Jewish Heritage Collection: Oral history interview with Richard Moses
Date:
1999
Interviewer:
Moses, Elizabeth
Interviewee:
Moses, Richard, 1926-2013
Description:
Richard Phillips Moses, in an interview with his niece, Elizabeth Moses, describes growing up in Sumter, South Carolina, the youngest of seven children. He was born in 1926 to Charlotte Emanuel Moses and Henry Phillips Moses. Richard attended services and Sunday school at Sumter's Reform Temple Sinai. He explains how well Sumter's Jews have assimilated into the city's general population, and notes that despite the large number of Jews and people with ties to Judaism in Sumter, the temple's membership has declined in recent decades. Richard attended The Citadel for one year before entering the U.S. Navy to begin officer training. He was an aviation cadet when World War II ended, resulting in a change in his status to inactive. After discharge from the navy, Richard attended the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, graduating in 1948. He worked for one year in Atlanta for an insurance firm before returning to Sumter to join his brother Robert and his uncle Herbert Moses in the insurance and real estate business started by Richard's father, Henry, who died in 1945. Besides talking about his aunts, uncles, and cousins on the Moses side of the family, Richard discusses how he met his wife, Eleanor Ruth Burke Moses, a Baptist from Alcolu, South Carolina; his three children; and the circumstances that led Perry Weinberg, a Sumter orphan, to join the family. Richard served as Sumter's mayor from 1972-76; he briefly mentions his response to black citizens seeking his help with civil rights issues. For related information see the August 16 and 17, 2013 interviews with Richard's brother Robert Moses and August 19, 2013 interview with Richard's sister Mary Octavia Moses Mahon. Special Collections, Addlestone Library, College of Charleston, is the repository for Moses family photographs and papers.
