Jewish Heritage Collection: Oral history interview with Larraine Lourie Moses
Date:
2016
Interviewer:
Waites, Robin
Interviewee:
Moses, Larraine Lourie, 1949-
Description:
Larraine Lourie Moses, born in in Columbia, South Carolina, in 1949, the middle child of Toby Baker and Solomon "Sol" Lourie, talks about her extended family, particularly her grandparents, Clara Kligerman and Frank Baker, and Ann "Annie" Friedman and Louis Lourie. The Bakers were Reform Jews who did not keep kosher, nor celebrate Passover. The Louries were Orthodox and Annie kept a strictly kosher home in St George, South Carolina. After Louis Lourie died, Annie married Hyman Simon in 1950 and moved to Columbia where they opened Mitchell's Men's Shop on Main Street. Just two years earlier, Annie's eldest son, Sol Lourie had established Lourie's Department Store, also on Main Street. Larraine recounts stories about her brothers, Frank and Barry; her grandmother Clara Baker and Clara's grocery store in Columbia; and her aunt Freda Baker Kornblut, who married Moses Kornblut of Latta, South Carolina. Larraine's parents raised Larraine and her brothers in Columbia's Beth Shalom during the time the congregation changed its affiliation from Orthodox to Conservative. The interviewee discusses her father's love of the game of bridge; he was a life master and traveled to tournaments in other U.S. cities, accompanied by her mother. While they were out of town, Margie Robinson, an African-American woman who worked for the family, would stay with the Lourie children. Growing up, Larraine was unaware of discrimination against African Americans. Looking back, however, she notes that her father was the first merchant on Main Street to hire a black man, Walter Jones, for a job that was not janitorial. He ran the receiving room and had the keys to the store. Larraine describes how she met her husband, Jeff Moses, who is related to one of the Berry (Sam and Lou) families of Columbia. She and Jeff have two children, Sam and Heidi, whom they raised in Columbia's Reform synagogue, Tree of Life. In the decades that the Moses family have been members, Larraine has noticed a decline in attendance at services. She explains how "being a good Jew is not necessarily going to the services," and offers her thoughts on what constitutes being religious.
