:  And the coursework was taken where?

CK:  At the University of Maryland at Baltimore, UMAB.

JF:  In Baltimore?

CK:  Yes.

JF:  They had started – I was the second class.  In fact, there were two of us that got our doctorate the year I did.  In those days, they gave you a doctorate – D.S.W – which I hated.  I sounded like you were some kind of – I don't know what.

JF:  I'd say a dentist. [laughter]

CK:  Or something. It doesn't sound like social work.  D.S.W. was what it was because College Park gave the degree, even though the work was done here.  Because I wasn't a classical worker, I took courses at Hopkins.  I had a course – at one point, I said I'm taking a class in parking.  I had no statistics.  You have to have statistics.  So, I took “Introduction to Statistics” at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County.  I was being tutored at Hopkins at one point.  I was taking a course in juvenile delinquency at College Park. [laughter] It was wild.  Anyway, I did get through it all.  And then, I wrote my dissertation.  I did not want to join the force and be in – whatever you are first – and then be an assistant professor.  I was about forty – I don't know how old I was – middle forties by then.  I decided that was silly.  So, I had a variety of jobs, ranging from the White House Commission on Children and Youth.  I wrote one chapter of their book.  That was in 1980.  Before that, I worked in Washington at Action doing evaluations on a variety of programs for them.

JF:  Did you commute to Washington?

CK:  Yes, for a year.  It's hard.

JF:  Yes, I know. [laughter]

CK:  It was hard commuting to College Park, I'll tell you.

JF:  Yes. [laughter] It's practically Washington.

CK:  Then, I went to work for the Kettering Foundation on the validity of Presidential Commissions and did they do what they set out to do?  That was fun.  And that was two years of my life.  And then, I went to work at Johns Hopkins – I may have missed something in-between – at the School of Hygiene and Public Health on a major project that they were working on in terms of teaching techniques.

JF:  As a researcher?

CK:  No, I was to coordinate their community relationship programs, which was right up my alley.  However, we were working in what was essentially a Black area of the city.  And my boss didn't think I was the right color, and he told me. [laughter] I did not enjoy this at all.  I thought I would, but it was a very difficult personality relationship, so I resigned.  I had back surgery, and I don't know what was going on, but anyway, I got over that.  Michael Hooker, who had been the Dean for Graduate Studies at Hopkins, became president.  He'd been at Bennington, and he came here to be president of UMBC.  I wrote a letter welcoming him.  He invited me over.  The next thing I knew, I was his administrative assistant.  Right back where I started.

JF:  [laughter]

CK:  But meanwhile, I was still staying in the Juvenile Justice field.  I was on the Juvenile Justice Advisory Council, which administered federal grants for the state.  I became chairman of the board for a while.  I was really with that until about two years – well, I'm still on some of their committees.  But I stayed in that field.  So, I really kind of kept up-to-date on that.  I've loved it, I must say.  It's interesting because you read, and you say, “Yes, that's right.  I know that.”

JF:  [laughter]

CK:  And looking at a thing today where a girl committed suicide, and I thought, “Oh, it's a continuing problem, and we still are not training adequately for it.  We don't learn to spot it.”  It’s hard to spot, I might add.  But we don't really have people who should key in on that.  But I've had a marvelous time.  The doctorate has opened up all kinds of things for me.  It’s been fun.  Yet here I am now.  I retired.  After I retired from UMBC, I was teaching, eventually in both the social work department and at the Shriver Center, which I helped to set up, which is a community service center.  It also does paid job placements.  We work very closely – the way we got into working in the delinquency field was through Mark Shriver.  He opened up the door to his parents.  

JF:  And his parents are?

CK:  Eunice and Sargent.  He's now a delegate to the state legislature and is running for the House of Representatives in Montgomery County.  A very able guy.  We worked through a program he started here called "Choice," which is an extraordinary program.

JF:  What is that?

CK:  He took kids who had just graduated from college but who will do community service for a year to 14 months.  They work 7 days a week for a year for him.

JF:  And why do they?

CK:  And they are monitoring X number of kids.  They work in pairs.  They also work in the school system directly with kids.  But that's the hardest thing.  He was in one neighborhood, and he did a clean-up job for the neighborhood essentially.  Got rid of drugs, and it's much more settled.  It's in West Baltimore.  Looks good.  I think these kids don't realize what they're getting into.  But it's a different thing.  It’s a Peace Corps kind of – it's a domestic Peace Corps type of thing.  It's a very, very good program.  It's interesting to see now, with the present political situation, how the change with the whole issue of should churches and synagogues – religious institutions – be involved in this kind of thing.  I get very worried because I believe in the separation of church and state.  I think that these soup kitchens will go under if they don't get more support.  I watch our own synagogue.  There was just a plea recently.  We need 129 more casseroles a month than we are producing, which we'll be able to do.  But we shouldn’t have to have that kind of plea, I don't think.  It's not money, interestingly enough; it's the service of providing something that you buy, a casserole for the turkeys that we produce once a month.  It's the dressing.  I mean, it isn't hard to do.

JF:  No.

CK:  Anyway, I've had a wonderful time.  When I hit seventy, they asked me to resign.

JF:  This is what you're – when you hit seventy, they asked you to resign from the University of Maryland Baltimore County.

CK:  No, they wanted me to resign as administrative assistant to the president.  They still wanted to keep me on as faculty part-time.  I decided I really didn't want to do any of it.  That I was going to cut my strings, and I became a consultant to several things.  And I've stayed in the juvenile justice field.  I'm on some committees of the Baltimore Jewish Council on their Metropolitan Issues.  I'm on the board of the American Jewish Committee.  I'm on enough.  I think the older you get – I really think younger people ought to be taking leadership roles.  It doesn't hurt them to have a historian around.  That's how I look at [myself]. [laughter] I'm very adequate.  I sometimes think, “I'm really not talking the same language,” but I try very hard to keep my mind open because I think it's important.  The world has changed.  It's a different world, and we need to keep things on an even keel and have relationships with young people.

JF:  Well, you've opened the door to a number of questions that I wanted to ask you about.  Because you have seen enormous changes in your lifetime – changes for Jews, changes for women, changes in Baltimore – I'd like to ask you about all of them in no particular order.  How has life changed for women?  For yourself?  How is your life different from that of your daughters and granddaughters?

CK:  Well, I'm the exception to the rule, at my age, in that I had a career.  And while some people had – many people don't and have not.  Most of my friends have not had the kind of background that I had.  I've been privileged because I have a good Jewish background because of my dad and because of Uncle Abba Hillel Silver, which is not true of lots of my friends.  I have others who are Orthodox Jews, so I go both ways.  I think women should be allowed to do almost anything that men do.  I'm not sure about the soldiering and what-have-you, and there is a physical difference in terms of ability that women have than men.  But I think it's wonderful.  I like the fact that women have a chance to be equal to men.  I worry that they're not doing justice to their families.  That concerns me.  I also wonder when – every once in a while, I heard, “Well, I'm the male mom.”  I guess I don't like those words.  I don't mind if a man chooses to stay home, and his wife wants to be the breadwinner.  If that's what they want to do, okay.  I don't like the use of those words that way. [laughter]

JF:  Why?

CK:  He's a homemaker is what I feel.  It’s just "male mom" sounds like a non-sequitur of some sort.  But I think it's healthy.  I do think that children need nurturing, and we need to continue to have that kind of early care that you're doing, which is exactly what I hope I did before I went plunging into the real world.  I find it very exciting.  I enjoy talking to my friends.  I have friends who spend their life on the golf course, playing bridge, going to a few lectures.  I don't think they're as interesting as the women who read The New York Times every day.  I miss terribly male conversation because women so often get emotionally involved in their conversations, and I object to that.  I think you ought to be able to disagree and still – you can disagree and still not be involved, personally, in it.

JF:  It's difficult, but you can do it.

CK:  You can do it, and you ought to be able to do it.  I feel very strongly.  I also think we're in a terribly frightening period for a lot of people.  Some people have taken 9/11 differently than others, and that has to do with – not your sophistication, but how you feel about our world.  I must say, from a Jewish standpoint, I have run into more antisemitism recently than I ever remember before.

JF:  Really?

CK:  I find that very, very disturbing.

JF:  Could you elaborate on that?

CK:  I think that the non-Jewish world objects to America's support of Israel.  Very simple.  They blame Israel for everything without understanding what the real issues are that it is a have/have-not situation.  It's a democracy versus a totalitarian situation.  It's a lack of education versus an educated situation.  I feel that when somebody says to me, "If it weren't for Israel, we wouldn't have all these problems,” that's just not true.

JF:  You've had people say that to you?

CK:  I've had people say that to me.  So, I answer back, as best I can, very calmly, without being emotional.  I suggest that they read The New York Times carefully.  Not the Sun papers. [laughter]  No, I don't.

JF:  [laughter]

CK:  They should read Tom Friedman.  Or I'd make them read – I don't know – all kinds of things.  I have a little store of books, depending on the person, and hope that they'll read.  So that they do understand the role of Israel and that we can't let Israel down.

JF:  And you mentioned that you'd run into more antisemitism recently than you ever had.  Did you have many experiences with antisemitism?

CK:  Not a lot.  Every once in a while.  But not a lot.

JF:  Could you tell me about what happened?

CK:  Well, I remember dating a boy from Williams when I was at Bennington, who wanted me to not admit that I was Jewish.  He was running for president of the freshman class.  And I said, "I'll tell you what I'll do.  I won't bring it up.  But if it comes up, I'm not going to deny it.  How's that?"  It never came up. [laughter] So that was the end of that.  I thought when I was working at the Department of Juvenile Services, I was the only – no, there was one other Jew, a wonderful guy, whom I loved dearly.  I’ve forgotten that.  But I had a very unpleasant experience that I don't really want to go into.  It was awful.  I think some of it had to be the fact that I was a woman.  I'll tell you what it was.  One was the fact that I was a woman, and the other was that I was Jewish.  But one of my co-workers accused me of having an affair with the Director of the agency, who happened to be not only male but Black.  I thought that it was an insult to me.  I wanted to pull the whole thing out into the open.  My husband said, ”Why don't you go talk to the Director of the agency,” which I did.  He didn't want to bring it out, either.  This was someone who'd done this to others before.  So, I said, “Okay.  I'll tell you what I'm going to do.”  We were headed for the annual Christmas party.  If you've never been to an annual Christmas party, the secretaries love dancing with their bosses and what-have-you.  I'd made up my mind that my 6’2” judge/husband come to this Christmas party.  He only came once.  But it took care of the whole thing.  I was the first woman on their executive committee, and they didn't know what to do with me.  I was also more informed than they were about the field as a whole because of the things that I was doing.  My Washington contacts were good.  It was very unpleasant, though, that time.  Very discomforting.

JF:  Yes.

CK:  Oh, I've had one or two remarks made.  I remember once sitting around a pool outside of Florence when we were sitting in the sun at the end of a hot, hot day.  A man who had been a U-Boat captain for the Germans and his wife – during World War II – was explaining why he was devoting his life to the Scouts or whatever the comparable program was.  Being a little bit of a devil, I guess, I said, “And is that the only reason that you are doing this today?”  He said, ”You think I'm doing it because of the Jews.  You're wrong.  I don't give a damn about the Jews.”  And his English was quite good.  And I said, ”Well, I do.” [laughter] And my husband was sitting there.  So, my husband said, "And I do.”  And one other Jewish couple said, "I do.”  And this man said, "Well, why do you do?”  And we all said, almost in chorus, "Because we're Jewish.” [laughter] But there was this tension.  Nobody wanted to talk to that man afterward.

JF:  It's understandable.  

CK:  It was very interesting.  

JF:   How do you think things have changed for Jews?  I mean, in your experience?

CK:  Well, my experience has been this enormous acceptance all over the place.  I mean, we've done an enormous amount of traveling.  The judiciary is not always as fair as you'd like it to be.  There's antisemitism there.  It is an old boys’ club, particularly the federal judiciary.  People say things when they – that I think they would just say – I mean the expression, "I'm going to Jew them down" or whatever.  I don't think that's – I think you have to pick your time.  It's not always worth expressing yourself.  It isn't.  But, on the other hand, you don't let it go by if there's an opportunity to do it.  My favorite story of all – and then I'll talk about women in a minute.  My husband, after his freshman year at college, was sitting outside with his roommate, who was from Kansas City, [and] who was Jewish.  His name was Pat (Uhlmann?).  Someone came by – another one of their fellow dormmates – and said, “Where are you guys going to room next year?”  I don't know what the answer was, and they said, “What are you going to do?  And he said, "I'm moving out of here.  Too many Jews.”  And Pat (Uhlmann?) says, "Really?  Some of my best friends are Jews."  And this man said, "Who?”  He said, "Well, my mother and my father." [laughter]

JF:  [laughter]

CK:  I loved that.  I love women in their new roles.  I get the biggest kick out of it.  I think it's so exciting.  I'm sorry that I – I would like to have been born ten years later because I think I could have done more than I have done.  Although I think I've done some things and I broke some barriers.  So, I'm excited by it.  I get a little worried when I watch my daughter sometimes, but the kids are gone.  She's working very, very hard.  And she's got responsibility – had responsible positions.

JF:  Do you discuss these things with your daughter?  

CK:  I can because every once in a while, I get asked to do something.  I feel my children should be – or that age group – they're fifty.  Fred's fifty-six.  Peggy will be fifty-four.  Frank's going to be fifty-six.  And they're the ones that should be doing things today.  That fifty-five to sixty-five or seventy.  That's where our leadership should be.  I don't want to undercut them in any way.  I don't mind.  I'm happy doing the things I'm doing.  I don't mind being – I don't have to be head of something to make a contribution.  I'm having a chance to do things I never did before now.  While I miss my husband, I've loved being exposed more intensely to music, art, and theater.  I'm reading a lot more.  I'm back writing, which I loved.

JF:  Tell me about that.

CK:  I'm on my third course at Johns Hopkins.  I find myself learning to write more easily.  I don't think I'm a good writer or editor.  And what I'd like to write [is] my husband’s war story.  I'd love to do something.  I did one thing on Dad, and it is not good.  Dad did an autobiography.  And that isn't good.  My children discourage me from doing my father.  But some of the rabbis have said, ”Please do it.  I think we'd all buy the book.”  So, I don't know what I'm going to do with that. [laughter]  Frank, I discovered all his letters to his parents.  And then, I have my letters, which sort of slide into just the second part of the war, which are not as detailed.  But I get some things that they didn't get, like his description of the bombing of London, which must have been absolutely terrifying, and the hauling of bodies out of buildings.  Yet, he had a wonderful experience during [the] war.  He was very lucky.  He was in uniform, and he could order a general around.  But not a sergeant or anybody at the bottom of the heap because of being a non-military person – he had a military uniform, but it had status.

JF:  But he wasn't technically in the military, was he?

CK:  No.  Psychological warfare was separate from all of that, so it was interesting.  I guess that's what I feel.  There's some things I feel funny about, and it has nothing to do with [inaudible].  I happen to like – oh, is this going to get around – well, I like male cantors better than a female voice.  It has nothing to do with anything.  I don't like all the male voices I hear, either.  But I really like a male baritone or a good tenor cantor better than I like a female voice.  I can't explain to you why.  That may be just me being used to it.

JF:  Preferences are preferences.

CK:  That's right.

JF:  You can't explain it.  When did your husband die?

CK:  1997. 

JF:  And you told me a beautiful story about when he died.  Can you –?

CK:  No.

JF:  Okay.  Can you tell me about how Baltimore has changed? 

CK:  Well, we have nothing downtown.  We have an empty downtown, which I find very disturbing, and all kinds of plans, which I don't know whether they're realistic or not.  I don't know enough about city planning.  I've been working on – we're having a Shakespeare – three weeks of Midsummer Night's Dream.  I think it's particularly hard to raise money right now.  But to even tell people that this is something anybody who's in summer school might want to go to – wouldn't you like to help support that? – is like talking to a blank wall.  I find that discouraging.  Some of my friends, both Jewish and non-Jewish, are extraordinarily philanthropic.  This whole cultural area of dance and theater and music, and museums – and I guess I'd put literature somewhere in that; I don't know exactly how.  We need that to make a rich society.  If you take it away, which is the first thing [that] gets cut in the school budget, you lose something.  After I left Juvenile Service, after I left UMBC, I worked as a consultant in Baltimore County Schools.  I'm still being called on sometimes to do a one-day training, which I love doing.  I don't even really want to be paid particularly for it.  I enjoy the experience.  I think there are things that – I think our emphases – I guess, is what I really mean – are too much on how much money you've got, what kind of car you're driving, are you wearing somebody's couture clothing.  I don't need the other people, and if other people need that and they can afford it, wonderful.  At the same time, I hope that they would be aware that other people have enormous needs.  Because they have the ability to do those things, I think, [they] also must have the ability to give.  But how can we make the world a more generous world?  I don't know.

JF:  There's the question.

CK:  That's a question.

JF:  Okay.  Well, I'm going to ask just one more question.  It's a very open-ended one.  So take as much time as you'd like, and that is, is there anything that I have not asked that I should have asked?

CK:  I think you didn't mention my dogs. 

JF:  Oh.

CK:  They're some in the interview.

JF:  Oh, the dogs have participated in this interview.  The growling and barking were not done either by myself or by Mrs. Kaufman.  They were the contribution of Gigi and Gaston. 

CK:  And you said that perfectly.

JF:  Thank you.   

CK:  No, I don't think so.  Let me think a minute whether there's anything else.  I would like to say that my stepmother was a wonderful person.  I was very lucky to have her.  In a way, she was a bit of a role model.  Her getting her doctorate later made me recognize that I could get mine.  I don't have to tell you how hard it is.  It's a different kind of learning experience.  Writing a dissertation and getting it approved [laughter] is not something that just happens overnight.  On the other hand, I enjoyed the process a lot.  I have no regrets on what I did.  I am enjoying learning new things.  I like the way – I'm excited about the world.  I think if we do things – we're going to make mistakes.  But, if we do things in the right way, I hope it'll be a better world, and it'll work out for all of us.  That's what I hope for.  I worry for my grandchildren, not for their wherewithal as much as for what kind of a world they're going to have and will they have as much pleasure.  I've lived in an extraordinarily wonderful period, really from 1924 to now.  It’s over seventy-five years of extraordinary growth, narrowing of the world.  I have friends.  Every once in a while, I look at my telephone bills, and I think – I can't believe [laughter] I’m writing and in touch with these people who want to be in touch with me.  But I'm having a wonderful time doing it.  Thank heavens for email. [laughter] I guess that's about where I am.  I think the biggest change is the communication.  I worry that we're not writing letters because I think, how are we going to capture history if we don't?  But I hope that this kind of thing will help do it.  I think you've been a wonderful, patient interviewer with me, and I thank you so much for that. 

JF:  Well, I've had a wonderful subject.

CK:  Oh, that's lovely.  Mutual admiration society. [laughter]

JF:  [laughter]

CK:  I have enjoyed this.  Thank you very, very much.

JF:  Thank you.

[END OF INTERVIEW]