Sophie “Skip” Payeff Sindler, born in Aiken, South Carolina, in 1930, and her husband, Allan Sindler, born in Bishopville, South Carolina, in 1925, discuss their family histories. Skip’s parents met in Chicago after emigrating from Knyszyn, Poland. Skip recalls encounters with antisemitism while growing up in Aiken. She describes her brother Kivy Payeff’s service in the military in Germany during World War II, and the traditional nature of services at the Aiken synagogue, Adath Yeshurun. Allan’s father, Frank Sindler, a tailor, emigrated from the Lithuania-Latvia region and married Pauline Schwartzman, a native of Baltimore. They followed Pauline’s aunt and uncle, Louis and Mary Schwartzman Slesinger, to Bishopville, South Carolina, where, for decades, Frank ran a men’s clothing store. Allan describes growing up in Bishopville, his Jewish education, and the Bishopville Hebrew Congregation. Allan and Skip raised their family in Camden, South Carolina, about 25 miles from Allan’s hometown. Allan, a chemical engineer and award-winning sculptor, discusses some of his artwork. Other topics discussed include: Sumter’s Temple Sinai, changes in Jewish religious observance, and possible reasons for the decline of Jewish congregations in small Southern towns like Camden. The transcript includes comments inserted by Allan Sindler during proofreading.
Oral history interview conducted by College of Charleston Libraries Special Collections and Archives as part of the ongoing efforts to preserve, elevate, and document the stories and history of the LGBTQ+ community in South Carolina. Colleen Condon (pronouns: She/Hers/They/Theirs) and Nichols Bleckley Condon (she/hers), the first same sex couple to receive a marriage license in South Carolina, discuss their personal lives, their courtship, and suing for (and winning) marriage equality in the state. Colleen Condon speaks of her extended family and her Catholic upbringing in Charleston, noting she was so concerned with family and societal expectations that she never considered being lesbian. She married and had a son before coming out. Growing up in the upstate, Nichols Condon was not so religiously oriented. She attended Winthrop University, and also married. Both speak to their sadness in having divorces possibly sever larger familial networks. Each describe their coming out process, explaining it is not a one-time event and expressing fears of losing more conservative siblings, with Colleen Condon’s experience being more public, due to her serving on Charleston County Council and eventually as head of the County’s Democratic Party. After they met, their relationship grew quickly, with Colleen Condon humorously describing her proposal of marriage. They eventually decided to defer marriage until it became legal in South Carolina. They note the difference in LGBTQ acceptability between Charleston and Greenville, SC, mention their devotion to pets, how femme presenting lesbians are often assumed heterosexual, and other topics. When a ruling in the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals upheld same-sex marriage in its jurisdiction (including SC), the couple became involved, due to attorney Colleen Condon’s ongoing work on such issues, coordinating with Nekki Shutt, Malissa Burnett, Lambda Legal, the ACLU and South Carolina Equality. Nichols and Colleen describe swiftly escalating events, as their request for a marriage license to Charleston County Probate Judge, Irv Condon, a distant relation of Colleen’s, was accepted, but then was delayed. They gained national and international attention as they became the test case for same sex marriage in SC. Both describe the backlash and some of their fears, as Colleen Condon details the intricacies of the various cases, noting how their 2014 lawsuit against SC was part of the 2015 Supreme Court decision Obergefell v Hodges legalizing same sex marriage. They married in 2015 and both, reflecting on the ordeal, conclude it was worth it. The interview ends with Colleen Condon speaking on work that still needs to be done in SC, specifically on transgender and gender confirmation issues.
Oral history interview conducted by College of Charleston Libraries Special Collections and Archives as part of the ongoing efforts to preserve, elevate, and document the stories and history of the LGBTQ+ community in South Carolina. Greg Kanter (pronouns: He/Him/His), an out gay rabbi, discusses his life, the adoption of two children, one trans, and the impact of anti-trans laws on his family. Born in Cincinnati, OH and growing up in St. Louis, MO, he lived mostly with his divorced single mother. He matriculated at Hebrew Union College after graduating from Knox College in Galesburg, IL. When finishing the degree, he realized he was gay after another student came out as lesbian. Aware of anti-gay bias, he kept quiet on his sexual orientation to achieve ordination. He was hired by a Reform congregation in Minneapolis, MN. Coming out to the senior rabbi created conflict, the congregation allowing him to finish his two-year contract. Before going public, Kanter came out to his parents and his brother, who also confessed to being gay. As part-time rabbi for a gay congregation in South Florida, Kanter grew the organization, but members rejected his desire to include families and children. He met Mike Merrill, a non-Jew, who became more conversant with Judaism, and they became partners. Wanting children, they gave up surrogacy, turning to international adoption instead. When that the adoption of a child named Elijah was imperiled, they turned to in-state adoption, with Merrill acting as a single male, LGBTQ couples not being allowed to adopt. Alayna, born premature, was in their care when then the international adoption came through, too. Elijah immediately identified as female, and both parents demanded her school accepted her as Emily, which it did, having faced similar issues with Jazz Jennings, eventually known for her public appearances and cable television show. While Kanter was accepted in a synagogue in Del Ray Beach, FL, trans issues there were not embraced. Subsequently, Kahal Kadosh Beth Elohim (KKBE) in Charleston, welcomed Kanter and Merrill and their two daughters. Once the SC legislature discussed bans on gender-affirming care for minors, and the Medical University of South Carolina cancelled care, Merrill began taking Emily out of state for treatment, and the couple, with Emily’s permission, went public. In July 2023, with concerns for Emily’s health, and fear of further anti-LGBTQ legislation, Kanter announced the plan to leave for another state where he and his family would be protected. Concluding, Kanter discusses being a gay rabbi in Charleston, the need for allies fighting for LGBTQ rights and an upcoming Pride service, the first in KKBE’s history.
Oral history interview conducted by College of Charleston Libraries Special Collections and Archives as part of the ongoing efforts to preserve, elevate, and document the stories and history of the LGBTQ+ community in South Carolina. Jenny Lee Turner (pronouns: She/Her/Hers) speaks of growing up in West Virginia and Virginia, attending the University of Virginia for her undergraduate degree and obtaining a master’s degree in clinical counseling at The Citadel and her professional life mostly in Charleston, SC. Her coming out as a lesbian was complicated by her rural, religious and working class background, and she was shocked coming to Charleston in 1979, which seemed less sophisticated than Norfolk since Mt. Pleasant “didn’t even have sidewalks.” She worked in counseling at the Department of Social Services, got to know gay men and lesbians in the community, attending some bars and social events. As a White professional, she was dismayed by prejudice aimed at, and poverty she discovered in, the Black Gullah community. In private practice, she volunteered with Palmetto AIDS Life Support Services (PALSS), working with gay men with HIV, helping to set up the buddy program, and becoming friends with many who lost their lives to the disease or to suicide. She describes the fear and backlash AIDS prompted and much of the interview focuses on Corey Jerome Glover, the young Black child with HIV she and her partner, a physician, fostered as an out lesbian couple, even when state laws forbade that. She describes Glover’s short life and death (in 1994 before the age of three) in vivid detail and notes the depression that overcame her when she moved to New York. Returning to Charleston, she worked with the Medical University of South Carolina’s Institute of Psychiatry with teens with drug and other issues and she was injured when attacked in a charter school in North Charleston. Retiring in 2003 with post- traumatic stress disorder and osteoarthritis, she worked with therapy dogs and focused on her long-term relationship with Patricia Graf whom she married in Seneca Falls, NY in 2014. She talks about her own maturation and that of the local LGBTQ community, mentioning the NAMES project and Lynn Dugan’s founding of the Pride parade and the Charleston Social Club for lesbians. Noting the changes in Charleston, she calls it “a whole new world, and I’m wondering if the kids…these days…realize they are standing on the shoulders of others who have died for them….” Before the interview concludes, referring to the new less-closeted world of her youth, she states, “I’m delighted to be alive in it, and to see how far things have come, especially in Charleston….”
Oral history interview conducted by College of Charleston Libraries Special Collections and Archives as part of the ongoing efforts to preserve, elevate, and document the stories and history of the LGBTQ+ community in South Carolina. James Moskow (pronouns: He/Him/His) discusses growing up in Charleston, SC, his birth family, and his time in the foster care system. He talks about moving around as a small child before moving to Charleston, SC at five or six years old, and discusses his time in the foster care system from the age of eight to fourteen. During his time in foster care he lived with relatives, in group homes, and ultimately was adopted by a single gay father. James talks about his biological family, their religious beliefs as Pentecostals and being adopted by a Jewish father. He discusses LGBTQ life in Charleston, attending a Pride festival in Summerville, SC and his friendship with Charleston drag queen Melody Lucas. He discusses his time at West Ashley High School and meeting a clique of friends in high school that he remains close to. Moskow recalls moving to Alaska and living on the Kenai Peninsula before the COVID-19 pandemic forced him to move back to Charleston.
Oral history interview conducted by College of Charleston Libraries Special Collections and Archives as part of the ongoing efforts to preserve, elevate, and document the stories and history of the LGBTQ+ community in South Carolina. James Sellers (pronouns: Him/His) answers questions about his upbringing in the city of Charleston, SC, and his knowledge of Jack Dobbins, victim in the gay-related “Candlestick Murder” that occurred in Charleston on October 31, 1958. Speaking by phone from Quincy, Massachusetts, he recalls his childhood home at 101 Meeting Street, later the Anchor Bar, eventually torn down, his parents and brother and various homes where they lived. He speaks of the naivety of his group of friends, mistaking gay men cruising at the Battery for communists, the reluctance of adults to address such issues, his experiences acting as a teen with the Footlight Players, mentioning many there by name, and taking art lessons at the Gibbes Art Gallery (now the Gibbes Museum of Art). In March of 1958, through the Footlight Players, he met the 29-year-old Jack Dobbins, who showed an interest in the 18-year-old. With no experience, Sellers panicked and describes Dobbins’ respect in honoring his wishes and the care and respect Sellers received. They eventually developed a relationship, and when Dobbins was murdered a few months later, Sellers, then in army basic training in Columbia, SC (where the commanding officer was a friend of Dobbins), was shocked at how the victim was misrepresented in the press, and how his assailant, who bludgeoned him with a candlestick, presented a totally different version of Dobbins, contradicting everything Sellers knew of him. Unable to speak out against the verdict that set Dobbins’s killer free, Sellers eventually left Charleston for art school and relationships, while still designing costumes for the Charleston Ballet Theatre and a Tricentennial production, celebrating the state’s 300th anniversary. In passing, he mentions John Zeigler and Edwin Peacock of the Book Basement, Patricia and Emmett Robinson and Kit Lyons and Dorothy D’Anna of the Footlight Players, Russel Wragg, William Halsey, Corrie McCallum and others. Sellers eventually moved to Boston, became an occupational therapist, and turned down the opportunity to work at the Medical University of South Carolina due to his more advanced political and social views. He describes his family’s servants, coming out to his father and his mother as an adult, and how his recent reading a history of LGBTQ Charleston brought back the events to him, and how discussing them with the interviewer has brought him some closure and peace on the subject.
Oral history interview conducted by College of Charleston Libraries Special Collections and Archives as part of the ongoing efforts to preserve, elevate, and document the stories and history of the LGBTQ+ community in South Carolina. Joe Hall (pronouns: He/Him/His), living in Washington, DC, after years of international work for the National Democratic Institute (NDI), discuses growing up gay in Greenville and Bennettsville, SC, overcoming alcoholism and leading an early AIDS service agency in Charleston, SC. With an accepting family, he embraced his sexuality; he describes gay life in Atlanta, after high school, describes a gay bar in Florence, SC, mentions living in New York, and Washington, DC before settling in Charleston where he got sober. He enrolled at a program at Fenwick Hall in 1983 and later at the Palmetto Center in Florence. He describes bars in Charleston and the founding of its gay Alcoholics Anonymous group. After being counselor in a treatment center, he became involved with the Palmetto AIDS Life Support Services (PALSS) agency, founded in Columbia by Bill Edens. He details the organization’s evolution, mentions the earlier group Helping Hands, and names leaders and supporters in HIV education and response, while discussing issues facing those with HIV. He speaks of being “defiantly” gay, coming out on local TV, and the difficulty of separating the Lowcountry PALSS organization from its Columbia base, it becoming a separate entity (later renamed Lowcountry AIDS Services), and the impact it had on his friendship with Bill Edens and others. He recounts the growth of the organization, services provided, and challenges faced, catering to various constituencies, including elite gay white men and African American religious groups, among others, while emphasizing the major contributions of lesbians. He gives vignettes of certain actions, including a demonstration by ACTUP in Columbia, SC, coordinating with the SC Department of Health and Environmental Control (DHEC), protesting the policies of Governor Caroll Campbell, and the successful fundraising program Dining with Friends. He lists those who gave of their money, time, and services, and addresses the work’s impact on LGBTQ visibility as well as on his personal life. After working for another AIDS agency in another state, he travelled the world, eventually working for NDI in places such as Palestine, Azerbaijan, Sierra Leone, and Beirut, where he met his husband, André Saade. He and Hall moved to Washington, DC in 2012 and married. Saade became an American citizen in 2017 and Hall was working with an organization focused on international security when he died suddenly of an asthma attack during the COVID pandemic in 2020.
Oral history interview conducted by College of Charleston Libraries Special Collections and Archives as part of the ongoing efforts to preserve, elevate, and document the stories and history of the LGBTQ+ community in South Carolina. Harold (Hal) Brody (pronouns: Him/His) discusses growing up in Sumter, SC, his work and interest in the theatre, his medical education and practice as a dermatologist, and his co-founding of the national Gay and Lesbian Dermatology Association. He describes the small-town nature of Sumter, his experiences of anti-Semitism and homophobia there, and then moves on to his undergraduate experience at Duke University, where he became involved in theatrical productions, and consulted a psychiatrist to come to terms with his sexuality. Attending the Medical University of South Carolina (MUSC) in Charleston, SC, from 1970-74, he continued therapy, dating both men and women, and continued to pursue his passion for the theatre in Footlight Players and Charleston Opera Company productions. He mentions anti-Semitism and racial prejudice at MUSC yet reports that a representative of the Mattachine Society addressed the student body. After an externship in Boston, he went to Houston and continued at Emory University in Atlanta, where he first began to encounter HIV/AIDS patients and prejudice against them, staying on as faculty and fulfilling his career there. Soon comfortable with his sexuality, attending annual conferences of the American Academy of Dermatology, he noticed other LGBTQ physicians, and in 1980, he and a small group of friends began an organization called the Dermatology Specialists. Over the years it grew into the Gay and Lesbian Dermatology Association, incorporated in 2011, which helps advance the careers of LGBTQ dermatologists and addresses dermatological issues for people in the community, including treatment of wasting in long term HIV/AIDS survivors and cosmetic surgery for trans people. He speaks with pride of advances in his profession, mentions his association with the Jewish Historical Society of South Carolina, and talks on his continuing role in the theatre, often producing equity and non-equity shows. After the loss of a long-term partner, Brody became reacquainted with Donald Eugene Smith, whom he had met years earlier, and they married ca. 2016. He also talks about his political advocacy for Democrats in Georgia, reflects on the needs of understanding history, and speaks of mentoring younger LGBTQ dermatologists to be future leaders.
Oral history interview conducted by College of Charleston Libraries Special Collections and Archives as part of the ongoing efforts to preserve, elevate, and document the stories and history of the LGBTQ+ community in South Carolina. William “Bill” H. Carson (pronouns: He/Him) discusses the challenges growing up as an African American gay male in Columbia, SC, his Harvard and medical school education, professional life as an out psychiatrist, and his subsequent international work in corporate pharmacology, while also addressing his patronage of the arts. His school teacher parents did their best to shield him from the worst aspects of segregation, with little disparagement of LGBTQ people, but with few role models available. Education was of prime importance in his environment. Turning down Senator Strom Thurmond’s appointment to the US Naval Academy, Carson went to Harvard instead, participating in the Harvard Glee Club and gay life on campus while avoiding Boston, then experiencing racial tensions. Outed just as he began to attend Case Western Reserve Medical School, he embraced the opportunities of self-growth and educating others. His status (coming out professionally before doing so with his family) continued in 1988 as he became a psychiatry resident at the Medical University of South Carolina in Charleston. He mentions the local LGBTQ scene, describes board work on Lowcountry AIDS Services, and the current lack of knowledge among younger gay people of the battles of that era. Beginning a long-term relationship in Charleston, Carson left in 1998 to work for Bristol Myers Squibb, in charge of life cycle management programs of the drug Abilify. That led to his 2002 employment with the Japanese company Otsuka working with the psychopharmacological drug aripiprazole. Carson talks of the learning curve regarding Japanese culture and his subsequent work with international drug conglomerates, noting his excitement in learning new skills and points of view, necessary on national and international boards. Carson is also Board Chair Emeritus of the Sphinx Organization, helping in its mission to promote the careers of Black and Hispanics in the field of classical music. He speaks of the production of Omar by Michael Abels and Rhiannon Giddens, whose world premiere at the Spoleto Festival USA in brought him back to Charleston; he also discusses being a co-producer of Pulitzer Prize winner Michael R. Jackson’s A Strange Loop on Broadway. He sums up the possibilities of gene therapy in possibly helping cure diseases such as AIDS, and despite retiring in 2020, he still stays connected with various boards and projects.
Oral history interview conducted by College of Charleston Libraries Special Collections and Archives as part of the ongoing efforts to preserve, elevate, and document the stories and history of the LGBTQ+ community in South Carolina. Kristine Graziano (pronouns: She/Her/Hers), out lesbian sheriff of Charleston County, describes growing up, her work in, and attitude to, law enforcement and other topics including domestic life and volunteer services. Born in Utica, NY in 1966, never really knowing her father until an adult, she was raised in Virginia by her mother, along with a younger brother and sister, after her parents divorced. Living near Charlottesville, and with a house on the Chesapeake Bay, Graziano spent time on the water, and credits coaches and others for inspiring her work ethic and dedication to goals. She worked her way through Piedmont Community College and the University of Virginia, attending when she could afford it. She did not find racism an issue until she came to Lowcountry in 2002; the Gullah language presented a barrier, and she was confronted with racist language and attitudes. There were no role models for coming out, but she embraced it, and it was a non-issue with her family. Her attraction to law enforcement began as a teenager. Her sister was kidnapped, and escaping, she ran into the arms of a policeman. While that was traumatic for the family, Graziano “knew right away. If I had any purpose, that needed to be my purpose.” She eventually became a master police officer in Charlottesville, when crack was an epidemic, and later served in Charleston as a deputy sheriff, working on patrols, at first out of her depth in Black rural parts of the county. She eventually made the SWAT team, first disqualified due to being a woman. Seeing the need for reform, she ran for Charleston County Sheriff in 2020 during the COVID epidemic, at first wary of, but then embracing, the Victory Fund dedicated to electing LGBTQ candidates. She shares her views of law enforcement, noting that compassion and giving chances to the incarcerated, is not weakness. She addresses changes in diversity and outreach within her department, also describing crises, such as the death of a mentally ill inmate, faced as soon she entered office. She speaks of meeting her wife, Elizabeth, the raising of their two sons, her other businesses, coaching the women’s soccer team at the College of Charleston and volunteering for Hospice.
Oral history interview conducted by College of Charleston Libraries Special Collections and Archives as part of the ongoing efforts to preserve, elevate, and document the stories and history of the LGBTQ+ community in South Carolina. Terry Fox (pronouns: He/Him/His) co-founder of the Charleston Arts Festival, long time board member of the Halsey Institute of Contemporary Art at the College of Charleston, and involved with many arts projects and organizations, speaks of his life as a “fairly openly gay man” since arriving in Charleston, SC in 1968. He was born near Lenoir, NC, and raised in the town of Hudson and had a loving upbringing. Majoring in English at UNC-Chapel Hill, he began to participate in gay life; after an unhappy year at graduate school at USC in Columbia, he moved to Charleston, which, compared to today, was “shabbier, sexier, more romantic.” A white man, he taught in the all-Black W. Gresham Meggett middle school on James Island the last year of its existence. A party he held for some of his students got him evicted from his downtown apartment; he later taught at a middle school in Mt. Pleasant, SC and then at the county’s first alternative school, Freedom School, for students with drug issues. His interest in emotionally disabled children led him to the position of educational therapist at Southern Pines, a private psychiatric facility in Charleston, with later stints as director of student life at Johnson and Wales College and the Art Institute of Charleston, while also founding the Marble Arch, an artist co-op. In his narrative, he also discusses gay life in Charleston, mentions some bars, such as the Bat Room, Streetcar, the Orvin Court bar, the Garden and Gun Club, where he worked as a bartender, and Les Jardins. He gives brief portraits of Richard (Dick) Robison of the Garden and Gun Club, bar owner Bobby Tucker, and describes his friendship with his neighbor early transexual Dawn Langley Simmons (1922- 2000) who “charmed, puzzled [and] fascinated him”. Never having felt “marginalized or treated unfairly” for being openly gay, Fox also served on the local HIV/AIDS agency Lowcountry Palmetto AIDS Life Support Services, describing the fundraising projects Affair of the Heart and Dining with Friends. He goes into the history regarding the long running PechaKucha program he co-founded and manages and gives details, as well, of events and successes of the Charleston Arts Festival. A modern art collector, he gives his assessment of the Charleston art scene, and notes, with disappointment, how Charleston has become more crowded and less of a “pleasurable” place to live than it once was.
Oral history interview conducted by College of Charleston Libraries Special Collections and Archives as part of the ongoing efforts to preserve, elevate, and document the stories and history of the LGBTQ+ community in South Carolina. Michael Schwarzott (pronouns: He/Him/His), dubbed the “grandfather” of the Charleston, SC area LGBTQ movement, speaks of his personal life, the navy, and being a social activist. From the Medina, NY area, Schwarzott grew up in a non-religious family, had some early same sex experiences and joined the US Navy, serving on a submarine based in Charleston, with expeditions to Rota, Spain. When found kissing another sailor in Spain, he was returned to the States and honorably discharged in 1976. In Charleston, he worked briefly at the Lion’s Head Inn gay bar, noting possible mafia connections, detailing vice squad raids, and explaining how service men were protected. He describes local gay life, mentioning taking up collections to pay bail for those, like drag queen Africa (Bryan Seabrook), arrested at the Battery. He soon returned to NY, married, and had two children. In 1989, he came back to Charleston to work in food service at the Veterans Administration. Noting changes in the city, he speaks of roommate, and later partner, cosmetologist Byron Wiles, whom Schwarzott cared for until his death from AIDS and lung cancer in 1993. He became involved with the founding of the Lowcountry Gay and Lesbian Alliance (LGLA) and describes its early meetings and members; he was also active in the Metropolitan Community Church (MCC), which drew more people than LGLA. When reporters wanted a response from the LGBTQ community about pushback against a possible gay gym, Schwarzott, vacationing in New York, agreed to speak to the press, which he did via video link. He subsequently became a visible presence, speaking out on LGBTQ issues, prompting some negative reactions from LGLA, versus positive reactions from the general public. He describes the demise of LGLA and the creation and growth of the Alliance for Full Acceptance (AFFA), noting how its 501(c) 3 IRS status helped the organization succeed. He served on AFFA’s board and continued to speak publicly as he brought in speakers including Mel White, the drag queen Lady Chablis, Troy Perry, geneticist and film maker Dean Hamer and his partner, Joe Wilson, and others. He also addresses the controversy between MCC and Open Door Christian Church and Reverend Wilhelmina Hein. One of his proudest accomplishments was bringing the AIDS Quilt to Charleston during the 1997 Spoleto Festival. He then sums up his years as an activist and encourages others to follow his footsteps.
Oral history interview conducted by College of Charleston Libraries Special Collections and Archives as part of the ongoing efforts to preserve, elevate, and document the stories and history of the LGBTQ+ community in South Carolina. George Holt (pronouns: He/Him/His), a noted small-scale developer and designer of unique homes, reflects on his life in Charleston, his founding of the newsletter Gay Charleston, and his current professional projects. Born in Madrid, Spain in 1959, he moved to Charleston with his family when his father retired from the military in 1974. He attended Stall High School and the College of Charleston and was happily astonished with what he found in the local gay bars he started attending at age 17. He describes the closeted attitudes and prejudices of the day, noting violence against LGBTQ people, and tension between gay men and lesbians, and his visit to the women’s bar, Frannie’s. Unlike others, he always believed “the world was the problem”, not him, and in a bar, the Lion’s Head, he met the gay priest who had counseled his mother when she had sought advice on her son’s homosexuality. Holt, who is White, describes the African American drag queens he knew (Bryan Seabrook aka “Africa”, Teraja, Ms Edie and Wally) and his discovery of the caste of color in local African American society. After spending time in Chicago, he returned to Charleston and with friends and advice from Armistead Maupin, launched the publication Gay Charleston in 1981. He describes the difficulties and successes of running it, noting other contributors, including Keith Griffith (1959 – 2012), later to run a sex-focused publication in San Francisco, and the local Unitarian minister, George Exoo (1942 – 2015). He also speaks of Barry Kohn (d. 1987), who revived the paper, as well as his personal and professional relationship with his partner Jerry Moran. Holt attended the first Pride March in South Carolina (ca. 1990), as well as the National March on Washington (ca. 1993). Reflecting on changes in the city, Holt expresses his delight in how younger people are much open even while they don’t understand the difficulties of the past. He explains his current interest in workers’ and immigrants’ rights, his desire to counter the mistreatment of older people, and his determination to provide sensible and pleasing housing for all, including the handicapped. At the end of the interview, he recalls how he was “set up” previously on local media, attacked for being gay, and how glad he is to let younger people take up the cause.
Oral history interview conducted by College of Charleston Libraries Special Collections and Archives as part of the ongoing efforts to preserve, elevate, and document the stories and history of the LGBTQ+ community in South Carolina. Gil (pronouns: He/Him) and Robin (pronouns: She/Her) Shuler, a heterosexual Caucasian couple, discuss their work in the 1999 film The Corndog Man, produced in the Charleston area, featuring African American actor Bryan Seabrook, also known, in drag, as Miss Africa. The Shulers speak of their work in local theatre with Steve Lepre and others and of Gil’s friendship with filmmakers Jim Holmes, Andrew Shea and David Steen, who, visiting in the area, asked for his help. The story, revolving around a character to be portrayed by actor Noble Willingham, who had committed to the project, needed locations, extras, and others to fill out the project, which had a minimal budget. Gil and Robin Shuler explain where many of the scenes of the film were shot, including in their yard and how they “wrangled” others to appear in the film. Of crucial importance was the casting of a drag queen, and it was Robin’s friendship with Bryan Seabrook, whom she had met at the King Street Garden and Gun Club, that brought a new racial perspective to the movie. She explains how she first visited the Garden and Gun Club years before as a Jewish high school student on a trip from Sumter to Charleston one weekend, found a diverse and accepting community there, and how that ultimately resulted in her decision to move to Charleston and attend the College of Charleston. She later went to other gay venues, but referring to “the Gun Club,” she states, “there was no place like it anywhere,” and she made friends for life there. The Shulers discuss the trouble they went through in getting extras to work long hours for no pay and how they moved Seabrook into their Mount Pleasant, SC, home to save him from homelessness during the filming and how their children loved him. With digressions on Seabrook’s death and funeral, they return to the topic of the film, which won some acclaim and became a bit of a cult classic, without making a large impression locally. The Shulers did not make any money on the film, and possibly never seeing the final cut, they did not realize the social “message” of the film and its powerful impact on viewers.
Oral history interview conducted by College of Charleston Libraries Special Collections and Archives as part of the ongoing efforts to preserve, elevate, and document the stories and history of the LGBTQ+ community in South Carolina. Ann Borden Lee (pronouns: She/Her/Hers) discusses her life before and after transitioning. Born in Wilmington, NC in 1947, she was raised in a very spiritual family, and spent early years in Chapel Hill, NC, where she and a friend crossed dressed. Always feeling “alien” and faced with “an issue with no answer” regarding gender dysphoria, she became an overachiever, accomplishments being her only route to feeling normal. The family moved to Charleston where her father taught at the Citadel and Lee did a lot of “guy things”, trying to meet society’s expectations. She attended Davidson College, and the Medical University of South Carolina, later doing a residency in Florida. Concentrating on work was a way to disregard the tensions caused by trying to get others to believe that she “was a healthy, heterosexual cis-gendered male.” She married, lost her first wife of twelve years to breast cancer, a diagnosis that impacted their decision not to have children. Working for decades as a general and trauma surgeon, Lee woke up one day determined to claim her authentic self, and to fully engage in life. Much of the interview centers on the positive changes that have occurred since that day; she notes how her reading of the existentialists and her participating in Jungian dream work and discussions in Charlotte, NC, have given her frames of reference on life. No longer needing the shadow self, James to help her survive, she discusses patriarchy, the toll it takes on men and women, the different natures inherent in males and females and the issues facing other trans men and women, particular trans women of color. She describes her coming out on Facebook, relates reactions, and describes how she wants to re-engage, realizing she can’t demand instant acceptance, having lived as an “impostor” and a “liar” for years. Decrying homophobia, racism, and sexism, she describes how many “feel purer” by looking down on and attacking others. It was her outsider status, and her “woman’s heart” that marked her empathy as a surgeon, she believes. While acknowledging how privilege had worked for her, she champions women and discusses her late in life found peace, sometimes wishing it had happened sooner. A firm believer in God, she sees Charleston and society changing, and ends the interview discussing her new legal status, gender fluidity, surgical options, and her desire to live life to the fullest and represent and help those in her community.
Oral history interview conducted by College of Charleston Libraries Special Collections and Archives as part of the ongoing efforts to preserve, elevate, and document the stories and history of the LGBTQ+ community in South Carolina. Jacoba Wilhelmina Anneke Hein, known as Wilhelmina, (pronouns: She/Her/Hers) discusses her life and experiences before and after sex reassignment surgery; she also reflects on her six years as a minister in Charleston, SC from her home in Almelo, the Netherlands. Born nearby in Enscede in 1947, she was raised in a very strict evangelical family, emigrating to Australia when she was ten. She kept her interest in men and in women’s clothes secret, instead following religious expectations of community by marrying and having a child. Only upon reading transsexual Jan Morris’s book, Conundrum, did Hein discover her true self. Divorce followed, and when her sex reassignment surgery in Australia stalled, Hein lived as a gay man before completing the reassignment program in New Zealand at age 47. Having served as a pastor in the Metropolitan Community Church (MCC) in Australia, New Zealand and in Toledo, OH, Hein came to Charleston’s MCC in 2000. She found the weather “tropical” and her congregation, evangelical in spirit while cleaving to traditional liturgy, “almost schizophrenic.” She feels she made her congregation uneasy with her willingness to examine scripture and its context. Faced with church politics and vague allegations, she soon fell ill with diabetes and heart problems. When members of the congregation left the church soon after, they sought her leadership, and Open Door Christian Church was formed. Hein describes both congregations, their outreach and social justice efforts and her work as a minister and counselor in the greater community where she found acceptance. She notes that her Australian accent garnered more attention than her trans status. When her interest in Judaism lead to her attending Kahal Kadosh Beth Elohim synagogue, studying Hebrew, and considering conversion, she informed her congregation that she planned to resign in six months. But the board immediately dismissed her, and although she wanted to remain in Charleston for conversion, developments in the Netherlands allowed her to retire there immediately. She left in 2006. Hein speaks of her work in Charleston, its racism, her development of a local LGBTQ radio show, and her happiness and satisfaction there. Identifying as a heterosexual woman of faith, conversant with LGBTQ and spiritual issues, she does not feel that there is a need any longer for separate LGBTQ religious spaces since “ultimately the issue is to live in broader society.”
<p>Carolyn Kostopoulos, owner of Carelli Costumes, Inc. in New York, has been the wardrobe director of Spoleto Festival U.S.A. since 1982. Kostopoulos discusses her costume work for the festival over the years, the process of designing and creating, and the difference between her work on Broadway and Spoleto. She discusses her relationships with the artists who wear her designs and details the various costume headquarters she has had in Charleston including the haunted old city jail. Audio with transcript.</p>
Harold Stone Reeves, a native Charlestonian and lifelong performer, discusses the many aspects of his life since his birth in 1892, including his longtime interest in Gullah, attending the University of South Carolina, his commission with the Charleston Light Dragoons during World War I, his involvement with the Society for the Preservation of Spirituals, and his role as the first manager of the of the Charleston Social Security Office. Audio with transcript and tape log.
Rebecca Bryan discusses memories of her life in Charleston. She mentions a contest between the fire departments, the Womens Exchange on King Street, Dixie Antique Shop, transportation as a young girl, several significant earthquakes and hurricanes, the history of her house at 110 Broad Street, the Battery as a child, her childhood schooling, the Charleston Exposition of 1901, and a story about the Charleston Light Dragoons. Audio with transcript and tape log.
John Laurens graduated from the Citadel in 1910. During World War I Laurens was stationed with the Charleston Light Dragoons in El Paso, Texas and later in France. In the interview, Laurens enumerates his siblings and discusses various occurrences in his life and in Charleston including family vacations on the Southern Railroad, a bath house that was once located at the end of Tradd Street, the Charleston Exposition of 1901, a tornado that took off the steeple of St. Philips Church and a fire at the Anderson Lumber Company once located on Broad Street. Audio with transcript.
Interview with Dr. Joseph Hoffman by Lee Drago and Eugene Hunt, September 25, 1980 and October 9, 1980, AMN 500.001.003, in Avery Normal Institute Oral History Project, of the Avery Research Center at the College of Charleston.
Clark recalls what Johns Island was like when she became a teacher at the Promise Land School in 1916. Topics of discussion include transportation, the houses and living conditions on Johns Island, the importance of the Angel Oak tree to African Americans living on Johns Island, and the changes in the Angel Oak from 1916 to 1980.
Interview with Julia Craft DeCosta by Edmund Lee Drago and Eugene Hunt, September 11, 1980, AMN 500.001.004 in Avery Reseach Center Oral History Collection, of the Avery Research Center at the College of Charleston.
Charlotte Saltz Brotman was born in 1901 in Kolbuszowa, Galicia, Austria-Hungary, the youngest of seven children of Miriam Wolfe and Sholom Saltz. Sholom was an egg wholesaler, selling to customers in large cities such as Vienna and Berlin. In this interview conducted by her grandson Stephen, Charlotte talks about growing up in Kolbuszowa, a small city with a significant Jewish population. She has many fond memories of her childhood, recalling wedding and bar mitzvah celebrations. She received a solid secular education, belonged to a Zionist club as a young girl, and attended Hebrew school. Her family was "very religious" and they kept kosher. Both of her brothers and one of her sisters immigrated to the United States prior to World War I. The rest of the family had to evacuate to Czechoslovakia during World War I to avoid encroaching battles. Charlotte recounts the difficulties she faced after the war ended and they returned home. Their house had burned down and her parents died within months of each other, prompting her to join her siblings in New York City in 1921. She describes living and working in Manhattan, and notes that there were plenty of activities to enjoy in her spare time. The interviewee met her husband, Ralph Brotman in New York; they married in 1929 and, two years later, moved to Charleston, South Carolina. Ralph had lived in Charleston previously, running a men's store with his father, Jacob. Charlotte and Ralph opened an army store on King Street, which did a brisk business during World War II, with shipyard workers coming in regularly. After Ralph died in 1946, Charlotte wanted to sell the store, but couldn't get the price she sought. The right offer finally came in 1962. She sold the business and moved to Summerton, South Carolina, where her daughter, Miriam, and her husband, David Gordin, were raising their four children. Charlotte opened The Towne Shoppe, a ladies' dress shop there. The interviewee discusses her support for the State of Israel and its people, and reflects on the accomplishments of her grandchildren, Rachel, Debbie, Danny, and Stephen.
Interview with Eugene C. Hunt by Edmund L. Drago, August 28, 1980 and November 4, 1980, AMN 500.001.005.1980, in the Avery Normal Institute Oral History Project, of the Avery Research Center at the College of Charleston
Interview with Louise Mouzon by Edmund L. Drago and Eugene C. Hunt, November 20, 1980, AMN 500.001.008, in the Avery Normal Institute Oral History Project, of the Avery Research Center at the College of Charleston
Interview with Marcellus Forrest by Lee Drago, Eugene Hunt, and Margareta Childs, February 21, 1981, AMN 500.001.002, in Avery Normal Institute Oral History Project, of the Avery Research Center at the College of Charleston.
Interview with Ruby Cornwell by Edmund L. Drago and Eugene C. Hunt, November 24, 1981, AMN 500.001.001, in the Avery Normal Institute Oral History Project, at the Avery Research Center at the College of Charleston
Interview with Peter Poinsette by Edmund L. Drago and Eugene C. Hunt, March 31, 1981, AMN 500.001.007, in the Avery Normal Institute Oral History Project, of the Avery Research Center at the College of Charleston
Interview with Mary Moultrie by Jean-Claude Bouffard, July 28, 1982, AMN 500.009.005, in the Jean-Claude Bouffard Civil Rights Interviews, of the Avery Research Center at the College of Charleston
Longtime Charleston preservationist, Elizabeth Jenkins “Liz” Young, was born April 7, 1919 on Edisto Island. In this interview she conveys her love for Charleston and emphasizes the importance of its preservation, gives a brief lesson on the Gullah dialect, and discusses St. Michaels Church. Young also talks about Federal Memorial Day versus Confederate Memorial Day, a holiday designated to memorialize the soldiers lost in the Civil War, which she calls the “War Of Northern Aggression.” Audio with transcript and tape log.
Throughout the interview, world renowned painter and sculptor, William Halsey shares his views on art and the difficulties of being a contemporary artist in historic cities like Savannah and Charleston. He mentions studying under Elizabeth O’Neil Verner, attending the University of South Carolina, graduating from the Boston Museum School, living and painting in Mexico for two years on a fellowship from the Boston Museum School, as well as teaching at Telfair Academy and the College of Charleston. His wife, Mrs. Corrie Halsey, discusses her attendance at the University of South Carolina where she studied medical illustrating, her attendance at the Boston Museum School, and shares her experiences with juggling duties as both a mother and an artist. Audio with transcript and tape log.
Tom Waring discusses the history of Charleston, particularly the population growth in surrounding cities such as North Charleston in the first part of the twentieth century, its designation as the “Holy City,” poverty following the Civil War, the increase in employment during World War I, and the subsequent influx of newcomers to Charleston during World War II. Waring concludes the interview with a local Gullah Story. Hermina Waring discusses the legend behind her family’s silver service. Audio with transcript and tape log.
Dorothy Haskell Porcher Legge was a pioneer of historic preservation in Charleston. In this interview, Legge discusses her early efforts to restore homes on the peninsula and describes the restoration of her family’s residence at number 99 – 101 East Bay Street beginning in 1931. Legge worked privately and effectively to inspire the revitalization of this block of deteriorated eighteenth-century mercantile structures on East Bay Street which eventually came to be known as “Rainbow Row.” In the interview Legge also discusses growing up on Mulberry (on the Cooper River) and Bonny Hill (on the Combahee River) rice plantations and family history including the life of her mother’s grandfather, Rev. John Bachman. Audio with transcript and tape log.
First elected in 1970, Lonnie Hamilton was the first African American to serve on the Charleston County Council. In this interview Hamilton discusses teaching at Bonds Wilson High School in North Charleston, his decision to run for Charleston County Council, subsequent elections, and his daughter. Audio with transcript.
Mrs. Sparkman talks about several different ghost stories that are told about her house at 15 Legare Street in Charleston, South Carolina. Audio with transcript.
Interview with Anna D. Kelly by Edmund L. Drago, August 20, 1984, AMN 500.001.014, in the Avery Normal Institute Oral History Project, of the Avery Research Center at the College of Charleston
Interview with J. Michael Graves by Edmund L. Drago, March 7, 1985, AMN 500.001.006 1985, in the Avery Normal Institute Oral History Project, of the Avery Research Center at the College of Charleston
Interview with Eugene C. Hunt by Edmund L. Drago, December 4, 1985, AMN 500.001.005.1985, in the Avery Normal Institute Oral History Project, of the Avery Research Center at the College of Charleston
Interview with Felder Hutchinson by Edmund L. Drago and Eugene C. Hunt, July 16, 1985, in the Avery Normal Institute Oral History Project, of the Avery Research Center at the College of Charleston
Marian Calhoun Murray was born in Evanston, Illinois, and later moved with her family to Asheville, where she attended high school. While at Agnes Scott College, she was invited to a house party at Edisto, where she met her future husband, J.G. Murray, a native Edistonian. They married in 1935, in Asheville; she was henceforth known on Edisto as ‘the girl from off.’ The couple moved to the Island after a brief stay in Mt. Pleasant, where J.G. worked with Micah Jenkins at Boone Hall. Coming from the city, Marian had much to get used to when they moved to Edisto: the smell of pluff mud, no electricity, water delivered by a pump, and a wood stove to cook on. J.G. had gotten a job as landscape architect for the Edisto Beach State Park, being built by CCC workers. Marian and a friend tried to teach the young CCC workers to read and write—her first foray into teaching. Marian spoke briefly about the economy on Edisto in those early days, mentioning a repair shop, an oyster factory, several stores (Perry’s, Bailey’s, Posner’s), and farming, the backbone of the economy. By the mid-1940s, J.G. was managing the farm at Cypress Trees Plantation. Farming was done with mules, carts, and wagon, using the task system developed in the plantation days. Major crops were cabbages and potatoes. She also recounted memories of the hurricanes of 1940 and 1959 on Edisto, as well as wartime rationing. In 1941, when a vacancy came up at the Edisto Island School, Marian got a job teaching English, Latin, science, and biology. Parker Connor was the principal; other teachers during her time there included Sally Pope, Arlene Jenkins, Sarah Hopkinson, Lena Armstrong, Florence Park, and Clytie Sayer. Marian spoke of the strong support from the parent organization and from churches—only two at that time, she said, Presbyterian and Episcopalian—which put on annual holiday parties, operettas, and minstrel shows. The school underwent many changes during her 30-yeare tenure, including consolidation with mainland schools. The Edisto Island School closed in 1971, and Marian went on to teach at St. Paul’s Academy through 1976, serving in 1977 as headmistress. But she mourned the loss to Edisto: ‘We were sorry to see the school close,’ she said, ‘because that ended the main community spirit that held us together.’
Alice Bailey Stevens’ Edisto roots go back to 1720. She was born at Blue House Plantation, where she lived until 1929, when the family moved to Brookland Plantation. In 1945, she married Johnson Stevens of Lambs Bluff Plantation on Yonges Island. They had three children. She attended high school on Edisto, graduated from Winthrop, and did advanced studies in South Carolina history at the Citadel. She taught primary school for 26 years in Charlotte, Charleston, and Yonges Island. Asked to speak about the history of transportation on Edisto, Alice noted that every facet of life was affected by transportation or the lack thereof. She detailed the early modes: long boats owned by the plantation owners that could make their way to Charleston from North Edisto through a series of cuts. Those on the south end side had a much longer way to row. Lack of transportation also affected early Islanders’ opportunities for worship; they had to travel by boat to Church Flats on Dixie Plantation until they successfully petitioned to have their own church. It limited romantic opportunities as well, as travel between islands was challenging: ‘Some just had to marry the local girls,’ Alice noted. ‘They're still doing it.’ By 1910 the Stevens Line Company began providing daily service to Edisto. Alice gave a snapshot of her lineage: In the early 1800s, her great-grandmother married Ephraim Mikell and moved to Blue House, which his son, Ephraim Jr., inherited. It began as an indigo plantation, but also grew rice, some cotton, and had an orchard. After the boll weevil destroyed the cotton industry, truck farming took over (beans, cabbage, and seed potatoes that came from Prince Edward Island). The black women would sit in a circle, cutting potatoes, and singing spirituals, some 60 years after the Civil War had ended. She also talked about other African American traditions that endured: in cooking, in the language, and in agriculture. Other reminiscences: riding horses at Sea Cloud plantation, the bounty of Blue House, Brookland’s devastation, the practices of people from the Burrough, She ended her talk with a dramatic recounting of two catastrophic events on the Island (the 1886 earthquake and the 1893 hurricane), the first of which involved a crack in the earth in which water bubbled up as if it had ‘come straight up from hell,’ the second of which told of a tragedy that left a lone family survivor ‘fierce,’ and determined never to set her foot in water again.
Morris Mazursky, audio interview by Dale Rosengarten and Robert A. Moses, 9 February 1995, Mss-1035-006, Special Collections, College of Charleston, Charleston, SC, USA.;Morris Mazursky, who grew up in Sumter, South Carolina, recounts his father Abe Mazursky’s emigration in 1909 from Kobrin, Russia. Abe lived briefly in New York City before moving to Barnwell, South Carolina, home of his uncle Barney Mazursky, who hired him to work in his store. Abe soon moved to Mayesville, South Carolina, to help out in his cousin’s store, and later operated a dry goods business there with the help of wealthy lien merchant Henry Weinberg. When Abe and Henry’s partnership ended, Abe established his own store, The Beehive, also in Mayesville. Rabbi David Karesh of Columbia introduced Abe to his future wife, Mary Blatt, the daughter of Austrian immigrants Morris and Mamie Blatt, who had settled in Charleston in the late 1800s. Abe and Mary married in 1919 and moved with their two children, Helen and Morris, to Sumter four years later, where Abe had just opened another store called The Hub. Morris received his law degree from the University of South Carolina and worked with the firm Lee & Moise before starting his own practice in his hometown. He was elected to Sumter City Council in 1958 and served for twenty-eight years. With input from interviewer Robert Moses, also a Sumter native, Morris discusses the impact that segregation and poverty had on African Americans in the community, the effects of integration on the school system, and how the city upheld the provisions of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. In addition, the two men recall Sumter’s efforts to improve its economic base by attracting industry and note the decline of Temple Sinai’s congregation as the area’s Jewish population dwindled. Morris describes how he met his wife Marcia Weisbond Mazursky—they, like his parents, were married by Rabbi Karesh—and talks about their three children.
Henry Barnett’s grandfather, B. J. Barnett, emigrated from Estonia in the 1830s or ’40s and settled in Manville, South Carolina. He fought for the Confederacy in the Civil War and, around 1880, moved to Sumter where he opened a dry goods store and became a landowner and cotton farmer. Henry married Patty Levi, also of Sumter, and a descendant of Moses Levi, who had emigrated from Bavaria and settled in Manning, South Carolina.
Joseph Schafer, raised in Little Rock, South Carolina, was the grandson of Abraham Schafer, who emigrated from Germany around 1870. Abraham married Rebecca Iseman of Darlington, South Carolina, and established a dry goods store in Little Rock. Joseph describes his family history, race relations in Dillon County, and how his father, Sam, got started in the beer distribution business in the 1930s. He also discusses his children and his siblings, particularly his brother Alan, who was the founder of South of the Border, the all-inclusive rest stop for travelers on I-95 in Dillon.
Flossie Ginsberg Arnold and her son, Norman Arnold, discuss their family history. Flossie and her parents, Isaac and Pauline Ginsberg, immigrated to Charleston, South Carolina, from Russia around 1908, when Flossie was about one year old. Flossie recalls living on Hanover Street in the neighborhood they referred to as “Little Mexico,” where her family owned a small grocery store. Ultimately, the Ginsbergs moved to a home on Ashley Avenue and Isaac opened I. Ginsberg, Inc., on Meeting Street, selling cigars, candy, and notions. Flossie was working behind the cash register when her future husband, Ben Arnold, walked in. Charleston was a port of call for the Clyde Line steamer Ben was taking to New York from Florida, where he operated drugstores in Lake Worth and West Palm Beach. Flossie and Ben married in 1928 and shortly after, moved from Florida to Charleston, lured by the presence of family and a Jewish community, and Isaac’s offer to include Ben in the family business. Isaac and Ben developed a wholesale tobacco and drugstore enterprise with locations in several South Carolina cities, including Columbia, the state capital. Ben ran the Columbia store, which they expanded to include liquor. Around 1940 Flossie, Ben, and their son, Arnold, moved to the capital city, and in the mid-’40s, Isaac and Ben split up the business, Isaac keeping the tobacco distributorship, and Ben assuming full control of the liquor operation.
Stanley Karesh grew up in the Hampton Park Terrace neighborhood of Charleston, South Carolina, in the 1920s and ’30s. His family kept kosher and attended Brith Sholom. Stanley describes the shoe store his grandfather Charles Karesh built at 545 King Street. Charles immigrated with his wife, Sarah Orlinsky Karesh, to Charleston, circa 1878, from their hometown of Trestina (Trzcianne), in Polish Russia. They operated a store in the small town of Greeleyville, South Carolina, for a few years before returning with their growing family to Charleston, eager to live in a larger Jewish community. Stanley refers to a number of Charleston families, including Rittenberg, Friedman, Bielsky, Barshay, Kaminski, Jacobs, Banov, Livingstain, and Pearlstine, many of whom are related to the Kareshes. He also mentions his maternal grandparents, Harry and Anna Smolensky Feinberg, and cousin Rabbi David Karesh of Columbia. Stanley attended dental school in Baltimore, where he met Charlot Marks. The couple married in 1945 in her hometown of Greensboro, North Carolina. They raised three daughters in Charleston, and they were one of the first families to move to South Windermere, a subdivision west of the Ashley River. Stanley discusses the changes over time in relations between members of the Orthodox and the Reform synagogues and between the two Orthodox congregations, Brith Sholom and Beth Israel. He and Charlot, the youngest charter members of Conservative Synagogue Emanu-El, which broke away from Brith Sholom in 1947, recount its origins and offer their view of how its members differed from the Orthodox congregants from whom they split.
Hannah Prystowsky Rubin, born in Charleston in 1916, recounts the story of her grandparents’ immigration to the United States from Zabludow, Poland, circa 1890. Ezra and Mollie Prystowsky followed the Jacobs family, also from Zabludow, to Charleston, South Carolina, where Ezra repaired shoes for a living before opening a men’s clothing store. Hannah’s father, Mike Prystowsky, was a tailor and worked with his brothers in the family’s King Street store, “E. Prystowsky & Sons, Mike-Sam-Jake.” She describes growing up on St. Philip Street, surrounded by extended family, and recalls members of two branches of the Mazo family—the Uptown Mazos and the Downtown Mazos—who operated delicatessens above and below Calhoun Street. In 1938 Hannah married Samuel Rubin of Columbia, son of wholesaler Joseph Rubin and Bessie Peskin Rubin. Within five years they had three small children. Hannah discusses Sam’s two-year stint in the army during World War II, and how she helped two German Jewish families, who survived the war, become acclimated to life in America after settling in Columbia.
Fannie Appel Rones shares her memories of growing up on St. Philip Street in Charleston, South Carolina, between the world wars. The neighborhood was diverse—home to blacks, whites, Catholics, Jews, Greeks, and Italians. Fannie talks about her parents, Abraham and Ida Goldberg Appel (Ubfal), emigrants from Kaluszyn, Poland, and recalls stories her mother told her about the Old Country. She discusses the differences between Charleston’s “uptown” and “downtown” Jews and the Orthodox synagogues, Brith Sholom and Beth Israel. Fannie also relates her experiences as a member of Charleston’s Conservative synagogue, Emanu-El, and Reform temple, Kahal Kadosh Beth Elohim.
Saul Krawcheck was born in 1926 in Charleston, South Carolina, to Esther Freda Bielsky and Jack Krawcheck, immigrants from the Bialystok region of present-day Poland. Jack ran Jack’s Clothiers, a cash-only business, located first on the corner of King and Vanderhorst streets, later moving to 313 King Street. Saul talks about his extended family, including his Krawcheck and Bielsky grandparents, aunts, and uncles. His grandfather Zorach Bielsky served as the cantor for Beth Israel for a time. Saul and his family were members of Brith Sholom, and Saul attended junior congregation every Saturday morning as a boy. The interviewee recalls Agnes Jenkins, an African-American woman who cooked for the family for sixty years. She came from Wadmalaw Island and prepared traditional southern meals for the Krawchecks, while adhering to kosher standards. Saul discusses social divisions in the local Jewish community he observed growing up and laments the self-segregation of Jews in Charleston at the time of the interview. They “have ghettoized themselves. . . It didn’t used to be that way. It has only become that way.” He notes that the Greek community has isolated itself more than any other group in Charleston. Saul describes his father’s civic activities, in particular his work in the historic preservation movement. Jack was president of the Preservation Society of Charleston for two terms, and his store at 313 King, which he bought in 1938, was the first property to undergo adaptive-use restoration, for which he received the first Carolopolis Award. Saul talks briefly about his daughters Maxine, Marcy, and Beth, and their families. For a related collection, see Jack Krawcheck business records, Mss. 1026, Special Collections, College of Charleston.
Edna Ginsberg Banov, in the third of three interviews, talks about her father-in-law, Sam Banov and his men’s store on the corner of King and Spring streets in Charleston, South Carolina. Sam, who emigrated from Russia by way of England, dispensed a number of home remedies from his shop, which Edna describes here and in her first interview. She reads from her memoirs a passage she wrote about Suzy, an African American woman who worked for the Banovs for decades. The interviewee discusses the cake-baking business she started with Hattie Kronsberg that targeted homesick Citadel freshmen, and notes that she “started the first market research business in Charleston.” Edna recalls childhood memories of shnorrers, Jewish men collecting for charities, coming through town, and Yom Kippur services held in Brith Sholom, one of Charleston’s Orthodox synagogues. She had difficulty relating to Orthodox religious practices and “felt more at home” in the Conservative Synagogue Emanu-El, organized in 1947. She and her husband, Milton Banov, were among the founding families; she explains the motivations of those families in leaving Brith Sholom and offers details about her own spiritual practices. Edna is joined near the end of the interview by Beatrice “Beatsie” Bluestein Solow, a cousin, and the two briefly reminisce. See also Edna Banov’s interviews of November 2, 1995 (Mss. 1035-045) and November 9, 1995 (Mss. 1035-046). For a related collection, see the Edna Ginsberg Banov papers, Mss. 1039, Special Collections, College of Charleston.
Solomon “Sol” Breibart was born in Charleston, South Carolina, in 1914, the oldest of five children of Russian immigrants Ida Goldberg and Sam Breibart. The Breibarts moved from New York to Charleston in 1914, where they opened a corner grocery store. Sol describes the physical layout of his parents’ store on Meeting Street and how his father ran the business. He recalls the locations of his uncle Harry Goldberg’s grocery stores and identifies the owners of other markets and bakeries he knew while growing up. The interviewee discusses two groups of Charleston Jews known to locals as the Uptown Jews and the Downtown Jews: who they were in terms of origin, which synagogues they attended, and how they related to one another. He speaks briefly about the merger of Beth Israel and Brith Sholom and describes the first Beth Israel building on St. Philip Street. The Breibarts were Orthodox Jews and they kept kosher, yet Sam closed the store only on the High Holidays. Sol remembers how the shochet killed chickens for his mother and the dishes she cooked for the family, and he talks about his siblings, George, Mickey, Sidney, and Jack. Note: See Mss. 1035-279 for a second interview with Solomon Breibart dated March 16, 2004. Special Collections, Addlestone Library, College of Charleston is the repository for the Solomon Breibart professional papers, Mss. 1084, and the Breibart family photographs, Mss. 1034-108.
Jerome Moskow, born in 1917 in Andrews, South Carolina, grew up in Sumter, South Carolina, the oldest of four children. He describes how his father, Robert Moskow, at about age twelve, circa 1905, made his way from Russia, to South Carolina, via New York City. Robert, while working as a packer for a New York merchandiser, accepted an offer from customer John Heinemann to join him in South Carolina. Heinemann employed Robert in his dry goods store in Andrews and enrolled him in high school. Jerome discusses his mother's ancestry and how his parents met. Eva Cox Moskow, born into a Christian family, converted to Judaism, Robert's faith. The Moskows observed the Sabbath, attended services at Temple Sinai in Sumter, and invited their Christian friends to their Passover Seders. Jerome recalls the names of a number of merchants in Georgetown, Williamsburg, Clarendon, and Sumter counties. His father ran a few small shops before joining H. Brody & Sons in Sumter. In 1934 the Moskows moved back to Andrews and opened their own business. Jerome recounts how he met his wife, Mary, who, like his mother, converted from Christianity to Judaism. He talks about his siblings, his three children, his accounting business, his involvement in civic organizations, and the Andrews town offices that he has held, including chair of the school board during integration in the 1960s. He has been a member of Beth Or in Kingstree since its founding in 1945. He provides some history of the congregation and reports on its status at the time of the interview.
Rosa From Poliakoff was born in Union, South Carolina, in 1914, to Israel and Bertha From, who emigrated from Ponevezys, Lithuania, around the turn of the twentieth century. The Froms settled in Union in 1905 and, two years later, Israel, who initially was a peddler, opened I. From Dry Goods & Notions. Rosa reports that they were the only Jewish family in Union. The Froms acquired a Torah and hosted services in their home for Jews who lived in nearby towns. Eventually, they joined Spartanburg’s B’nai Israel and donated their Torah to that congregation. Rosa notes that her mother was very observant and both parents stressed the importance of education and their Jewish identity. Rosa graduated from Agnes Scott College in Atlanta and taught in that city for three years before marrying Myer Poliakoff. She recalls how she met her future husband at a Yudedum Club dance in Columbia. They raised their three children in Abbeville, South Carolina, where they ran the D. Poliakoff Department Store, established in 1900 by Myer’s father, David. Rosa describes a From family car trip to Worcester, Massachusetts, to visit Israel’s family, the effects of the Great Depression on local Jewish merchants, and how the Poliakoffs came to settle in Abbeville. The transcript includes comments inserted by the interviewee during proofreading.
Norman Baum was born in 1921 in Camden, South Carolina, the elder of two sons (the younger was Bernard Jr.) of Bernard Baum and his second wife, Minnie Tewel. Minnie was a private-duty nurse from New Jersey who accompanied a patient to Camden and ended up staying to work in the local hospital. When she was introduced to Bernard, he was a widower with two sons, Williams and Herman. Norman discusses Baum family members of note, including a relative named Eltenbaum who fought in the American Revolution and three of his nephews who settled in Camden and fought in the Civil War. Marcus Baum died in the war. His brothers, Herman and Mannes, survived and returned to their dry goods store. The Baums were lien merchants and became landowners, acquiring acreage through foreclosures. Norman recalls three plantations the family owned in the Camden area: Lockhart, Vinegar Hill, and Lugoff. His father was a planter, a merchant, the supervisor of a cannery, and the first bottler of Coca-Cola in Camden. Norman describes how his mother used her business acumen to supplement the family’s income. The family lived in a home known as the Greenleaf Villa on Broad Street in Camden. He talks about his brothers and tells stories about members of the extended family, including the Baruchs, also of Camden. The Baums attended Temple Beth El, a small Reform congregation in Camden. The interviewee remembers attending Sunday school at the larger Temple Sinai in Sumter and notes that as a child he was unfamiliar with many Jewish religious traditions and did not receive instruction in Hebrew. Norman and his nephew Garry Baum, who participated in the interview, recount instances of antisemitism, although Norman adds that that he never experienced antisemitism while working in the movie or clothing industries. One of his jobs was working in 20th Century-Fox’s costume division on the movie set for Cleopatra; he was responsible for Elizabeth Taylor’s costume, which required frequent altering during filming. For related collections, see the Minnie Tewel Baum papers, the Williams Baum papers, and the Baum family papers in Special Collections, College of Charleston.
Edna Ginsberg Banov, born in Charleston, South Carolina, in 1908, expands upon the stories she shared in her first interview. A daughter of Pauline Kop and Isaac Ginsberg, of Vitebsk Gubernia, Belarus, Russia, she talks about her mother’s family and her parents’ wedding, which took place in the Old Country. She notes that her father worked in the Kimberley diamond mines in South Africa before the marriage. Edna reads from some of her writings about life in the Jewish neighborhood of upper King and St. Philip streets when she was growing up. The Ginsbergs were strictly kosher and Edna describes their diet and the meals her mother cooked. She tells a number of stories, including how the family didn’t know her birth date and how her father disciplined her when she was a young girl for taking something that didn’t belong to her. Edna remembers an African American woman they called Old Suzy, who worked for the Sam Banov family for years, Edna’s in-laws, and later worked for Edna and her husband, Milton Banov. See also Edna Banov’s interviews of November 2, 1995 (Mss. 1035-045) and November 14, 1995 (Mss. 1035-048). For a related collection, see the Edna Ginsberg Banov papers, Mss. 1039, Special Collections, College of Charleston.
Florence Mazo Nirenblatt was born in 1911, one of ten children of Essie Tandet and Elihu Mazo, Russian immigrants who ran a kosher deli and grocery store at 478 King Street in Charleston, South Carolina. Florence, whose nickname is “Boomalee,” talks about her parents and siblings and describes the family business. Elihu’s brother Dave Mazo opened a grocery store at 171 King Street and turned it over to another brother, George. Dave then opened another business in Folly Beach, South Carolina, a little over ten miles from Charleston. Florence speaks briefly of her cousins (George’s children) Norma, Earl, and Frances Mazo. She remembers the Truere family, in particular, Harry and “Jew Joe” Truere. The interviewee moved to New York City when she was about eighteen and eloped with Brooklynite Bernard Nirenblatt. In later years, Florence moved back to Charleston, bringing her husband and children, Norman and Marilyn, and their spouses with her.
Virginia Moise Rosefield, born in 1909 to Anita Harby and David DeLeon Moise, describes growing up in her hometown of Sumter, South Carolina. She relates stories about a number of Harby and Moise ancestors, among them the first to arrive in South Carolina, Abraham and Sarah Moise, who fled a slave uprising in St. Domingue in 1791; their grandson and Virginia's great-grandfather Edwin Warren Moise, who raised a cavalry regiment in the Civil War and established the law firm Lee & Moise in Sumter; and her great-grandmother Octavia Harby Moses, daughter of Isaac Harby, a founder of the Reformed Society of Israelites in Charleston. Virginia explains why her father changed his given name from Harmon to Davis. Davis, who followed his father, Marion Moise, into the law practice co-founded by Edwin Warren Moise, was a South Carolina legislator. Virginia describes a trip she took across country in 1931 to visit her cousin Alva Solomons, who was a naval officer stationed in California. She married New Englander Herbert Rosefield, whose father opened a hosiery factory in Sumter. Also present are Virginia's daughter, Anita Moise Rosefield Rosenberg, and fellow Sumter native and distant relative Robert Moses. The three discuss their congregation, Temple Sinai, in particular, its rabbis, lay leaders, and Sunday school when they were growing up. They note the changes in the rituals of Reform congregations that have occurred across three generations of the Rosefield/Rosenberg family.
Corinne Levy Philips, born in 1923 in Sumter, South Carolina, to Pauline Greenwood Gardner (of Savannah) and George Davis Levy, relates her father's family history, including stories dating to the Civil War. She describes how her family celebrated the Jewish holidays, noting that they were ultra-Reform and members of Temple Sinai in Sumter. She recalls decisions made by their rabbi, Samuel Shillman, that she believes drove members away. He held Sunday school classes on Saturdays, in direct competition with a popular local theater program. In later years he refused to marry Corinne and her husband, John Philips, because John was Catholic. John, a New Jersey native, met Corinne during World War II when he was a cadet at Shaw Field, an army air base in Sumter. The interviewee discusses her feelings about being Jewish and the changes she has observed in Reform practices. "I feel like they're running people away. Instead of modernizing, they're going backwards. . . ." Corinne and interviewer Robert Moses, a friend and neighbor, talk about Jewish stereotypes and their desire to "not be different." They also share their impressions of school integration in Sumter in the 1960s. Note: the transcript includes comments and corrections made by the interviewee during proofing.
George Chaplin, in follow-up to his September 27, 1995, interview (Mss. 1035-040), recalls some of the other Jewish families that lived in his native city, Columbia, South Carolina, in particular his relatives, the Berkovitzes. He remembers sensing a separation between Columbia's German Jews and the more recent Jewish immigrants from Russia and Poland. He describes incidences of antisemitism he experienced in school, noting he was "made to feel something of an outsider." When Chaplin was in high school, his family moved to Greenville, where his father opened Piedmont Pawnshop across the street from Zaglin's kosher meat market. The interviewee attended Clemson Agricultural College, at that time a military academy, and was responsible for ending compulsory church attendance each Sunday for the cadets. Chaplin, who comments on the necessary functions of newspapers and their editors, discusses his long career in newspaper journalism. First he worked for the conservative Greenville Piedmont in Greenville, South Carolina, right out of Clemson (he took a leave of absence from the Greenville Piedmont to accept the year-long Nieman Fellowship at Harvard, where he studied race relations and formed a discussion group consisting of Nieman fellows and black graduate students); then the Stars and Stripes Pacific during World War II; David Stern's Camden, New Jersey, papers, prior to and during a strike in 1947; the liberal San Diego Journal in the late 1940s, when the paper won a national award for investigative reporting; David Stern's "crusading paper," the New Orleans Item, which ultimately was sold to its competitor, the Times-Picayune; and finally the Honolulu Advertiser, from 1958 to retirement, during which time the paper won sixty national awards. Chaplin talks about his younger sister, Kay, and her family; his perception of race relations in Charleston in the late 1940s; his religious practices, and why he and his wife, Esta Solomon Chaplin, who both came from strict Orthodox families, chose to raise their two children in the Reform tradition. He is joined briefly during the interview by Esta. His daughter, Jerri, provided comments and corrections to the transcript during proofing.
David Alexander Cohen, Jr., born and raised in Darlington, South Carolina, recalls stories of the Hennig and Witcover families while sorting through documents, among them, mortgages, deeds, and bonds acquired by his grandfather, Henry Hennig, a lien merchant. Henry, a German immigrant, operated a general merchandise store in Darlington, and boarded at the home of Dora and Wolf Witcover before marrying their daughter Lena. David’s father, who was in the wholesale grocery and fertilizer business in Darlington, offered his African-American customers credit, and acted as a protector of sorts for those who needed help with personal matters. His great-uncle Hyman Witcover was a respected architect who designed the former Park Hotel in Darlington and numerous buildings in Savannah, Georgia, including city hall. David remembers going to the Florence train station with his father to pick up Rabbi Raisin of Charleston’s Beth Elohim, who conducted services one weekend a month for the Florence and Darlington congregations. In later years Darlington Jews hired rabbis from Sumter and Florence to lead services. David married Kathleen Hyman and they raised four children in Darlington. He describes his and other family members’ involvement in the Darlington Hebrew Congregation and Beth Israel Congregation of Florence. Note: Corrections and additions made during proofing by the interviewee’s wife and son are in brackets with their initials. Mr. Cohen provided interviews on three separate days. The July 12, 1995, and October 26, 1995, interviews were recorded on Tape 1. The October 27, 1995, interview was recorded on Tape 2. Mr. Cohen donated his papers, the subject of most of Tape 1 and all of Tape 2, to Special Collections, College of Charleston. See the David A. Cohen, Jr. collection, Mss. 1021.
Sylvan and Meyer Rosen, brothers and natives of Georgetown, South Carolina, recall growing up in the coastal city and socializing regularly with gentiles. The Jewish congregation, Beth Elohim, too small to support a rabbi, received support from Charleston’s Kahal Kadosh Beth Elohim. The brothers name of some of Georgetown’s Jewish families and provide background on their extended families, the Lewenthals, Weinbergs, and Rosens. Their father, Harry Rosen, and their uncle Albert Schneider, who married sisters Dora and Fannie Lewenthal, operated The New Store, which initially sold men’s and ladies’ clothing and later furniture and appliances. Besides practicing law in Georgetown, both men held political office—Sylvan as mayor and Meyer as a state legislator.
Philip Schneider, born and raised in Georgetown, South Carolina, and Charlestonian Alwyn Goldstein, who moved to Georgetown in 1938 to open a store, discuss the town’s Jewish religious and business life. Among the merchants were Philip’s grandmother, Sally Lewenthal, and his father, Albert Schneider, who went into business with Philip’s uncle, Harry Rosen. Both interviewees recall the effects of the Great Depression in their native cities.
Raymond Stern grew up in Andrews, South Carolina, where his father, the son of emigrants from Eastern Europe, established Stern’s Dry Goods in 1932. Raymond recalls Melvin Hornik, a Charleston wholesaler, and discusses his childhood friends and Jewish merchants in Andrews, Lane, and Kingstree, including his uncle Charlie Tucker, who was from Baltimore. Tucker was one of the first Jewish merchants to come to this rural region between the midlands and the coast. The Sterns were members of Congregation Beth Elohim in Georgetown and, later, Raymond’s parents also attended services at Kingstree’s Temple Beth Or. After he graduated from the University of South Carolina and served four years in the air force, Raymond returned home and joined his father in the family business. He assumed control of the store around 1965. At the time of this interview, it was still open. Raymond married Florence Harris, a school teacher, and they raised four children in Andrews, Georgetown, and Charleston. Note: audio quality is poor.
Robert M. Zalkin grew up in Charleston during the Great Depression, a grandson of Lithuanian immigrant Robert (Glick) Zalkin, who opened Zalkin’s Kosher Meat and Poultry Market on King Street. Robert served in the army during World War II, earned an engineering degree from the University of South Carolina, and married Harriet Rivkin, whose father ran a delicatessen in Columbia.
Samuel "Sam" Appel, born in Charleston, South Carolina, in 1929, talks about growing up on St. Philip Street in a neighborhood he remembers as predominantly Jewish. Sam and his sister, Faye "Fannie" Rones, who sits in on this interview, describe their parents, Ida Goldberg and Abe Appel (Ubfal), both immigrants from Kaluszyn, Poland, and their brothers, Harry and Sidney. Sam recalls his mother performing the Jewish ritual shlug kapores during the High Holidays, and he shares memories of his bar mitzvah and his activities as a member of Boy Scout Troop 21 and Aleph Zadik Aleph. Although the Appels were members of Beth Israel, one of two Orthodox synagogues in town, Sam says "We were not Orthodox," reasoning that while his parents, especially his mother, followed many of the Sabbath rules of observance, they made compromises. For example, Abe and Ida opened their King Street furniture store on Saturdays. The siblings consider the interviewer's question about perceived differences between what some locals call Charleston's Uptown Jews and Downtown Jews. Sam, who earned an accounting degree at the University of South Carolina, ultimately settled in Atlanta, Georgia, because there were not enough single Jewish women to date in Charleston. He married Judy Eagle of Montgomery, Alabama, in 1960, and the couple raised three children in Atlanta. Sam became a lawyer after taking night classes at Emory University. He discusses his involvement in the Jewish Georgian, an independent community publication based in the Atlanta area.
Nat Shulman was born in 1914 in Newark, New Jersey, to Bessie Tanzman and Abraham Shulman, who emigrated from Poland and Romania, respectively, in the early 1900s. Nat talks about his Jewish education at Adas Israel in Newark, his bar mitzvah, his mother’s preparations for the Sabbath, and his father’s produce business and wine-making avocation. Nat and his sister, Gertrude, and brother, Joseph (“Jerry”), grew up hearing Yiddish, Polish, and Russian spoken at home. Nat learned how to read and write Yiddish. In 1938, two years after graduating from Upsala College in East Orange, New Jersey, Nat married Lillian Rosenstein, also of Newark. They moved to Baltimore in the early 1940s, where Nat worked for the National Jewish Welfare Board (NJWB), one of the agencies that comprise United Service Organizations (USO). He describes the services the NJWB provided for the military men stationed in the Baltimore vicinity. He was transferred to Charleston, South Carolina, in 1943, where he and Lillian raised their children, Elaine, Sanford, and David. During the remainder of World War II, Nat coordinated with Jewish communities up and down the South Carolina coast to provide services and entertainment for Jewish military personnel. The NJWB sought to organize Jewish groups at the local level during peacetime as well, using the wartime model. The result in Charleston was the opening of the Jewish Community Center in September 1945 on St. Philip Street. Nat was its first director, a position he held for twenty-seven years. The interviewee discusses a number of topics regarding Charleston’s Jewish community: a failed attempt to organize a community center on George Street in the 1920s; relations among congregants of the Reform and Orthodox synagogues; distinctions made between Uptown Jews and Downtown Jews; how World War II, the Holocaust, and the State of Israel unified Jews; prejudice toward African Americans; school integration and the change in residential patterns that followed; memories of Joe Truere, Rabbi Jacob Raisin, and Rabbi Burton Padoll. Nat recalls what American Jews knew about what was happening to the Jews in Europe during the Second World War and comments on their response. He summarizes his efforts to fight discrimination against African Americans in the 1940s and ?50s; the founding of the Charleston Jewish Community Relations Committee in 1959; and the 1972 establishment of the Charleston Jewish Welfare Fund, later renamed the Charleston Jewish Federation (CJF). Nat details how the CJF has sponsored the settlement of more than 100 Russian refugees beginning in 1980, and he offers his view of what constitutes an antisemitic incident. Note: Special Collections, Addlestone Library, College of Charleston, is the repository for the Nat Shulman papers, the Jewish Community Center papers, the Charleston Jewish Community Relations Committee papers, and Charleston Jewish Federation publications.
Sam Rogol, born in 1914 to Gussie Roseman and David Rogol, talks about growing up in Williston, South Carolina, nearly forty miles east of Augusta, Georgia, where his maternal grandparents lived. Sam describes his father’s store in Williston, a dry goods business David ran from 1911 until his death fifty-two years later. The interviewee recalls the wholesalers his father patronized and the drummers who came through town, hoping to sell their wares. A number of Jewish families lived in Williston or in nearby towns; Sam remembers the Bergers, Gaisers, Garbers, Mazurskys, Shapiros, and Wengrows. He discusses the Great Depression and speculates as to why his father fared as well as he did. The Rogols didn’t keep kosher, but observed the Sabbath at home and attended High Holiday services in Augusta, where Sam also studied for his bar mitzvah. After graduating from law school in the late 1930s, Sam and his first wife, Lillian Katz, settled in Darlington, South Carolina, where Sam worked for Samuel Want. Rogol was drafted by the army during World War II and served as a court martial clerk. He then graduated from Officer Candidate School and was assigned to the war crime trials in Japan. After discharge from the army, he returned to Darlington and Want’s law practice, leaving it to open his own office upon Want’s death in December 1953. When the Rogols moved to Darlington, there were established Jewish congregations in Darlington and Florence (about ten miles to the southeast), but neither had a building. Sam and Lillian tended to go to Florence for services since the congregation had a younger membership. Sam observes that after World War II ended, the city of Florence expanded—and with it the Jewish population—while the Darlington congregation began to shrink. When Florence’s Beth Israel built a synagogue in 1949, the Rogols joined the congregation. Sam remarks on the status of the congregation at the time of the interview and discusses his involvement in civic affairs in and around Darlington, noting he has not experienced antisemitism. Sam talks about his son, Marshall, and daughter, Martha, and Lillian’s illness that led to her death in 1974. Sam’s second wife, Beatrice “Bea” Katz Sodden Rogol, who joins him for a portion of the interview, is Lillian’s cousin. The interviewee comments on the Darlington school system and the degree to which it remains segregated. Regarding Jewish involvement in civil rights: “We Jews kept quiet. We didn’t stick our neck out for the blacks.”
Rose Iseman Jacobs Webster begins this interview by reading excerpts from the Weinberg family history researched and written by Robert A. Weinberg. Rose’s mother, Edith Weinberg, was the daughter of Rosa Iseman and Abram Weinberg of Darlington, South Carolina. Edith and her siblings were raised Jewish. One of Abram’s brothers, Isaac, who also settled in Darlington, married a gentile, and they did not raise their children as Jews. Because Rosa did not approve of the intermarriage, the cousins were not close. Rose’s father, Theodore Cecil Jacobs, grew up in Kingstree, South Carolina, the eleventh of twelve children of German immigrants Mary Gewinner and Louis Jacobs. Louis, who arrived in Charleston, South Carolina, in 1859, according to a short memoir he wrote, served in Bachman’s Battery, Hampton Legion, in the Army of Northern Virginia during the Civil War. Reading from his account, Rose relates how he ended up in Kingstree after the war and lists the various positions he held in local government and the businesses he ran in Kingstree and Charleston. Rose, born in 1926, describes growing up in Kingstree with her older brother Harold, noting that they had very little exposure to Judaism. Although she had two good friends who were Jewish, she spent a lot of time with her Christian friends, including attending church services. Her father and one of his brothers owned a grocery store and farms with black and white sharecroppers. Rose, who attended Winthrop College, recalls her first job as a home demonstration agent in Darlington and Conway, South Carolina. She married Joe Webster, a Christian, in 1950, and their three children, Neal, Roseanne, and Ted, were born in Dillon, South Carolina. After her youngest was born, Rose converted and joined the Baptist Church. “I told Joe I wanted the children raised in his faith. I had felt sort of like a fish out of water in Kingstree, and I wanted them to have a feeling of belonging.” Joe joins Rose for a portion of the interview and talks about what they did with the farms they inherited from Rose’s father in the early 1960s, as well as the changes that occurred in the farming industry by the 1970s. Also present is co-interviewer Sadie Bogoslow Want, who married Rose’s cousin, LeRoy Manuel Want. For related materials in Special Collections, College of Charleston, see the Weinberg family papers, Mss. 1002; the Solomons and Weinberg family papers, Mss 1134; and the Weinberg and Moses family papers, Mss. 1135. Note: photocopies of the documents that Rose reads from in her interview are available in the Jewish Heritage Collection Fieldwork Files, Special Collections, College of Charleston.
Libby Friedman Levinson, the youngest of seven children of Betty Alpern and Isadore Friedman, was born in Grajewo, Poland, in 1909. Isadore immigrated to the United States a month before Germany declared war on Russia in 1914. He settled in Charleston, South Carolina, home to a number of Betty’s relatives and landsmen from Trestina (Trzcianne), including the Karesh, Pearlstine, and Jacobs families. Betty and the children intended to follow as soon as they could sell their house and furniture, but World War I prevented their emigration until just after the fighting ended. Libby describes how her mother and siblings survived the war and their trip from Poland to Charleston afterward. She discusses family members, in particular, her sister Annie, who married Louis Lourie of St. George, and her sister Minnie, who married Jake Kalinsky of Holly Hill. Libby married Charles Levinson of Bishopville; after living briefly in Branchville and North, South Carolina, they moved to Barnwell, where they raised two children. The transcript includes comments inserted by the interviewee during proofreading.
Isaac Jacobs, who grew up in Charleston, South Carolina, discusses his family history, including the 1855 immigration of his grandfathers Louis Pearlstine, who settled in Branchville, South Carolina, and Isaac Jacobs (Karesh). Jacobs, a native of Poland, operated a dry goods store in Charleston and was a founder of the Orthodox synagogue Brith Sholom. The interviewee’s father, Louis Jacobs, ran a shoe store in Charleston for 28 years before switching to the hosiery business. In 1931, he opened Jacobs’ Hosiery Company, and was joined by his sons, Isaac and Melvin. Isaac describes how his father got started in the wholesale sock industry and his own experiences as a traveling salesman selling merchandise to immigrant Sephardic store owners in Myrtle Beach, among others. Isaac briefly worked for the Civilian Conservation Corps, and served in the army in the Pacific theater during World War II. He married Ruth Bass of North, South Carolina, who joins him in this interview. Note: The audio quality of this recording is poor. Corrections and additions to the transcript were made by Isaac and/or his wife, Ruth, during proofing. See Mss. 1035-009 for the second part of this interview, dated February 22, 1995, and Mss. 1035-173 for another interview on January 26, 1998.
In the second part of an interview, Isaac Jacobs continues his discussion of his family history, including how his mother’s family name, Farber, was changed to Pearlstine in Trestina, Poland. His mother, Ethel Pearlstine of Branchville, married Louis Jacobs (Karesh) in 1908, and the couple raised eight children in the Hampton Park Terrace neighborhood of Charleston, South Carolina. Isaac describes his siblings, his aunts and uncles on the Jacobs side, and relays anecdotes passed down in the family about life in Charleston. Isaac also talks about his experiences in the military during World War II. He married Ruth Bass of North, South Carolina, who joins him in this interview. Note: The audio quality of this recording is poor. Corrections and additions to the transcript were made by Isaac and/or his wife, Ruth, during proofing. See Mss. 1035-005 for the first part of this interview, dated February 1, 1995, and Mss. 1035-173 for another interview on January 26, 1998.
Moses Kornblut grew up in Latta, South Carolina, the son of Leon Kornblut and Lizzie Schafer. He operated the family business, Kornblut’s Department Store, for 76 years, served on the Latta City Council for over three decades, and was a leading member of the Dillon synagogue, Ohav Shalom.
George Chaplin talks about growing up in Columbia, South Carolina, the son of Netty Brown (Bojarski) and Morris Chaplin (Tschaplinsky). Morris emigrated from Bialystok to the United States around 1906 and worked in shoe factories in Massachusetts. He followed his friend and landsman, Max Citron, to Columbia, South Carolina, where he peddled before running a retail, and later, a wholesale shoe business with his brother. Netty came to the United States from Lithuania, and worked in New York and then Boston, where she met Morris. The two were married in Columbia by Rabbi David Karesh. George names a number of Jewish residents who lived in Columbia during his childhood, and recalls that there wasn't much "mingling" between the Orthodox and the Reform Jews. When he was a sophomore in high school, the Chaplin family moved to Greenville, South Carolina, where Morris opened a pawnshop. George briefly outlines his career as a journalist, which included working alongside Charlestonian Earl Mazo in Greenville. He reflects on differences between American-born fathers and fathers like his, who were born in Europe, and he makes note of antisemitism he experienced in the South. About being Jewish, he says, "In the South, in those days, you were not permitted to forget it." George's wife, Esta Solomon Chaplin, a Charleston, South Carolina, native, joins him for a short time during the interview. They married in 1937 and raised two children. See Mss 1035-041 for a follow-up interview on October 3, 1995.
Interview with James Michael Graves by Cherisse R. Jones, June 20, 1995, AMN 500.001.006, in Avery Normal Institute Oral History Project, of the Avery Research Center at the College of Charleston.
Edna Ginsberg Banov, the second of five children, was born in 1908 in Charleston, South Carolina, to Russian immigrants Pauline Kop and Isaac Ginsberg. Pauline’s sister Freda had settled in Charleston and married Hyman Bluestein. Pauline and Isaac opened a grocery store on America Street, at the corner of Hanover, and they lived above it. Edna describes the store, their home, and the neighborhood, which was called Little Mexico. When she was about ten years old, they moved to King Street and opened a wholesale tobacco shop. The Ginsbergs were Orthodox Jews and Edna recalls attending Sunday school classes and, as a teen, Hebrew school with Rabbi Glasser. The interviewee shares stories of her siblings, Flossie, Lilla, Izzy, and Bernice; her teachers at Courtenay School; two African Americans who worked for the family; Uncle Willie Banov, whom Edna tried to match with Henrietta Givner; Fannie Warshavsky, who taught Pauline English; her children Charles, Linda, and Karen; and her grandson Michael. Edna married Milton Banov, son of Sam Banov. She talks about her father-in-law’s men’s store on upper King Street, where he also dispensed home remedies for illnesses. See also Edna Banov’s interviews of November 9, 1995 (Mss. 1035-046) and November 14, 1995 (Mss. 1035-048). For a related collection, see the Edna Ginsberg Banov papers, Mss. 1039, Special Collections, College of Charleston.
Morris Rosen is joined by his cousin Dorothy “Dutch” Idalin Gelson Cohen and her husband, Mordecai “Mortie” Cohen, in this interview. Morris’s son Robert is also present as interviewer and videographer. Morris, born in Charleston, South Carolina, in 1919, was one of four children of Annie Blatt and Sol Rosen. Sol and his siblings, including Dutch’s parents, Zelda Rosen and Louis Gelson, emigrated from Russia in the first decade of the twentieth century, following their older sister Ida and her husband, David Goldberg, to Poughkeepsie, New York, where Dutch was born in 1919. The cousins talk about the Rosen (Rachelkin) and Gelson (Getchen) families of Poughkeepsie and their ancestors in Russia. Morris briefly mentions his maternal grandparents, Mamie Wildman and Morris Blatt, who ran a bakery in Columbia, South Carolina, before moving to Charleston. Morris and Dutch describe how the Rosens wound up in Charleston. Their uncle Sam Rosen moved to the area from Poughkeepsie for reasons unknown and opened a store in Awendaw, a small settlement about twenty-five miles north of Charleston. In about 1919, Sol Rosen and Zelda and Louis Gelson followed and bought an established country store from a member of the Geraty family in Yonges Island, nearly twenty miles south of Charleston. Louis died within a year, and Sol sold his interest in the store to Zelda, who moved the business and her three children to Meeting Street in Charleston after a few years. Sol was in the grocery business and later opened liquor stores. Morris traces his father’s moves from Yonges Island to King and Romney streets in Charleston, to the town of Meggett, and back to Charleston at King and Race streets. Morris and Dutch discuss growing up in Charleston in an area of the city where there were no other Jewish families. They did not experience antisemitism and Morris blended easily with the Catholic teens who lived nearby. The cousins did connect with other Jewish children when they frequented the neighborhoods around the synagogues and while attending religious school. They didn’t notice any friction between Charleston’s Reform and Orthodox Jews and played with children from both groups. Dutch was confirmed and Morris became a bar mitzvah at Brith Sholom on St. Philip Street. The two consider the degree to which their parents were observant Jews and speculate as to why their parents and others of their generation did or did not adhere to certain Jewish traditions. Mordecai “Mortie” Cohen was born in 1916 in St. Matthews, South Carolina, where his father, Isaac, ran a dry goods store and two farms. All the general merchandisers in St. Matthews while Mortie and his two brothers were growing up were Jewish. They met for High Holiday services in the town’s Masonic temple and were joined by families from Orangeburg, Ehrhardt, and Elloree. Most of Mortie’s friends were Christians; he doesn’t remember experiencing any antisemitism in St. Matthews. Mortie recalls how he came to know the Rosens, and he and Morris describe the role of the drummers, or sales reps, who visited retail storeowners when their fathers were in business. Morris talks about how he met his wife, Ida Tanenbaum. Her brother Lou Tanenbaum came to Charleston and opened a clothing store with his brother-in-law Louis Lesser. Morris, an ensign in the U.S. Coast Guard during World War II, was assigned to a LST (Landing Ship, Tank) in the Pacific. The group discusses what they and other American Jews knew about what was happening to Jews in Europe under Hitler.
Ella Levenson Schlosburg, the daughter of emigrants from Lithuania, recounts her family history and describes growing up in an Orthodox Jewish family in the small midlands town of Bishopville, South Carolina. Her father, Frank Levenson, one of a handful of Jewish merchants in Bishopville in the early 1900s, ran a general store that sold everything from groceries to mules. Ella married Elihu Schlosburg, the son of Anna Karesh and Harry Schlosburg, and they moved to Camden, South Carolina, where they established a liquor business.
Hyman Rubin describes his upbringing in Norway, South Carolina, and later in Columbia, where his family owned a wholesale dry goods store. He talks about his experience at the University of South Carolina, and recounts his political career and tenure on Columbia's city council (1952-1966) and in the state senate from 1966-1984. In 1940, he married Rose Rudnick of Aiken, South Carolina.
Conie Spigel Ferguson was born and raised in Spartanburg, South Carolina, the daughter of Geneva Fulk and Julian Spigel. She talks about her great-uncle Joel Spigel and her grandfather David Manuel Spigel of Prussia, who immigrated to the United States in the late 1800s. The brothers, who were jewelers, lived for a time in the Newberry-Columbia area, where David met and married Theresa “Daisy” Mittle. The Spigels, Joel included, moved to Spartanburg in 1903, where they opened a jewelry store. Conie’s father, Julian Spigel, was pushed to go to medical school by his parents. He met Geneva at a hospital in North Carolina where she was working as a nurse. Geneva came from a family of Moravians and was expected to leave school before completing her education to work on the family farm. However, she left home, took a job and a room with another family, graduated from high school, and earned a nursing degree. She married Julian in 1941, and they moved to Texas where Julian, an M.D., worked at a hospital before being called home to Spartanburg by his father in 1947, shortly after Conie’s brother, Joel David, was born. Julian helped out with the family jewelry business and took over after David Spigel’s death in 1949. He did not work again in medicine. Although Geneva did not convert to Judaism, she raised Joel and Conie in a Jewish household, insofar as they observed all the holidays. The children attended Sunday school, and Geneva was active in the B’nai Israel Sisterhood and B’nai B’rith. As the daughter of a gentile mother, Conie discusses how she was received by the rabbi and members of the temple. She recalls Rabbi Max Stauber who was hired in 1955 and served the congregation for nearly 30 years, noting that he was “like a second father” to her. The interviewee describes her devotion to Jewish religious observance and what she values in a rabbi. She relates incidences of antisemitism she experienced while in secondary school and at Spartanburg Junior College (now Spartanburg Methodist College). Conie responds to questions about race relations in Spartanburg, and reports that she never witnessed any conflicts between black and white students in her high school.
Eileen Strauss Rubin grew up in Sumter, South Carolina, the only child of Isaac and Pearl Weinreich Strauss. Isaac, who was born in New York, moved in the 1870s as a teenager, first to Mayesville, South Carolina, where relatives, the A. A. Strauss family, owned a store. After relocating to Sumter, he invested in land and helped a nephew get started in the printing business. He died when Eileen was only five years old. Eileen recalls celebrating the holidays and attending Sunday school at Sumter’s Temple Sinai, where she was confirmed. As a girl, she visited her mother’s family in Ohio and, having made a number of friends there, decided to go to Ohio State University (OSU). She met her husband, Herman Rubin, at a fraternity dance at OSU. Herman was an M.D. and practicing in Akron. About a year after they married and shortly after their first daughter was born, Herman, who was in the army reserves, was called up for active duty. After five years in military service, the Rubins returned to Akron, where their second daughter was born. In the early ’50s, in search of a milder climate, the Rubins moved to Sumter. Eileen discusses her family history, her daughters, and the family’s real estate business. Interviewer Robert Moses, a Sumter native and friend of the Rubins, contributes to the conversation. Note: daughters Ellen Rubin Eber and Gayle Rubin provided additional information noted in the transcript during proofing.
Dora Altman grew up in Charleston, South Carolina, where her father worked as a tailor. Her parents’ emigration from Poland was sponsored by a relative, a member of the Mendelsohn family. The Altmans attended the Orthodox synagogue Brith Sholom and, at some point, Dora switched to Kahal Kadosh Beth Elohim, the Reform temple where services were conducted in English. Dora remembers playing with both Jews and gentiles as a child; the Henckel twins, members of the Coburg Dairy family, were among her closest friends. Dora was engaged to Samuel Turtletaub when he was killed in France during World War I. She never married. During the interview, Dora identifies certain photographs (see the Dora Altman collection, Mss. 1006 in Special Collections, College of Charleston), and is joined by interviewer Haskell Ellison, also a Charleston native, in recalling Charleston’s Jewish families and merchants of the early 20th century.
Cousins Max Furchgott and Dale Dreyfoos review their family history. Dale's maternal grandmother Lillian Furchgott married Pincus LeRoy Pinkussohn (he changed the spelling of the family name to Pinkerson during World War II), whose grandfather settled in Charleston, South Carolina, around 1850. Lillian's father, Herman Furchgott, and his brother Max, grandfather of interviewee Max, opened a dry goods store on King Street in Charleston in the 1860s. Max describes growing up in Charleston and recalls the moves his family made during the Great Depression to Orangeburg, South Carolina; Goldsboro, North Carolina; and Florence, South Carolina, before returning to Charleston. The Furchgotts have been members of Reform Kahal Kadosh Beth Elohim (KKBE) since the first generation in Charleston. Max discusses the conflict that arose among members of the congregation in the 1960s during Rabbi Burton Padoll's tenure, and notes how KKBE has changed over the years. Max married Marcelle Kleinzahler and they raised three children in Charleston. Both interviewees discuss Jewish identity - Max, in terms of how he believes his children view themselves, and Dale, in terms of his relationship to his ancestors. Dale tells the story of his great-great-grandparents fleeing Atlanta during the Civil War in anticipation of General Sherman's arrival with Union troops. Other family surnames mentioned in the interview include Brown, Sorentrue, Foote, Ritzwoller, and Dreyfoos. For related information, see also Marcelle Furchgott's May 14, 2014 interview, Robert Furchgott's February 28, 2001 and April 18, 2001 interviews, the Arthur C. Furchgott papers (Mss 1043), and Furchgott and Brothers department store newspaper advertisement, 1910 (Mss 1034-090), Special Collections, Addlestone Library, College of Charleston.
Isidore Denemark was born in 1910 in Mayesville, South Carolina, the son of Eastern European immigrants Sara Lee “Lizzie” Siegel and Jacob Denemark. Jacob arrived in New York and, at some point, moved to Georgetown, South Carolina, where he worked for the Fogel Brothers in their general merchandise store. Isidore doesn’t know when or where his parents married. He describes a number of moves the family made after Jacob left Georgetown. They ran stores in Mayesville, South Carolina, Sumter, South Carolina, and Winston-Salem, North Carolina. They returned to Sumter around 1935 where Jacob went into business with Sara’s brother Harry Siegel on Main Street and Sara opened the Smart Shop, which sold dresses. Isidore recalls his father packing up his merchandise and following the tobacco workers around during harvest season in the Carolinas and Tennessee. The interviewee talks about his family’s religious observances as Orthodox Jews when he was growing up and his practices as an adult. He and interviewer Robert Moses are members of Sumter’s Temple Sinai, a small Reform congregation. Both men express frustration and concern about the lack of attendance at Sabbath services by members of the younger generations. They contemplate the reasons for the low levels of participation and compare the Jewish community of Sumter to the large and vibrant one in Charleston, South Carolina. Isidore earned an accounting degree at New York University and returned to Sumter in 1936 to work for Boyle Construction Company as a CPA. He was joined by his first wife, Gladys “Jimmy” Goldsmith, and they raised two children, Bennett and Adele. He talks about how he met Jimmy, who died in 1966. He married Rae Nussbaum Addlestone, originally from Charleston, who was present at this interview. Isidore was one of six or so people who put up money for a new summer camp for Jewish children. They bought more than two hundred acres in Cleveland, GA, and named it Camp Coleman, for the man who made the largest donation. Isidore and Robert discuss the absence of antisemitism in Sumter and how Jewish residents have been prominent in every part of Sumter life. Isidore addresses the issue of the Confederate flag flying on the South Carolina statehouse grounds.
Herbert Keyserling, born in 1915 to Jennie Hyman and William Keyserling, talks about his father’s immigration to the United States in 1888 from Lithuania, and how William ended up in Beaufort, South Carolina. He describes the extended family members who also emigrated, including William’s brothers, Joseph, Michael, Mark, and Israel; their mother, Bathsheba; and their dead sister’s children, Rose and Harry Segel. William worked for and, ultimately, became full partner in the MacDonald-Wilkins Company. The partners were general merchants with several stores in the Beaufort area and they also managed cotton farms, and ginned and brokered the cotton. Although Herbert’s mother, Jennie Hyman, was raised in an Orthodox Jewish home in New York, she was not very religious and didn’t keep kosher in her own home. Nevertheless, she never served pork, and she helped to organize the Sunday school and the Sisterhood at Beth Israel in Beaufort. While William was observant of the Jewish holidays, he did not attend Sabbath services until later in life, which he did “because the congregation was small and to keep up attendance.” Herbert recalls that “when I was growing up, the men and women sat on different sides of the synagogue in Beaufort,” and they prayed in Hebrew. Jewish families who lived in and around Beaufort in the 1920s and 1930s included the Epsteins, Farbsteins, Getzes, Lipsitzes, Levins, Neidichs, Pollitzers, Rabinowitzes, Rubensteins, and Sheins. Herbert discusses his siblings, Leon, Rosalyn, and Beth; his father’s philanthropic activities; the survival of the Peoples Bank in Beaufort during the Great Depression; the creation of a food co-op in the 1920s; and William’s role in building ice plants to keep produce headed to market from spoiling. Herbert is joined in this two-part interview by his wife Harriet Hirschfeld Keyserling. He offers his impression of the Ku Klux Klan in Beaufort while he was growing up, and Harriet describes attending a meeting of the Beaufort Klan with New York Times correspondent Flora Lewis in the mid-20th century. Herbert, a physician, provides a brief overview of his educational background and his service in the navy during World War II. He and Harriet married in 1944 and raised Judy, Billy, Paul, and Beth in Beaufort. For related collections, see the Keyserling family papers, Mss. 1049; the Leon H. Keyserling papers, Mss. 1052, and Tapes and Transcripts from “Land of Promise,” Mss. 1069, in Special Collections, College of Charleston.
Sam Levenson, born in 1918, and his sister Ella Levenson Schlosburg, born in 1920, talk about growing up in Bishopville, South Carolina, where about two dozen Jewish families lived, many of them relatives. The siblings and their brothers, Leonard and Jacob, were the children of Nettie Cahn and Frank Levenson, immigrants from Lithuania. Sam and Ella describe their parents and extended family members, and they discuss how their father came to own his general merchandise store in Bishopville, in which the inventory included mules. The Jews of the town spoke Yiddish, and most kept kosher. They met in the Masonic hall for services, led initially by immigrant rabbis they hired out of New York. Rabbi David Karesh of Columbia, South Carolina, served as their shochet for a time. Also interviewed is Sam’s wife, Carolyn Baruch Levenson, born in 1925, in Camden, South Carolina, to Theresa Block and Herman Baruch. Herman partnered in the clothing store, Baruch & Nettles, and later, sold insurance. The three interviewees offer a number of stories that impart a sense of life in Bishopville and the region during the first half of the twentieth century. The tales range from conflicts among locals that ended in violence to wealthy antisemitic northerners wintering in Camden. For a related collection, see the Levenson-Baruch family papers, Mss. 1034-017, Special Collections, College of Charleston. See also Ella Schlosburg’s interview of May 25, 1995, and Carolyn Levenson’s interview with Debby Baruch Abrams on May 5, 1998.
Ruth Kaye, born in 1913, grew up in Sumter, South Carolina, the granddaughter of Estonian immigrant, B. J. Barnett who fought for the Confederacy in the Civil War. The Barnetts became landowners and cotton farmers, and ran a general store. Ruth’s mother, Emma Klein, was born in Hungary and raised in Pennsylvania and New York. Ruth recounts her family history on both sides, and describes her visits with the New York Kleins.
Bernice Berlin Silver, one of four children of Sam and Bertha Livingstain Berlin (Berlinsky), talks about growing up in Charleston, South Carolina, several blocks from the Jewish immigrant neighborhood north of Calhoun Street. Bernice grew up in an Orthodox home, but her father opened the family store on the Sabbath out of “necessity.” She attended Crafts School and Memminger High School, where she was valedictorian of her graduating class. While most of her friends were gentiles, she participated in AZA (Aleph Zadik Aleph) activities and was an AZA Sweetheart. Bernice married Sam Silver (Zilberman) of Augusta, Georgia. The couple moved to his hometown where she became active in Hadassah and started a chapter of the NCJW (National Council of Jewish Women). After about 25 years, the Silvers relocated first to Columbia, South Carolina, and then California, before settling in Charleston, where they operated a restaurant supply business for over two decades. Bernice discusses her immediate and extended family members. Interviewer Ruth Jacobs reads from material obtained from Charleston city directories regarding business and home addresses of the Livingstains (Bernice’s mother’s family) and the Goodmans (Bernice’s maternal grandmother’s family) in the late 1800s and early 1900s.
Sam Siegel, born in Anderson, South Carolina, in 1915, describes the hometown of his boyhood as “a very hard town . . . mean, nasty, completely controlled by the Klan.” Sam’s parents, Bess Silverman and Max Siegel (Shul) emigrated from Latvia in the early 1900s and settled in Anderson where Max worked as a peddler before going into livestock sales and slaughtering. The family did not keep kosher, and the Siegel children had little Jewish education. Sam’s playmates were Christian. “I had my friends, but it wasn’t comfortable.” Sam talks about his seven siblings, in particular, his brother Reuben, known as “Jew Boy Siegel,” a star boxer and football player for Clemson. As the number of Jewish residents in Anderson increased in the early 1900s, they began to meet in a large hall over a store for High Holy Day services. Sam remembers teaching Sunday school there as well. He mentions some of the Jewish residents of the 1930s and ’40s, who pooled their resources to build a temple for the growing community. Sam describes helping to place nearly a dozen Jewish refugees in Anderson, including one young man, Kurt Sax, whom he helped get his start in his own small business. Sam married Leona Novit of Walterboro, South Carolina. When he visited Walterboro, he “fell in love” with the town, which was a popular stopping point for travelers driving between New York and Florida. Walterboro, Sam says, “has always been a very liberal town. It’s made up of people from up north and out west.” Sam and Leona moved from Anderson to Walterboro, where they raised their four children and Sam ran a dry goods store. He discusses a number of other topics including intermarriage, Camp Blue Star, the journal in which he has made daily entries since 1932, and the Walterboro congregation and how it acquired a Jewish section in the local cemetery. He also describes his service in the army during World War II and his role in the Battle of the Bulge, in which he lost a leg in an attempt to rescue two American soldiers. Note: the transcript contains corrections made by Sam’s daughter Gale Messerman.
Rabbi Hersh M. Galinsky, discusses the controversy that surrounded the establishment of a suburban minyan house during his tenure (1963 to 1970) at the Orthodox Brith Sholom Beth Israel, in Charleston, South Carolina. He also addresses the current—at the time of the interview—debate regarding moving the synagogue from its downtown location to West Ashley, where a majority of its members live.
Bernard Warshaw discusses growing up in Walterboro, South Carolina, and the periods he spent in Charleston, first, from age nine to thirteen, when he was studying for his bar mitzvah and, later, while attending The Citadel. His parents, Murray and Dotty Bebergal Warshaw, emigrated as children from Poland in the early 1900s. They met in Charleston, where each had family, and moved to Walterboro after they married. Bernard talks about his family’s business, Warshaw’s, and Walterboro’s other Jewish merchants. He served in the army during World War II, and saved the photographs he took of the concentration camp in Dachau, which he visited the day after it was liberated. He married Ann Wagner of Boston and they raised three daughters in Walterboro. Among the topics discussed: intermarriage; the importance of religion and involvement in civic and political matters; the reason his children and grandchildren are more observant than he was as a child; and relations between Jews and African Americans. Note: See also Bernard Warshaw Holocaust atrocity photographs, Mss. 1065-027, Special Collections, Addlestone Library, College of Charleston.
Frances Solomon Garfinkle, daughter of Morris and Rina Chachevski Solomon, relates her mother’s stories of life in Zabludow, Poland, before she immigrated to the United States. Frances, a native of Winston-Salem, North Carolina, recalls visiting relatives in Charleston, South Carolina, as a child. She married Nathan Garfinkle, son of Sam and Annie Garfinkel, emigrants from, respectively, Divin and Grozny, Russia. Nathan, who remembers living in Charleston’s East Side before moving to the St. Philip Street neighborhood, attended Beth Israel, one of two Orthodox synagogues, with his father. Frances and Nathan discuss Charleston’s Jewish merchants, particularly wholesaler Sam Solomon, whose Sullivan’s Island summer home was a gathering place for Jewish families on Sundays. They describe Charleston and Jewish food traditions, including African-American street vendors and Jewish-owned markets, and the prevalence of Yiddish speakers among members of the Jewish community in the first half of the twentieth century. Even some African Americans who worked for Jewish store owners spoke Yiddish. Louisa Simmons kept house for Sam and Annie Garfinkel, and later for Nathan and Frances, for a total of than more than fifty years. “She was one of the family . . . we loved her.” Note: Other family members spell the name Garfinkel. The interviewee has spelled his name Garfinkle since his military service during World War II, when a typographic error was made and never corrected.
Lila Winter Lash, daughter of Fay Nebb and Louis Winter, was born in 1928 in Brooklyn, New York. She discusses her family history, including the Winter family’s early-twentieth-century connection to Charleston, South Carolina. When Lila met Alex “Al” Lash in New York, he was working as a kosher butcher in a family business that extended four or five generations back to the Old Country. Lila and Al, who married in 1947, describe Al’s training and career in butchering, kosher and non-kosher. Two years after they married, the couple moved to Charleston after agreeing to buy Joseph and Anna Zalkin’s kosher butcher shop on King Street. The Lashes recall the difficulties of running the business, including procurement, long hours, competition, and customer relations. Dealing with rumors that they weren’t kosher and storing their inventory during two hurricanes were among the challenges they faced. Lila provides anecdotes and information relating to Al’s love of bowling and his involvement in leagues.
Larry Freudenberg relates the history of both sides of his family. His mothers forebears, the Triests, immigrated to Charleston, South Carolina, from Bavaria in the 1850s, opened a clothing store on King Street, and joined the Reform congregation, Kahal Kadosh Beth Elohim. Larry's father, Henry Freudenberg, was a young boy when he escaped Nazi Germany in 1939 with his parents and grandparents. They eventually settled in Charleston. Larry discusses his experiences growing up in the 1960s and 70s, and feeling trapped between two cultures. Gentile children teased him for being Jewish, while Orthodox Jewish children accused him of being not Jewish enough. Larry runs the family's insurance business established in 1903 by his great-grandfather, Montague Triest.
Philip Garfinkel, one of six children of Sam and Hannah Garfinkel, natives of Divin, Russia, grew up in the 1930s and ’40s in Charleston, South Carolina. Philip discusses his siblings, friends from the St. Philip Street neighborhood, and the family’s religious practices. He fondly recalls summers on Sullivan’s Island and afternoons at the Jewish Community Center on St. Philip Street.
Mathilde Ezratty Lehem, was born in 1916 to Rachel Ezratty and Saady Ezratty, members of two separate Ezratty families who were part of the large community of Sephardic Jews living in Salonika, Greece. Mathilde talks briefly about life in the northern port city, where she and her younger brother, Alfred, lived comfortably with their parents and attended a Jewish school staffed by teachers who had been trained in France. Saady worked in insurance and Rachel's brothers sold crystal and fine fabrics. Jewish-owned shops closed on Saturdays, a practice that ended forcibly sometime after Hitler came to power in Germany. Saady took this change as a sign it was time for the family to leave Salonika. Around the mid-1930s (Mathilde admits she is not good with dates), Rachel and Saady acquired traveler's visas and, with Mathilde and Alfred, boarded a ship bound for Mandatory Palestine, where Saady's brother lived. Rachel's brothers, believing they would not come to harm, stayed in Greece. Mathilde never saw them again and assumes they, like many of Salonika's Jews, were sent to the gas chambers. Mathilde notes that living conditions in British-controlled Palestine were harsh, a stark contrast to their life in Greece. When she was about twenty, she married a man (Lehem) she had known for a month. The marriage was troubled from the start and never during the interview does Mathilde utter his first name. She moved with him to Aden, then a British colony, where he had a business. A year or two after they wed, daughter Florette was born. As fighting in nearby East Africa intensified, the Lehems decided, in 1940 or '41, to move to Shanghai, based partly on the advice of a ship captain. Another draw: Mr. Lehem's sister lived there. Mathilde recalls that in, possibly, early 1942, they were among the British and American civilians living in Shanghai who were interned in camps by the city's Japanese occupiers. She describes the living conditions where they were held for three and a half years and mentions how they and other Jewish prisoners celebrated their first Passover. The interviewee spends considerable time on health problems she experienced while in Shanghai, most while being held in the camp. She discusses her symptoms and the treatment she received, which included hospitalizations. Once freed, Mathilde sought a way to return to her parents in Palestine. She held a British passport, but passage to Palestine was denied. An American doctor who was a fellow detainee, helped her obtain a United States visa so she and Florette could seek out her paternal aunt in New York. To Mathilde's relief, her husband stayed in Shanghai. Mathilde recounts how she and Florette made their way from Shanghai to San Francisco to family in Queens. She required lengthy hospitalization once in New York. Seeing that Mathilde's illness was going to be protracted and Florette needed a parent, a member of the family tracked down Mr. Lehem and arranged for his entry to the United States, unaware that Mathilde wanted nothing to do with him. The reunited Lehem family settled in Manhattan and, after Florette was grown, Mathilde managed to escape the bad marriage. Florette married Isaac "Ike" Ryba and they later moved to Charleston, South Carolina. Mathilde followed in 1970. See Mss. 1035-056 for Mathilde's second of two interviews. For a related collection, see copies of her family photos in the Inventory of the Holocaust Archives Field Researchers Collection, Mss. 1065-049.
Hyman Lipsitz is joined in this interview by his wife, Helene Jacobson Lipsitz, and his cousin Edward "Mickey" Lipson and his wife, Celia Pinosky Lipson. Born in 1913, Hyman was raised with his sister, Ethel, and brother, Joseph, in Beaufort, South Carolina. They lived over their downtown store with their parents, Bertha Rubin and Max Saul Lipsitz, who were immigrants from Latvia and Lithuania, respectively. Max had relatives all over the South, but followed a brother to Beaufort when he was in his teens. Hyman remembers a Reverend Rubinstein acting at some point as the cantor for Beth Israel, Beaufort's Jewish congregation. He also recalls Rabbi Jacob Raisin, of Charleston's Reform congregation K. K. Beth Elohim, traveling to neighboring Parris Island to lead services for the marine recruits on some Sunday mornings, and then to Beaufort's Beth Israel for afternoon services. Mickey Lipson, one of eight children born to Helen Lipsitz and Moses Lipsitz (they were first cousins), was born in Beaufort in 1921. Moses died when Mickey was five years old, and the family moved to Detroit, Michigan, in 1929. Mickey joined his sister Freda and her husband, Sam Novit, in Walterboro, South Carolina, in 1936, and there he met Celia, a Charleston, South Carolina, native, at a wedding. They married in 1947 and lived in Walterboro a year before moving to Beaufort where they opened a shoe store. The Lipsons talk briefly about their shoe business, which was initially located downtown and later moved to Beaufort Plaza. The cousins discuss the Jewish merchants who were killed while working in their stores in rural areas around Beaufort, including Mickey's grandfather Aaron Lipsitz of Burton, South Carolina. The interviewees describe another tragedy: the death of Mickey's sister Rosalie Lipsitz Zalin of Belton, South Carolina, who was killed in 1937 when she was hit by a car. Note: Some members of the Lipsitz family went by the surnames Lipson or Lipton. For related oral histories, see interviews with Lucille and Joseph Lipsitz, Mss. 1035-093; 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.
Rose Yospe Mark, the youngest of five, was born in 1927 in Baltimore, Maryland, to Lithuanian immigrants Frieda Miller and Morris Yospe. She grew up in "the Jewish neighborhood, right near the Lloyd Street Synagogue." Rose shares her memories of her parents and describes her mother's family and childhood. Rose was raised in an Orthodox Jewish home, and the family went to shul on the holidays. Rose wasn't taught the significance of the specific practices, such as fasting, but her parents did make clear the importance of their Jewish identity. Rose discusses how she and her husband, Ernest Mark of Beaufort, South Carolina, met and became engaged. They married in 1944 while he was in the army. They settled in Beaufort in December 1945, after he was discharged. Rose notes that she loved the southern landscape "right away." The city girl in her appreciated the wide open spaces, clean air, and green flora. The interviewee relates stories of Ernest's childhood and his parents, Lena Mae and Joseph Mark. Joseph, a Russian immigrant, followed a sister to Beaufort in 1904, and established a store in neighboring Burton. The family ultimately moved to downtown Beaufort and operated grocery and liquor stores. Rose and Ernest opened a furniture store in 1946, also in downtown Beaufort. Rose recalls shifting the business from credit to cash, a move necessitated by competition from discount stores. The couple raised four children: Barbara, Janet, Larry, and Michael. Rose describes Larry's start in the furniture business. Unlike his parents, he discounted his merchandise, and he was so successful, Rose and Ernest sold their store and joined him. She talks about the African Americans who worked for the Marks, three of whom are featured on a mural Columbia artist Ralph Waldrop painted on the side of their building. When Rose came to Beaufort, Beth Israel Congregation was Conservative. While that was an adjustment for her, she was pleased with the sense of intimacy she felt when synagogue members met for celebrations such as community seders and Chanukah parties. Rose considers the changes in the congregation over the decades since she moved to Beaufort. At the time of the interview, their traditions were "Conservative bordering on Reform," but, Rose says, if they have to become Reform to get people in, they will. In 1996, when, Mark was nominated as the first female president of the congregation, Beth Israel had twenty-five member-families. She reports that they have had a hard time finding people who want to join and attend weekly services, though a large number of people come out of the woodwork for the community Passover Seders and High Holiday services. She remarks that Reform Congregation Beth Yam in Hilton Head Island, between Beaufort and Savannah, Georgia, is growing, largely due to retirees moving to the area. "We're not getting that in Beaufort." Rose reflects on why three of her children married out of the faith. She remembers Joe Young of Beaufort, who moved his family to Jacksonville, Florida, because he was concerned that his children "weren't exposed to very many Jewish people." The interviewee talks about her good friend Harvey Tattelbaum, who was interim rabbi at Beth Israel while serving as chaplain at the Marine Corps Recruit Depot at Parris Island, from 1960 to 1962.
In the second of two interviews, Mathilde Ezratty Lehem revisits in a bit more detail a topic covered in her first interview. She describes the assistance she and her fellow inmates received from American soldiers after World War II ended. Mathilde and her family were held in an internment camp set up by the Japanese for British and American civilians living in Shanghai. They learned from the Americans that there were gas chambers in Japanese-occupied China, but no gas. The interviewee tells anecdotes about growing up in Salonika, Greece, including some specifics about the Ezratty family's eating habits and the languages they spoke. While she says she did not experience any antisemitism, she relates a story about a Greek child refusing to eat matzoh because he believed it was made with Christ's blood. The Ezrattys were Sephardic Jews whose ancestors had lived in Greece for many generations. Nevertheless, Mathilde seems to suggest that they did not identify as Greek. Mathilde talks about her volunteer work preparing bodies for burial as a member of the chevra kadisha in Charleston, South Carolina, and discusses burial and mourning customs she learned from her elders in Greece. After moving to Charleston, she took a job in a bank, but was let go after requesting time off for the Jewish holidays. She then worked as a dressmaker, using the sewing skills she acquired as a young girl. See Mss. 1035-051 for Mathilde's first interview. For a related collection, see copies of her family photos in the Inventory of the Holocaust Archives Field Researchers Collection, Mss. 1065-049.
Abe Dumas was born on Sullivan's Island, South Carolina, in 1913, to Esther Read and Mendel Dumas, who emigrated from Lithuania in the first decade of the twentieth century. The couple followed Esther's brother Frank Read, who had settled in Moncks Corner, South Carolina. Mendel joined Frank in his mercantile store, until he opened his own business in nearby Bonneau. In this interview, Abe describes his father's dedication to making a living in America. Besides maintaining the Bonneau enterprise, Mendel invested in land for timber and farming, and opened stores in Charleston, South Carolina. In 1912, he and Frank Read built a five and dime store on the corner of King and Spring streets. Three years later, they parted company and Mendel bought a pawn shop at 220 King Street. By 1918, he had moved Esther and their five children (Lenora, Mary, twins Abe and Joe, and Yetta) to Charleston. "He knew," Abe reports, "that he could not raise a Jewish family in Bonneau." The Dumases were members of Brith Sholom, one of two Orthodox synagogues in Charleston. Abe notes the family was not very observant, although he and his brother celebrated their bar mitzvahs. The interviewee recalls how he and Joe began peddling around age twelve and began working in Mendel's Charleston store at sixteen, while their father commuted to Bonneau. They loved the work but didn't care for the pawn shop business in particular. In 1930, they switched to clothing and were very successful, which Abe attributes to carrying uniforms and hunting apparel. "Then when we moved to King and Society, we had there one of the largest operations of men's and family clothing in the city of Charleston. And it still is." Abe discusses growing up in Charleston, and the subtle antisemitism he observed in his early years. He remembers "divisiveness" between the Reform and Orthodox congregations, but says it no longer exists since an "economic level of parity or better came into existence." He attended the College of Charleston and, in 1936, married Dorothea "Dottie" Shimel Dumas. They had two children, Lynn and Carol. Abe reflects on what Americans knew about the Holocaust during World War II and the failure of the United States and other countries to assist Jewish refugees. Dumas tells the story of meeting George Gershwin in 1933 on Folly Beach, while Gershwin was in the area collaborating with DuBose Heyward on Porgy and Bess. For a related oral history, see the 1996 interview with Joseph Read, Mss. 1035-090. For a related collection, see the Louis M. Shimel papers, Mss. 1055. Although mentioned only briefly in this interview, the Dumases were founding members of Synagogue Emanu-El; see Mss. 1141 for the congregation records.
