Sydel (Drebin) Cohen

Transcript of Audio Tape recorded about December, 1978. Interviewed by her son, Allen Cohen. Transcribed by David Craig.

A - I was born on December 30, 1905.

Q - Where were you born?

A - Tavrig, Germany¹, which originally belonged to Lithuania. And this particular country was on the border of Germany and Russia and every time there was a war, whichever country won it, why, that’s where the individual was born. So my mother and I were born there and her mother was. When the great grandparents were living there it was called Lithuania. After WWI they called it Russia and that is what they considered it².

My fathers name and my mothers name - Abraham and Ida Drebin³. The name Drebin has a little history attached to it. The entire family lived in the same town, Tavrig. When my paternal Grandfather and Grandmother⁴ couldn’t make a living where they were, they decided to go to Poltava, Russia⁵ where they had family and friends. And while they were there, my father was conceived. His parents went there as a young couple and several members of his family were born there. And when the children were ready to get married, their parents wanted them all to go back to their hometown and pick girls or boys. That is how my father married my mother, and my Uncle Kalman married my Aunt Ida who also knew my mother. The two girl friends married the two brothers. In time, they also went to Russia. My older brother and sister, Francis and Irv (the eldest and then Francis) were born, as I said before, in Russia.

My father decided to leave the Russian Army – you know, they drafted there.

Q - Was he in the army?

A - Yes he was, for over a year. And of course they were very hard on our people. They had no love for them and they never did. And when they had maneuvers, it was always managed to have it on a Saturday, or Rosh Hashanah, or Yom Kippur. The men who were very religious ate very little, in fact it was on an empty stomach, and how they survived was not to be believed. In my dad’s family, they bought out all the children⁶. When my father’s turn came, he had older brothers. He said, "No, I’ll go, it doesn’t matter." He heard it was bad but he didn’t know and he went. But just before the Russian-Japanese war⁷, he decided with a group of them to get with the underground. They helped them across to America. When he knew he was going to do this, he sent my mother and her two children back to Tavrig, and in doing so, I was the "kiss of goodbye" child. Six weeks later they came to America (Carol, my daughter, has my infant dress that I asked her to use for her dolls, but she said it was so wonderful she had no intention of doing that). My dad came to say goodbye to my mother because they had to go through the German border to Frankfurt to get the ship to come to America. In doing so, I was the goodbye kiss. Now mother decided to come too⁸.

When he was ready, he went to his brother’s in Philadelphia. A couple of sisters were living there also⁹. In mother’s family, everyone was here except her two oldest brothers (half brothers) and her one sister. The two older brothers lived in Germany¹⁰. And the one sister lived in Russia – (Sithie?¹¹).

So he, fortunately, was able to get away with the group. And when he came to this country, not knowing where to go, he decided to go to his own family. He couldn’t do very well either, there in Philadelphia, so when my mother came they stayed about a year. They furnished an apartment. Mother came with another aunt, my father’s sister¹². They traveled together – she was single, to help with the children.

Then we came to Chicago, the reason for that being my mother had two brothers and a sister living here – Aunt Fanny Friedman¹³ and Uncle Ben lived in Peoria but traveled to Chicago, and Uncle Dave.

Q - So when did they come here, what year?

A - They came when they were young, young people. They were here much longer than mother. She was a change of life baby and they were all older than she. Therefore, they came much earlier.

Q - And you were how old then?

A - I must have been a year and a couple of months. Harold was the "hello kiss", because they were in Philadelphia, so Harold and I are eleven months apart.

Q – So when did Bernie come along?

A – Two years and a few months after Harold.

Q – Now that they were in Chicago, what did your dad do for a living?

A – Well, he did various things. The first thing he did was to go to school to learn the language. He realized he couldn’t make a living and he didn’t want a sweatshop. That wasn’t his style. He had a very fine education; he should have been a teacher. His parents wanted him to be a Rabbi. He didn’t’ want that at all. Getting a job teaching didn’t come so easy. So he studied English, then he decided to sell Singer sewing machines. And he used to sell them door to door, and then deliver them. It was a hard way of doing things. As time went on, he got a job in a furniture store and he liked it very much. And eventually he, himself, went into that business. In between, he had several other businesses. He didn’t want to be employed; he wanted to be self-employed.

Q – Did he do well in business?

A – No, he never had the store open on the Sabbath, and he closed early on Fridays and all Jewish holidays, and he was very religions. And in that way he had a partner and his partner done him in. The result was, as a last stand, he decided no more partners. He was on his own whatever he could do. Finally, that wasn’t good enough so he got himself a job. He had a wonderful sense of humor and he had a way with people. In his case he earned a very large salary and we lived well.

Q – What did he do?

A – A salesperson in a very fine furniture store. That’s when he really made a good living and that’s when mother liked it the best. We went to school there.

Q – What school did you go to?

A – I went to the 19^th Street grammar school. It was in portables. We lived a few blocks away from Douglas Park on the West Side on Sawyer and 19^th at the time. They were all one or two story buildings. No apartment buildings. We went to this school, but just before I graduated, they changed it from the nineteenth street school to Nathaniel Polk School. After graduating grammar school, I went to Harrison Technological High School.

Q – Did you work while you were going to school?

A – Never. That was on Marshall and 22^nd street. It was quite a distance from the house, but I had a few friends in the neighborhood. We always lived in 50/50 Gentile/Jewish neighborhoods. My father was of the opinion that we wouldn’t stray. He felt that with our people, when they came to America, a lot of them have gone away from the religious angle and he didn’t want that to happen to his children. So he taught us and told us to be very alert as to what they do. I was alert to such a degree, I had a Bohemian Catholic girlfriend. She called for me to go to school. She lived not too far from where we lived and we’d walk to school. In the winter, we would take a streetcar. She always had to go to confession, and I would go to church with her. The first time I did that I felt very guilty, I didn’t think that was the right thing to do, and when I mentioned it to my parents, my father said, "What did you do? Did you sit up in front, did you kneel?" He asked a lot of questions. I did nothing of the kind. I was very shy. I sat way in the back in the back seat, but the kneeling boards were right in front of us, I don’t know what they call them, for those that sat as far back as they wanted to kneel. She would go to confession, which was in a little private room, and she would talk about it afterwards. She was a very fine person. I can’t think of her first name, but her last name was Theola. That I couldn’t forget, I don’t know why. We drifted as time went on.

I went to work after I graduated High School. I was fortunate I didn’t have to run around looking for a job. I worked for my Uncle Sam Friedman. Meyer Friedman, his son, was with him at the time. They were outstanding in their field because they specialized in watermelons and potatoes. It started with potatoes and then went down the line to a few other items.

Q – How long did you work, first of all for the Friedmans?

A – I worked for them for a while, then Ethel Friedman, their eldest daughter lost her job and they wanted her in the office. So she came into the office and they got me a job with M. W. Frezel and Co. I was there about 5 or 6 years.

Q – What did you do?

A – Stenographic work and bookkeeping. I wasn’t so hot at it, but I did it. Being the only girl in a very small office, it wasn’t too difficult. Of course, I also made entries, but I didn’t take a trial balance. After all my experience, I felt very good about it. I got a job for a year with a firm that went broke – I wasn’t responsible for that. At the time, Bern¹⁴ was studying to be an accountant. One day I had a little difficulty with my bookkeeping. So I brought the books home, which was really the wrong thing one should do, and he taught me a few things. Then I started with the trial balance and profit and loss statement. I was able to do that. I doubt very much if I could do anything today. It’s been 46 years since I’ve worked. So that would be out of the question. And I wasn’t a good typist, my fingers hurt all the time from the pounding.

What I didn’t know is, after the children were born, I went to the doctor and he said I’d had rheumatic fever as a child. I used to have a lot of joint pains and I was told it was growing pains. The only doctor that told me what I really had is my present doctor and we’ve been going to him for 11 or 12 years. He told me that I have all the indications and since my hands show it and my body does, perhaps that was so.

I did the usual things as a young girl. We dated, we danced, we flirted, we had fun, we had parties. I always had a boyfriend, but no one in particular. We used to have a lot of fun. We were a group of twelve girls. Annette Margo, at that time she was Annette Frasner, had a little dramatic school with her sisters. They taught dancing and dramatics. She had some very fine students there. She was responsible for all our parties, so we had the most wonderful time. They lived in a home. We lived in a huge 7-room apartment at the time. My father didn’t want the boys and girls to hanky panky, so he used to insist I have the party at home, which I did. Our parents helped us so much. They did so much for us. Then we’d have it at Annette’s every once and a while because I wanted to get out of the house. I didn’t want to be there.

That’s the way we had our fun. The purpose of our parties, and a huge picnic in the summer, was to reciprocate to the boys that were nice to us and took us out. We would invite them once a year to a party and once a year to a picnic. We would have a marvelous time. We’d bring all the food and they would just buy the drinks. Pop was a penny a bottle, it was that cheap. That is the way things went.

Q – Lets go back for a minute and talk about your Uncle Sam.

A – Uncle Sam came to this country at the age of 16. He ran away because, also, he would have been drafted. He didn’t want any part of it. He was my father’s younger brother. He was a maverick, so to speak. He knew what he wanted, and what he didn’t want was to be in the Russian service and to be a religious Jew. But he was always a Jew at heart. He never denied it. He lived like one, talked and acted like one, and he was that. When he came to this country and saw all the freedom and the marvelous things that were going on, he felt that there was nothing like this country so he enlisted in the service. He wanted to serve a country that was good to all people, and knowing of the pogroms¹⁵ in Russia, he felt that this was it. He fought with Teddy Roosevelt. He fought under General Pershing¹⁶. He was a very good friend of Floyd Gibbons and Damon Runyon. Uncle Sam got married. His wife was non-Jewish. She had a very dear friend that turned out to be the same gentleman that he knew, with a patch on his eye, the newspaperman – Floyd Gibbons.

When they would come to Chicago, my Uncle Sam was extremely proud of my mother, as she was an immaculate individual. She was very pleasant. She also went to school to better herself. And she was able to converse with them and he was proud of that. He used to ask her to invite his gentile friends for dinner. The one that came there the most was his wife, Helen, and Mrs. Floyd Gibbons, who I shall never forget. The husbands would be busy with whatever and the women would come over. Mother and Father used to send them barrels of pickles and sausages and anything in the Jewish line that they liked. Naturally, they dined and wined them when they came here.

By the same token, after he left all the services behind him, Uncle Sam went into business. He bought a copper mine. At first it was lucrative but after awhile, it just petered out and it was nothing¹⁷.

He wanted to adopt me when I was 10 years old. He had no children. He was married to Helen and he was very happy. I was taking piano lessons, which I played vilely, and never played much after that because I couldn’t reach an octave. My teacher used to stretch my fingers and I hated it. My father said, "No. If she were to go with you, you don’t believe in the things we do. There are brothers and a sister and we want them to be equal." Maybe when I would come back, I would be an entirely different person. I wouldn’t belong. I’d be a misfit. Something would be wrong and he would not like it. So they agreed not to. But he was very wealthy and very, very generous to us. He bought us beautiful things, sent money all the time, and never came visiting without gifts galore, plus a huge 5-lb. box of candy. I think that’s where I acquired a sweet tooth. I was ten years of age, and I couldn’t eat enough candy. To this day I’m just as bad.

Uncle Sam was called the Fighting Jew¹⁸, which he was. They referred to him as having a large nose. It was large, but not as large as they say. He had a beautiful personality. He was a perfect gentleman at all times. And he educated himself in this country also. He used to kiss the ground we walked on. There was nothing like the United States because of the freedom one could have here and the things they could do.

Q – Sam would come, and would he stay at your house?

A – No, he stayed at the La Salle Hotel, which is now out of the line. He always came in with friends, he didn’t just come alone. They’d come here on business trips or they were transferring and going somewhere else. But he made it a point never to come to Chicago without coming to the house to see us. Every time he would come to town, I don’t think he could have hidden himself if he had wanted to – the newspapers were so full of pictures and stories about him. He had a terrific write up. We were very proud of him. I remember when I was in grammar school, I had a young Jewish teacher who was dying to meet him. She asked me so many questions. I came home and told my mother and father and they laughed so hard. They knew what she was asking. I didn’t quite understand why, I just thought she was so interested. My mother said, when he comes, he spends one evening with us, we were not sharing him. He wasn’t even interested. She told him about it afterwards. He said no, he didn’t care to meet anyone.

Q – When you were growing up did you do much with your sister Francis?

A – My sister was like a mother to me in this respect – when I was very young my mother was busy doing things. She belonged to a couple of organizations. I was in grammar school. Francis was in high school. She’d insist that she take care of me. Francis took me all over. She liked it. She never objected. We had a good time together. I liked her friends, but we each had our own friends. Francis is only two years and two weeks older than I. But she was much older mentally than I was. Because I was the baby and I acted like one. I’m not really the baby. I’m the third member of this five-child family.

Q – Don’t you still have a parasol?

A – Yes, my mother came from Germany. She used to visit her sister’s-in-law and her brothers. They would buy her the most gorgeous clothes because when she was born, it was the second marriage for my grandmother. Her first husband was killed and she married a single man. She had two boys with the first husband, Uncle Meier and Uncle Naftala. These two boys had a wealthy uncle who put them though college in Europe. Then he put them in the fur business in Germany. That’s where the money came from. They were ultra generous to us, especially Uncle Meier who lived in Paris, and his daughter Vera who I corresponded with for many years until she passed away. Mother corresponded with her prior to that. They wrote letters to each other in German. Vera could read and write French but my mother wasn’t good at it. She understood it but she couldn’t write it.

So the children were born. Mother was a change of life baby so she had a niece a couple of years younger and a year older. She was in between. That’s why, when she would go there (Paris), the one sister-in-law, Uncle Meier’s wife (I’m ashamed to say I don’t remember her name) would treat mother like she was their child. She taught her so much. How to dress, shat to do, how to do it, how to set the table, and everything that went with it. So she was a finished product when she got there. She used to kid about it. She said, "I went to finishing school in Germany. I didn’t even have to pay for it. Neither did my mother and father because my sister-in-law taught us so much."

They would always ask her to come. When she crossed the border, the soldiers were all there. She would go from border to border. They knew her because she went so often to Germany. She would come with brand new clothes and she wouldn’t declare them. They all knew, but let her pass through and pretended like they didn’t see it. Her father – he had a bakery. He had a certain day he would bake breads galore for the soldiers and he would give it to them free.

Q – This is your great grandfather?

A – No, my grandfather. My mother’s, mother’s husband. He was very good to the soldiers so that no one would bother him, and they didn’t. My mother said she would come with a new outfit on. They would look at her, kind of smile, and turn around and walk off. They never said a work to her. She passed through like she lived all over that place. And she loved it. Her brother was very wealthy and he gifted her one year with a horse and buggy. So she was the Belle of the town. She had all kinds of boyfriends. I could talk about my mother forever. She naturally had a sweetheart there who was studying to be a doctor. But when my father came along and he fell in love with, he took her hand and according to the Jewish religion, as I was told, if a Rabbi isn’t present and they say a certain prayer, its as good. He told her, "I’ll never let you go. The next time I see you, I’m going to say that prayer. You will by my wife and you’ll have to come with me." She learned to love him afterwards because he was kind, and he was gentle. He didn’t make much money, but he was very good. They had a good life together. That’s the best way I can put it. So that is the story.

As far as the boys are concerned, Bernie is the one that I took care of. Harold was an independent little thing. He didn’t want anyone to help him. But Bernie was a sweet little doll. He had a bad case of hives, from when you eat a lot of fruit, and he had to be wheeled around in a buggy. He couldn’t walk because it was all over his feet. I was the one who would play with him, and kiss him, and hug him. I was so sorry for him. It was like a toy for me. We’d help one another.

Q – It must have been difficult after you got married. You had to take care of your husband and then your mother. Tell us about that time.

A – I was accustomed to attention and I wasn’t going to get it so much, although my husband was very wonderful. He gave me a lot of attention. But after the children came, I had all that responsibility, and then my mother had a heart attack, so she moved in with us. That was the only reason. Irv wasn’t married at the time, so the two of them moved in with us. I felt like I was keeping house for two families.

Q – Didn’t Bernie move in with you too?

A – Only when he was in the service. First he lived with us one year and he got married. The boys lived with mother. She had a heart attack. They couldn’t take care of her, so she came to us with the boys. Bern got married shortly after that. He wasn’t there that long. When he went into the service, he had an apartment, but after he was divorced he brought in all his things and every time he was on leave of absence, he’d come home. After that, he married Aunt Dorothy and he has a very wonderful marriage and two darling girls.

I missed Francis when she moved because she was the one who babied me. If I had to have something ironed, I’d go to her if my mother was tired. I was lazy. I can’t use any other word. Francis and Mother knitted and crocheted. I was taught to crochet and I did it very well, but when it came to putting a hem on a skirt, I would rather go out and play with the girls. So I used to ask Francis or Mother to do it. They never said no, until one day, Francis did get excited and angry. She said, "You know what’s wrong with you? You’re lazy." Then I learned how to hem up a slip if it was too long. I wouldn’t do anything else. I was afraid. Truthfully, I can’t sew very well. I think Carol sews better than I do.

My mother lived with us until she passed away¹⁹ and we had a nice family relation there, fortunately. The children were wonderful to her and Dad was outstanding. He was the son to her, not the son-in-law. She would always remind me when I would get angry with him sometimes and I’d want to tell her something, "There’s two sides to every story and I’m sure Sid²⁰ is right." I used to say, "Where did you find me, on a doorstep? Whose mother are you?" Then we’d laugh.

Q – Did she help with the cooking?

A – At the very beginning she couldn’t cook at all. She had a heart condition. I did the cooking. She did nothing. But I had a live-in maid. Then we moved from Ainsley across the street. Dad gave you all that information. Then, when we moved into the house, she wanted occasionally, certain dishes that she could make better than I, so she would make them. But the actual cooking and all the shopping for the food, I did. I would do the cleanup job, but I didn’t do heavy work, because we always had help.

Q – I remember once when you and I went down in the basement and ate a shrimp.

A – Mother had passed away then. I took a walk and they were selling the hot shrimps. I was drooling. We ate out on the front porch and you made me feel so guilty I never did it again.

I always ate out. I was the bad one. I didn’t want to keep Kosher, but I kept it as long as my parents were living and as long as Sid’s mother was living. They could eat in our house and I was ultra, ultra careful. I was sincere about it. But I told mother once, "You know, I think it’s silly. We have kosher soap and modern methods, and a dishwasher." I said, "What do we have to have two sets of dishes for?" She looked at me and said, "Well, my dear, this is your home. I could only say this to you. You do what you want. I’m not going to tell you what to do. You know what you want." She said, "As far as I’m concerned, I’ll have two sets of dishes – Milchik and Flayshik. When I don’t feel well, I’m very sorry but you’ll have to wash three sets of dishes." I never changed. I thought that was very clever.

I remember making a pot traife. I don’t know what happened. I mixed it. We threw it out. Mother was there. She didn’t see, but it didn’t matter, it went in the garbage.

Q – I remember putting a knife in the ground when we mixed it. I guess you’re supposed to leave it in the ground for 24 hours. We forgot about it and then threw it out when we were through.

A – Yes, I think it rained or something and it became corroded. Then after awhile, I decided to have one set of dishes and that was it.

Q – Didn’t Grandma used to have her friends over for a tea party?

A – Yes, Mother used to play cards with some friends. Two were married and two were widows. Once a week they played Kaluki – that was a game at the time. She didn’t cook anything because two of them were diabetic and they couldn’t have anything. So they used to agree on fruit cottage cheese and Philadelphia cheese with jelly in the center and nice fresh rolls. Do you remember all that?

Q – That’s why, to this day, I love cheese and jelly.

A – I love it too. While I was doing the dishes, they played cards. She’d tell me in advance what they needed

Q – Didn’t you have a sort of hard time when you thought Dad was going into the army?

A – Oh, yes! There was a time when they were drafting both Uncle Irv and he. Mother got very sick and I got very sick.

Q – Now how old were you?

A – Around 38 years old. I decided that I loved children. I was tough with mine because I was nervous. It was too much of a responsibility that I had. We had a huge basement. The bathroom was down there. The shower was down there. We had a room that they could play in, and a huge room with shuffleboard on the floor. But I was very disturbed and fortunately, the decided not to draft men of that age. I think they went up to 35 and Dad was exempt then. But Irv was already in the service. I think he went to check in that one day, quit his job and he got himself ready to go in the service. He was single. I think that was it. Then they told him what the story was and they sent him home.

I was going to start a pre-kindergarten school. My mother said she would help me. I think she would have been very capable because when you children were very, very young, she used to read you these little storybooks. So I thinks she could have handled it too. But she told me, "You’ll have no problem," trying to help me. In the meantime, she was crying for Irv and I was crying for your Dad. It was a little rocky. Then you would forget the rocks and remember the smooth path and everything’s wonderful.

With us, Dad would say, "Life begins at 40." Then we began taking all sorts of trips. The very first one was a Caribbean Cruise. We had a glorious time. Then it began to roll and roll and we kept going all over and traveling. Now I’m the reverse. I’m content to be home.

Q – The first vacations that I remember you guys would take were to Florida.

A – Oh, we took that automatically. That was "in town" so to speak. On our 15^th wedding anniversary we tried to recapture all of that.

TAPE PROBLEM

She hadn’t seen him, and Dad, out of the goodness of his heart, asked Gram to join us. Of course, she couldn’t drive in the car with us. We had all our baggage and 3 kids. There were 5 of us in the car. So we got a head start. He bought her a plane ticket and the boys took her to the airport. We went back over our entire trip to all the places we went to. It cost us next to nothing as honeymooners because it was the depression. However, it was a different story now, because we stayed at the very, very best. We did all the good things and we adored it. Then, the day mother came in, we all went to the airport to meet her. We stayed at the Waldorf Hotel. She had her own room. We had a suite of rooms for you children. She walked down the plank with her head high. She was so happy. She was so thrilled. It was so wonderful.

Living in New York, Aunt Fannie’s daughter, Hannah lived there with her husband and family. When she heard Mother was coming in, she had Uncle Naftala over, and his wife. We were all there for lunch one day. We had a wonderful time. Mother’s first night out was at a nightclub. We took her around to show her the town. We tried to show her everything. She loved it. She talked about it for years. After that, she felt like a seasoned traveler. She decided to go to St. Paul to see Francis. We were all a little older. I was afraid to let her go alone. Maybe I wanted to see Francis. I guess it was a combination. It was about a two-hour ride on the plane. Dad said, "OK." He drove us to the airport. I got on the plane with Mother. She had her bags. I had nothing. That night, I came home and Dad was there waiting for me to take me home. She loved it so much. When she came home, she came by plane alone. She had grown quite accustomed to it. It’s all thanks to Dad because he was an ideal son to her.

I’ll say "ditto" to all the wonderful things Dad said about you children. You are a very wonderful group of kids – the 3 of you, and you mates, and the grandchildren. They are our life and our joy. Dad – he’s my lifelong partner – the best on Earth. He’s my candle.

Q – Let’s talk about one of your relatives that survived the Holocaust, the only one that you kept up with, and that was Vera. Now Vera was very well off?

A – Very wealthy. She comes from Uncle Meier, her father, who was in the fur business. Uncle Meier had two daughters, Vera and (it escapes me now). They had the finest education. They were brought up with a nanny. They traveled all over Europe. When they were bombing the town Mother had lived in, Grandmother and Grandfather²¹ lived in the home²². It was so close to the border that their place was bombed and they were killed. That was during the First World War. They were living in Germany, but when WWI took place, they moved to France. In the place that Uncle Meier and Vera were hiding with her sister, Vera got hit. They were all mean. They managed to get away to France. They never dreamed that the Nazi’s would get there. Finally, Uncle Meier passed away and Vera never got married. She studied to be a dentist. Her sister was a pharmacist. Her sister married a Russian pharmacist.

Their group of friends were all in mixed marriages. They got along beautifully and they were all accepted. When the Nazis entered, she had a little apartment with a small fireplace. That was what kept her warm. By that time, they had lost everything. They were poor people. And Sid, out of the goodness of his heart again, we used to send her money and clothes and to her sister also. We did it for maybe 25 years, every single month.

Here is how she lived. When the Nazis came there, all the Jewish mates ran into the woods and hid. She went with them. The mates stayed in town because they were Gentile. They would go into the woods, taking turns, to bring food to them. They lived under bushes or whatever was dead on the ground to cover themselves with. It was a horrible life. Many of them became ill and died. She lived through it all.

When peace was declared, she came back and when she got to her little apartment, the fireplace, the only thing that could keep her warm, was broken to smithereens. They thought she had something of value behind it. She had nothing. She was a poor old lady.

We came to Paris in 1951 for Sid to do business. Aunt Francis, Elaine and Adrian, all came to stay at our house. At that time we tried to reach Vera. We had a little difficulty, but we finally reached her. We were staying at the George Sanct hotel. She came to visit us, a little woman, very pathetic. Naturally, she knew the whole Friedman family and Mother, because they corresponded. I thought I wouldn’t be able to converse with her, and her with me. I remember at home, Uncle Dave used to use a lot of German words. Mother did too when she talked to him. They talked like they did when they were home. I picked up Jewish words. We never spoke Jewish in the house because our parents wanted us to speak English. I can thank Dave for it. Whatever I learned, I learned from him. Once I heard Mother say something to a friend, I knew what she was talking about. I got the gist of it. Now, I can speak it, but not fluently. I understand it very well.

When we met, Sid said, " How are we going to talk to her?" He was amazed I spoke Yiddish. Some of the words I used like Mother did – with a German twang. We understood each other and had a conversation. Before we left, instead of giving her $50, we gave her $100 of American money. We had some very warm booties. We gave her those. We continued corresponding after that, and sending money.

Q – I remember, as a child, helping wrap clothes . . .

A – If anything was new, they would steal it. My mother would knit a lot. She knitted a shawl. She would crumple it up. She made her flannel nightgowns and she would wash them and wrinkle them up and then put them in there. The poor things, when they got the food, they took all that out because it was warm. Someone stole it. No doubt at the post office while it was there. The package came open.

Toward the end, when I received letters from Vera, mother wasn’t around to translate them so I took them to our Rabbi. He read them and said it was a mixture of German and Jewish, but he knew German. Rabbi Phillip Robart. Much to my surprise, his sister, who married another Rabbi here, Rabbi Weingart, gives our foreign news from Israel for Hadassah.

Q – Did you get interested in doing any charitable work?

A – When I was single, Jeanette Goodman’s mother was president of a senior consumptive aid society. They wanted to start a junior group. We all joined it, our little club of 12 girls. We all joined, we all worked, we all attended, we all gave. Once a year, they would have a little trip where they would take you out to their sanitarium at Winfield. We would all take a day off from work. None of us got paid, but we felt it was our duty and we went. That was the extent of really getting into an organization when I was single.

After I got married, I always belonged to something. I started with Pioneer Women. I’ve been a life member of that for about 35 or 40 years now. I joined that and I attended everything. We had men at some of the affairs. Dad would be there and contributed. Then I felt that when my father died²³ at the very early age of 52 from cancer, I should join a cancer group. I’ve always belonged to a sisterhood wherever we were. The cancer society was always near my heart since so many members of our family died from cancer. I became a life member there, and I’m also on the board, and I attend all the meetings. You do a beautiful thing – you buy all those cards. I get honorable mention from those cards because of you, for which now I’ll thank you very much. Pioneer Women, when I lived west, was beautiful. I was able to handle the situation. I went with the neighbors. They all had cars. After we moved out here, I couldn’t go that distance. The couple of busses and cabs were expensive and I just never went. I’ve never stopped paying dues. I’ve never stopped taking ads. I’ve never stopped contributing to the orphans through that group.

I also do it for Hadassah²⁴, where I’m a life member. I took Dad in as an associate. That was his birthday present one year. They mentioned the fact that they would like to do so-and-so and I brought Dad in as an associate. Then I made Carol a member on one of her birthdays. I should bring in a lot of new members – it’s just that everyone I know already belongs to Hadassah. Or they belong to other groups and they have their friends. They’re not in such a big hurry to change, because they know one or two people. They go where its convenient and where they like it. We, of course, attend everything. We’re very good at bond drives too. We do our best, as we should. If we want a country and we want to be respected, this is it. If we don’t fight for it, we’ll have nothing. We must know, that’s our lifeline.

Q – Tell us about this woman who called Bernie.

A – Before this woman ever called Bernie, I was told a story and it was verified. I’d like to tell the story I was told. Later, a stranger steps in and tells us the same story.

When I was a child, we were told that we came from royalty. We laughed up our sleeves. What a joke. Nobody knew, they just thought that. Then nothing was ever said for years and I never remembered again. The next time I heard about it, Sarah Cultin’s (?) mother tells me that she had a neighbor whose name was Drebin. She said, "I know a Drebin also, married to Sidney Cohen." The neighbor said, "Do you know the story behind our name?" She said, "What is this story?"

She said, "This woman was found on a boat. Evidently a boat was destroyed or she was escaping from somewhere and she had no oars. Nobody was with her. But she was very richly dressed and she had a big suitcase full of wealth – jewels and beautiful clothes. When she came to the shore, she didn’t speak the language. She didn’t know what was going on. She didn’t understand anything. She only knew German. When they asked her what her name was, she couldn’t understand and she said "Dreben!" That means "over there" – "yonder." The story was, she came, she married, they multiplied. Evidently they used her name."

This woman, the neighbor of hers, admitted that her father wasn’t a Drebin – he changed to that because he thought the history was so beautiful. Now that settles that question.

Along comes brother Bernie. He gets mail from this woman in Philadelphia. This woman writes and wants to know what he knows about the family tree. She had figured hers out. Her husband is disinterested and she’s interested. She hears that there’s a story behind it. She did a lot of tracing. Bern wrote and told her he knew nothing. He corresponded for a little while. Dorothy didn’t seem to think it was worthwhile bothering, and I wondered about it myself. I thought after all, things happen like that. They don’t know who she is and what’s what, and why she is so interested in her husband’s story. He didn’t even care, she told Bernie. Didn’t care at all. She went to the H.I.A.S.²⁵ (I believed that’s what they called it), for an investigation to find out about this name. They did it. They said it is of German origin. And they story is true. And they told about the boat. And they told about the woman. And they told about everything.

Just before Uncle Bernie was going to tell us the story, we were over at their house one evening. I said, "Oh, before you tell us what you were going to say, let me tell you what I heard years ago." I remembered when I heard the story from Sarah’s mother, I told it to my mother. She said, "We never said anything because your father used to laugh at it." He said he can’t believe it’s true. Where is more evidence? He didn’t get enough evidence. And he said, "What’s the difference?" He called it a "Gashifta" – a story. My mother said, why should she get excited, but she said her mother-in-law (after all, it was her husband’s family) was the one that told her. She was the one that was excited. And she said, "You have no idea what you came from."

Q – They never did find out who that woman was.

A – No. But H.I.A.S. has the record where a wealthy woman did come, she was in a boat, she did say "Dreben" and that’s where the name came from. A lot of people took the name when they married into the family. That’s the story.

I thought Bernie would continue with it. He had business in Philadelphia and just recently, I asked him again. He said Dorothy didn’t think much of it, its so many years. Forget it. I felt almost the same. Maybe it’s a mistake and maybe its not. But if H.I.A.S. didn’t have more information than this, well, what else is there? May as well forget it. So he dropped it. He never answered the last letter, and he decided to let it ride. But it is a German name.

END OF INTERVIEW

FOOTNOTES

¹Now known as Taurage, Lithuania. At the time of her birth, it was a part of Prussia.

²The Lithuanian-Polish government collapsed in the 1700's, and in 1795, Lithuania came under the rule of the czar of Russia. The people rebelled against Russian rule in 1831 and 1863 but failed to win independence. The czar tried to increase Russian influence in Lithuania. He prohibited books printed in Lithuanian and closed Lithuanian schools. But the people continued to educate their children and kept the national culture alive as well. Many Lithuanians immigrated to the United States during this period and also during later periods. The movement for an independent Lithuania became organized in the 1880's. In 1905, a conference of elected representatives of Lithuania demanded self-government for their people within the Russian state. The Russians rejected this demand. During World War I (191 4 -1918), German troops occupied Lithuania. On Feb. 16, 1918, Lithuania became the first of the Baltic States to declare its independence from Russia and Germany. Fighting continued in Lithuania after World War I ended. Russia attempted to take over the country. The Lithuanians defeated Russia, and a peace treaty was signed in 1920. (1990 World Book)

³Daughter of Samuel Epstein and Tizarre Gitel.

⁴Shlomo Yehuda Drebin and Hanna.

⁵Present day Ukraine.

⁶It was common practice to allow a draftee to pay cash to the government instead of going off to military service.

⁷Russo-Japanese War brought recognition to Japan as a major world power. Russia's poor showing in the war sharpened the dissatisfaction of its people with the Russian government. This discontent helped shape the course of the Russian Revolution of 1905. The Russo-Japanese War began on Feb. 8, 1904, when Japan attacked Lushun (also called Port Arthur) in Manchuria. It ended on Sept. 5, 1905, with the signing of the Treaty of Portsmouth. ( 1999 World Book)

⁸Since Sydel was born in Tavrig, Ida and the children must have remained there for at least nine months before immigrating. Given that Abraham came to America "six weeks" after the meeting, he would have been in Philadelphia for at least 7 or 8 months before the rest of the family joined him.

⁹Probably Lena and Rachel.

¹⁰Meier and Naftala from her mother first marriage.

¹¹Perhaps Sheva?

¹²Was this, perhaps, one of the "two sisters" she said were already here?

¹³Fannie Epstein married Samuel Friedman.

¹⁴Nickname for her brother Bernie.

¹⁵In 1881, when revolutionaries assassinated Czar Alexander II of Russia, the Jews were blamed. Many Russian Jews were then killed in organized massacres called pogroms.

¹⁶Pershing called him " one of the bravest men in my command." Sam won the French Croix de Guerre, The Medaille Militaire and the D.S.C. in France. He fought as a sergeant in the 36th division during World War I, the Mexican revolution, and with Company G, Fourteenth Infantry of the regular army in the Philippines and in China.

¹⁷The Blue Monster Copper Company was located somewhere in New Mexico.

¹⁸Nicknamed "The Fighting Jew" by writer Damon Runyon.

¹⁹March 6, 1951.

²⁰Sydel's husband, Sidney Cohen.

²¹Samuel Epstein and Tzirre Gitel.

²²This would have been in Taurage. During World War I (1914-1918), German troops occupied Lithuania.

²³1933.

²⁴Hadassah, the Women's Zionist Organization of America, is a volunteer women's organization, whose members are motivated and inspired to strengthen their partnership with Israel, ensure Jewish continuity, and realize their potential as a dynamic force in American society. (Hadassah Mission Statement)

²⁵The Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society was established by Russian-Jewish immigrants to the United States in 1880. The society is a worldwide migration agency, which does work in the resettlement and rehabilitation of refugees.