Lucille Bass Lipsitz joins her husband, Joseph Lipsitz, in this interview that takes place in the Lipsitz Department Store, at 825 Bay Street, in Beaufort, South Carolina. Joseph, the youngest of three children, was born in 1920 to Bertha Rubin and Max Lipsitz in what was once the family residence above the store. Max followed his father and two siblings to the United States from Lithuania around the turn of the twentieth century and, in 1902, at the age of sixteen, opened a business that sold groceries and clothing. Max and Bertha shifted to dry goods only in the 1920s and, two decades later, Joseph, his sister Ethel, and her husband, Henry Rabinowitz, took over. Henry died in 1964, and Ethel stayed on until 1972, when Joseph bought her out. Lucille was born in 1930 in Lowell, Massachusetts, and grew up the sixth of seven children of Lithuanian immigrants Esther Cohen and Nathan Bass in North, South Carolina, where Nathan ran a general store. Lucille talks about her siblings and growing up in the small town about thirty-five miles south of the capital city, Columbia. Lucille and Joseph describe how they met and recall their wedding in 1955. They raised four children in Beaufort: Sandra, Judy, Barry, and Neil. The interviewees consider whether they self-identify most as Jews or as southerners. Other topics mentioned include: Beth Israel Synagogue, Beaufort's Jewish merchants, and the street preachers who sermonize outside the Lipsitz's store. For related oral histories, see interviews with Hyman Lipsitz, et al, Mss. 1035-080; Sandra and Morey Lipton, Mss. 1035-181; and Joseph Lipton, Mss. 1035-156 and -447; and the panel discussion "Growing Up Jewish in Beaufort," Mss 1035-204. For related collections, see Beth Israel congregation records, 1905-1961, Mss. 1076, and the Lipsitz family papers, 1876-1953, Mss. 1102, in Special Collections.
