LEVINE:

This is Janet Levine for the National Park Service, and I'm here today, it's May 7, 1992, and I'm in North Miami Beach, Florida at the home of Zelda Toumarkine Schulter, who came from France in 1920 at the age of ten years. I'm very happy to be here and that the recorder is playing, and we'll start again by saying your birth date.

SCHULTER:

My birth date is September 23, 1909, and let me say that you're very welcome here and I'm glad to know you. I'd like to say that though I came through Ellis Island when I came here from France I had given it very little thought all these years until I lived in New Jersey, which is right across the Hudson River in a town very near New York City. And then I began to read articles about the renovation and about making a museum out of it and I became intensely interested and read articles about it. However, like everybody else, it's in your own backyard and you just don't go. T here's always tomorrow. I moved to Florida in 1986, not having gone to see Ellis Island. So on one of my visits in June of 1990 to New York and New Jersey I decided I was going to go to Ellis Island and I did. And I was absolutely taken aback by the things, the wonderful, wonderful things that were exhibited there of such great interest to this country and to everybody living here. And I started my walk around, and I, as I went from the different departments, I noticed things that reminded me of our family history. The first one that reminded me of our family history was an exhibit on a wall showing and telling how many Jewish people had been murdered in Odessa in the year 1905. This had been compiled. It was written in hand, and it had been compiled by an individual who stated at the bottom that this is the best he could do. He couldn't verify these figures because he had also to leave the country. 1905 was the year that the Cossacks in Russia were on a rampage and were killing the Jewish people. In the area where my father and mother lived, which was one of the Jewish quarters, they decided that to avoid all these killings they would post sentinels to let the community know that the Cossacks were coming on their horses. What they used to do was to come, yank the men out of wherever they were, homes or factories or whatever, line them up, and use them as targets. The, so that the plan was that these sentinels would give the word that they were on their way. The women and children were perhaps molested, but that wasn't the big thing. The big thing was lining up the men and shooting them as targets. So that the men were supposed to just up and flee across the border to Germany. The women and children were left behind, but plans had been made where to meet whenever the women could band together and cross the border. The year struck me, 1905. That's the year that my mother and father escaped into Germany. And it just gave me chills. There were, according to this document, five hundred seventy-four killings in the month of October, which is I think, I'm not positive, the month that they escaped, or near that. And it was the most killings of any of the areas there, they occurred in Odessa, where my mother and father lived. My father did escape, indeed, and my mother, carrying with her a few days or weeks later a, it was organized. All these women and children, or as many as they could take, escorted by a few men, would cross the border. They knew when the guards had their post and they would time it so that they could escape when the guards weren't at the borders. My mother took with her in one wicker basket the samovar with a tray underneath it, and in another wicker basket her six month old child, my brother, whose name is Solomon. And they started crossing into the border of Germany. Suddenly the baby, my mother's baby, Solomon, began to cry. And in desperation a man, who was afraid that everybody would be endangered, took the wicker. I forgot to tell you that there was a lot of snow. The snow was very, very deep. The progress going was very slow. But a man took the basket with the baby in it, ran with it as much as he could run, buried it in the snow, and told everybody to go on, stop for nothing, go. My mother stayed behind. She was not going to leave her baby behind, and everybody went forward. Suddenly she saw a man. She started to look and a man walked back, and he said, "I'll help you find your baby." Everybody went on, and this man stayed back and they found the baby. My mother was frozen up to the waist till the day she died. Her legs were like two sticks, purple, and she had much, much trouble. But she was a very brave, courageous woman, and she survived, did whatever she had to do. And there it is.

LEVINE:

And your brother survived?

SCHULTER:

Yes, yes. When they got into Germany, this man and my mother now, and the baby, and the other wicker basket with the samovar in it and a large urn made of the same metal. I think that's, it's not copper. What is it? Brass. A very wide vessel that was widely used in European countries was in the other one, and then the little tray. When they got to Germany to the appointed place, it was a hotel-type of place. One of the maids who saw them coming went up to a bedroom, took a sheet, tore it into pieces, took the wet things off the baby and put him into dry swaddling clothes. ( she laughs ) My mother and father are now there in Germany. They met us, as planned, and they started to wander around, wondering where to settle. They went to Germany, Luxembourg. They didn't want to stay in Germany, so they went to Luxembourg and they didn't like it. They went to Belgium and didn't like it, and they went to France and they loved it. And my father had a brother in a temple, St. Etienne, in France, which is near Lyon, L-Y-O-N, about an hour by train away from Lyon. And that's where his brother was, so that's where they headed. So they went there, settled in St. Etienne, where my brother Maurice was born, and then I was born in 1909.

LEVINE:

Oh, wow. Now, did your father and mother have money? How did they, how did they travel from Germany to Luxembourg?

SCHULTER:

Well, they took what money, they had been, this had been planned. And they must have had some money put aside for this eventuality. They certainly were poor, but they were helped by family when they got to St. Etienne, and my father had been a, he had been working with watches, you know, repairing and making watches, and my mother, but what they did, the brother had a store there with dry goods, a dry goods store. So the way that they made their living in France was to buy up dry goods and go to the various countryside places and hire a place. They were called foire, F-O-I-R-E. They would be, like country fairs. Exhibit their goods, pack up what they had left, and come home. But when they came home they came home with fresh nuts, fresh fruit, fresh milk, fresh everything, and we had a really big party. Country bread! And we had this big kitchen in France with a tremendous table and everything got put on the table and we'd have a ball. But we were not allowed to leave a crumb. We were raised very, very frugally. You'd eat everything. Nothing gets thrown out. My mother had to have people, when she went along with my father to take care of us, and in the summers we were all parceled out to the countryside at farms for the summer so that then they had the freedom to go wherever, whenever they wanted to on their business.

LEVINE:

Now, who would you stay with? In other words, would it be . . .

SCHULTER:

My mother would find farmers who wanted to take in children at a price, you know. Like children here go to camp. In those days we went to a farm. I remember milking a cow into a bowl and drinking it right out of the bowl with all the foam on top.

LEVINE:

So you remember that as a happy time.

SCHULTER:

Oh, yes. Oh, France was a very, very happy time. School there was a very happy time. I have a picture of me with my class there. But it was all girls or all boys, the school, at the time, in St. Etienne. And I have my class picture, I had friends, and it was a very happy time. We were Jewish, as you already know, and there was a synagogue in the area, but too far away for us to go there often enough to please my mother. And about a block away was a beautiful Catholic church, and she sent us to the church. She says, "You have to be exposed to religion. But just remember you're Jewish and we don't believe in Jesus Christ as a god. We believe in him as a great scholar, a great man, but not as a god, and just remember that, but go." She exposed us. And we'd go to midnight mass, and we'd go to Christmas mass with our neighbors. She did not go. But she had a little Bible that she prayed, in her own way, by herself, and I have the Bible that she prayed from. I even remember in France when we had big storms she would take us to the big window, gather the three of us around, take out this little Bible, and read from the Bible. So vivid, you know, right there at the window, instead of putting the shades down, the shades were up, and she was praying. ( she laughs )

LEVINE:

Now, were you the only Jewish family, or were there other Jewish families?

SCHULTER:

No. There were others, but not many, but not many.

LEVINE:

And did she keep any customs or traditions?

SCHULTER:

The only, no, she did not. It was too difficult. But, except she never had allowed pork to be brought into the home, which brings me to another story. In France, during the First World War, when food was very scarce. In fact, we had to go to the Town Hall to be weighed, and according to our weight was how much food was allotted to each person, adult and child. And with that you had to go in lines, to the bakery, in a line, to the butcher or wherever in a line. But if you were at the end of a line sometimes you got there and you got nothing. And so my mother, who had a hard time feeding us at that point, oh, I forgot to tell you about my father. He wasn't home. He had gone. I'll tell you about him in a minute. It's quite a story there. She bought ham. All she could find was ham. So she bought the ham, had the loaf of bread, made us sandwiches, and we ate it outdoors in a park, Plus Badouilliere is the name of the park, and I have a picture of it.

LEVINE:

Can you spell it?

SCHULTER:

Plus Badouillie. Let me see B, bah. B-A-D-O-U-I-L-L-I-E-R-E. Plus Badouilliere. And I have a picture of it. Why wasn't my father with us? He loved France and he wanted to fight for France. So he went, as a volunteer? I don't, in those days, in France it was called "volontiers." And he wanted to. Why did he have to? And he went. When they found out he was not a French citizen, he never took out French citizenship. He was still a Russian citizen. They couldn't put him in the French army. So they bought, I'll show you the picture later on. They put him in the Foreign Legion. And I have a picture of him in his uniform, and a picture of him with his whole regiment in the Foreign Legion. He came . . .

LEVINE:

Where did he go?

SCHULTER:

It came time to go to the front. He fought the Germans in the First World War, which started out in 1914. That's why my mother was left back with three children that she had to cope with. ( she laughs ) They tell the story that when they went to the front they noticed he was very, very nearsighted, and they were so afraid he'd shoot the wrong people they sent him home. ( she laughs )

LEVINE:

So how long was he gone, then?

SCHULTER:

I really don't know, but I do remember that he was away from the house. It must have been a good, long time because there was training, and they trained in, I think someplace in Africa, I think, where they trained. And then they sent these trained Foreign Legion troops to the front. Then life went on. My father then, he didn't go back to watchmaking or repairing because of his eyesight. That's why they sold the dry goods at the fairs to make a living. My mother had family here in the United States. She had a sister and two brothers who had migrated from Russian through various other countries and then settled in the United States. And she had always wanted to be with her family. And so she devilled the life out of my husband, out of her husband. ( she laughs ) "Let's go to America." And he resisted and resisted and finally gave in. And this was after the war, of course. Because in 1920, the war ended in 1918, and they finally came to the country. So now, to go back to Ellis Island . . .

LEVINE:

Well, first tell me, do you remember, now, who travelled? What was your group composed of when you left France for the United States?

SCHULTER:

We were not in a group. We were alone. I mean, we were from St. Etienne and we went to La Havre to get our boat, which was La Touraine. We stayed in Paris for two days because my parents wanted to see Paris, and then we went on to Le Havre and got on. We were not part of a group.

LEVINE:

Now, it was your brother?

SCHULTER:

Oh, by my father, my mother and the three children. And I have the names, the names are right here . . .

LEVINE:

Oh, good.

SCHULTER:

You know, of the family that came.

LEVINE:

Why don't you tell me the names of each of them?

SCHULTER:

Well, it doesn't give it here. What it says is, "Monsieur Toumarkine, Madame Toumarkine et trois enfants." Unnamed.

LEVINE:

Uh-huh. But your mother's name was what?

SCHULTER:

Sarah.

LEVINE:

And her maiden name?

SCHULTER:

Kahn. K-A-H-N was her maiden name.

LEVINE:

Okay. And your father's name?

SCHULTER:

Toumarkine. Well, in Russia it was Tamarkin. This is an interesting quirk. When they got to France the clerk who wrote out the name, instead of making it T-A-M-A-R-K-I-N, decided to give it a French twist. So it became T-O-U-M-A-R-K-I-N-E, Toumarkine. So we're probably the only Toumarkine family in existence because it was composed in France, you see.

LEVINE:

Okay. And your father's first name was David?

SCHULTER:

David, yeah.

LEVINE:

Right. And then Solomon was your brother.

SCHULTER:

Solomon was the baby boy that came out of Russia, and my brother, my other brother whose name is Maurise, M-A-U-R-I-S-E. Maurise.

LEVINE:

Okay. Now, do you remember leaving the village where . . .

SCHULTER:

Oh, St. Etienne. It's not a village.

LEVINE:

It's a big town?

SCHULTER:

Oh, it's a pretty big, yeah. Manufacturing and coal mining. It's a pretty large town, yes. Yes, I remember life there. I remember I had friends there. I have pictures of them. We corresponded for years. I have a picture of my school class, as I told you. I have very good memories of the school. I enjoyed it very much. We had an incident, we had a dog whose name was Titi, T-I-T-I. And we had to leave him behind. We gave him to a neighbor who knew him very well, but it was heartbreaking. I remember that. And I remember when we were in France everybody got a piece of jewelry, and we all still have that piece of jewelry that my father bought us, and my mother had a big chain, you know, with one of those fob watches that you've seen on with very long chains. Pedigree, what do they call it? Filigree, filigree, right. And then we went on this boat. I don't remember much about the passage, except that it was dull, lengthy and I thought it would never end, and you don't see anything but water, water, water. You know, and we couldn't wait until we spotted land. How long it took, I don't know. But the boat left the 20th of May. I think that it was, and so it arrived in June, but the departure was May 29th, 1920.

LEVINE:

Uh-huh. Well, before we go on further with the voyage, is there anything that you remember, when you think back.

SCHULTER:

My life in France?

LEVINE:

Yes.

SCHULTER:

Beautiful. Because in France family was a big, big thing. Now, remember, I'm not talking about Paris. Paris is in a class by itself. It's an international city. It is not France. I can't tell people that often enough. They think that the Parisians are France. That's not. French people are much different. Families were very, very important, and whenever there were outings which were family outings, families got together and went on picnics, and there was always music in the background and singing and I have the places where, pictures of the places where we even went to picnic. It was a joyous time. When we came to the United States and settled here, suddenly the children are segregated and the parents were segregated and we couldn't understand this. Why were we at different tables for eating or why were we in a different room and all the adults were in another room. You know, we just couldn't get over this. The family had sort of disintegrated, and we weren't used to that. But my mother and father and their home became the hub of the whole family there of the four families that were there. My mother's sister and her family and two brothers and their families, and ours were the headquarters where we got together. But after the eating there was separation, you know. That was the American way, I guess. I don't know, way back in 1920.

LEVINE:

What else do you remember? Can you remember just sitting around the table eating? What it was like? What would be discussed, or what kind of food?

SCHULTER:

Well, they would tell us about their escapades when they were selling, about little incidents, maybe. They would ask us what we did, you know, in school, and how we fared. Because there was somebody taking care of us, you know. But I remember particularly the food that came out of these baskets, you know, right off the trees or right out of the ground and then the nuts and the cracking of the nuts. It was a very joyous time that went on for a few days, you know, until things got back to normal. But they never went for very long. It was two or three days at a time that they would go, and then they'd come back.

LEVINE:

And they would go together, your mother and father?

SCHULTER:

Yes, yes. They went together. Maybe not at all times. I really don't recall too well, but there must be times where maybe my mother didn't go, you know. But maybe a shorter time, maybe a one-day stand someplace.

LEVINE:

And would they take a wagon? How would they travel?

SCHULTER:

No. They would sent them the things in big bales by train, and they would travel separately and their bales were there and they had engaged the display table already. They had the space saved for it, for them, and they picked up their bales of merchandise and display it. And they got into that because my father's brother had a store with dry goods in it, all these things. And, you know, they're new there. What else, they didn't know what to go into, and this is what they went into. I remember very, I was very happy in France. My girlfriend and I, I have a lot of friends, and our house was, our house, our apartment in France, the apartment house in St. Etienne had no water, but my father and mother in our apartment installed water. We had to go, before that, to the corner, maybe half a block away, to pump water out of a pump and bring it to the apartment, which is what everybody did then. And my father and mother put water into our kitchen, and everybody in the apartment used to come and fill up their buckets, so it was really a very gay time, you know. Plus I remember the living room had a very large fireplace. And this big urn that I told you that my mother brought from Russia, big. I mean, about a foot-and-a-half in diameter. It used to hang on a chain over the fireplace. She'd make jellies in it, soups in it. And we'd talk around, we'd sit around the fire and talk while she was making these things. It was a fun time. We all enjoyed France. But we were very, very excited, however, about coming to the United States. We had studied about it. By the way, I have my geography book from France. Can you believe it?

LEVINE:

Oh, wow.

SCHULTER:

Look at it. It's falling apart.

LEVINE:

It's beautiful.

SCHULTER:

Isn't that something? My geography book.

LEVINE:

Do you remember games that you played as a little girl in France?

SCHULTER:

No, I don't. No, I don't.

LEVINE:

Do you remember stories that you either were told or that particularly intrigued you?

SCHULTER:

No, I really can't say that I do. I do, my brother Sol studied English in school because he was the oldest and they offered that course. We didn't get to it, Maurise and I, and he spoke English, by the way, with an English accent because us, you know, like from England. That's the way they spoke it there. I just remember being, having a very, very happy time. I remember those outings, those picnics, where somebody always had an accordion, right? And it was always climbing to the top of a little mountain, you know. And then taking out, saucicon was a great thing. You know what saucicon, what is the English? What's saucicon, you know? Not, baloney and salami were big things.

LEVINE:

Oh, sausages.

SCHULTER:

Out it would come of the basket, and the French peasant bread and you'd cut that, and the saucisson got sliced, you know. Fruit, a lot of fruit. It was, and it was a fun thing, because everybody was always talking together or singing together. There was a lot of singing. I remember that. It was a very, very happy, a very happy time for us.

LEVINE:

So if it hadn't been that your mother wanted to be reunited with her family, you probably would have stayed.

SCHULTER:

Would have stayed. Would have stayed, because my father just loved France. And he wanted to go back the whole time he was here. He would have wanted to go back, but he knew that he never would, because my mother was too happy being here with her sister and her two brothers.

LEVINE:

And did the war affect you in any way in France?

SCHULTER:

Well, I told you about we had to be weighed for food.

LEVINE:

As far as actual bombing or . . .

SCHULTER:

No. The First World War didn't reach St. Etienne. St. Etienne and Lyon are a little south of the center of France and a little bit to the east.

LEVINE:

Yes.

SCHULTER:

And they, it never came down that far, the First World War, no. It affected relatives that we had there, the Second World War did. They had to be hidden by the peasants or they would have been killed, but that's another story, and it's not mine, except it's family.

LEVINE:

Yes. Okay. So when your mother left from France to come here, what did she pack that time?

SCHULTER:

Interestingly enough, she had three big bales, probably the remnants of the, the bales that she used to go with the merchandise to sell, you know, at the fairs? And she had three big ones full of possessions. She brought the samovar, of course, and the big urn, and the little tray there, and clothing, and whatever she wanted to bring. But one was devoted completely to my trousseau.

LEVINE:

Really!

SCHULTER:

She had engaged somebody to embroider everything I might have needed for the rest of my life, it seems to me. A whole big bale. I'm not talking about little baskets. I mean, you know our trunks here? About twice the size of those trunks. I mean, big things made out of wicker. She had underwear with the initials Z.T., Zelda Toumarkine. By the way, my French name on my birth certificate is Zelie. They gave it a French twist. Z-E-L-I-E, Zelie. And another interesting thing is that, you know, in the Jewish tradition you do not give the name of the mother to the child. But on my birth certificate it says, "Zelie Sarah Toumarkine." They decided the heck with that. The custom is, it's a Catholic country, the custom is to give the mother's name, and it's there. S-A-R-A-H, right on my birth certificate, which I have. Well . . .

LEVINE:

So what else was in your trousseau?

SCHULTER:

Oh, my gosh. She had underwear, she had tablecloths, she had linens, bed linens, everything beautifully hand-embroidered with the ZT, and a design around it. And the only thing of that whole trousseau that was saved were handkerchiefs, but the handkerchiefs in France in those days for women were so large, they were the size of men's handkerchiefs today, that I used it for tea napkins. That got into another bale. That's the only thing that was saved.

LEVINE:

What happened to that bale?

SCHULTER:

It got lost and we never recovered it. It was never found. Somebody opening it and seeing what was in it wasn't going, you know, with all these fine linens in there. I guess they couldn't care less about what the initials were, they wanted to use it. I don't know, but it was never recovered.

LEVINE:

Did you bring anything of your own? I mean, did you select a toy or anything that you could take with you?

SCHULTER:

No, except we brought necklaces, which are the length that are mostly worn today, with different beads. And I had one of those that I brought. And then we bought one for each of the little girls that I was about to meet, and we brought extra ones for them. But no, I don't remember anything. Probably my mother took care of all these things, and I don't remember having anything to cuddle on the way. It was a very uneventful long, dreary voyage. END OF SIDE ONE, TAPE ONE BEGINNING OF SIDE TWO, TAPE ONE

LEVINE:

Were you, where, how did you travel? Were you in steerage? Were you in a cabin?

SCHULTER:

No, cabin. Cabin class.

LEVINE:

Was it cabin . . .

SCHULTER:

They have cabin and steerage, that's all.

LEVINE:

Just your family in one cabin? Is that how you did it?

SCHULTER:

I don't remember. I think so. I think so. I would think so.

LEVINE:

And do you remember the food aboard ship?

SCHULTER:

I'm sure it wasn't good. ( she laughs ) Because my mother kept worrying we weren't eating, you know. It wasn't the kind we were accustomed to eating, surely, because we have so many fresh things, you know, that my mother and father, we would bring from the country, right out of the ground, right off the trees. And it wasn't anything like, that we were accustomed to. But we apparently survived, all of us. Then the big thing was sighting land. I don't know how long that voyage was, how long it took on a boat in those days. But we got here some time in June. I don't know the date. I wish I did. And finally the word got around we're approaching, about to approach land, and everybody went outdoors, you know. We were packed like sardines looking with such excitement, and wondering. But we sighted land, and the Statue of Liberty. It was so impressive. It was so majestic. It was so meaningful. There's freedom. There's opportunity. There's freedom of every kind, religion, and doing what you want to do. And most of all, it linked to us, America and France, because it was given to America by France, right? So it was, it was just so awesome and so meaningful and so beautiful. That I remember distinctly. Then I remember getting off that boat like herds of cattle. I mean, being, you know, everybody pushing out, pushing out. And getting into another vehicle that took us to Ellis Island, and that's about all I remembered for a while until I went to Ellis Island and remembered other things, which I'll tell you about in a minute. But first as I went to Ellis Island I didn't look to the right or left. I went right into the building, and I was so impressed. It's not to be missed. Everybody has to go to Ellis Island. What's been done there is majestic. It's historical, it's meaningful, they've got to go. Wonderful work there. Well, I looked at everything in great wonder and I came to the plaque that I told you about, telling about, that reminded me of my father's escape, my father and mother's escape in 1905. That's the first day I went. I had no camera, nothing. Then I'd go to another section nearby and I'd see all the boats that the immigrants came on, and there's the boat we came on, La Touraine. Then I went to another part on another floor and I see exhibits, things that people brought with them, exhibited. A samovar, a big urn, underwear, laces, tablecloths, clothing. But most I was impressed with how many people brought the samovar. Not that they were all there, but that was one of the, you know, these are the type of things that people have brought, and that's what my mother and father had brought.

LEVINE:

Do you remember using that as a family?

SCHULTER:

In France it was being used. There's a chimney in the middle in which you put charcoal. You put the water all around that chimney in there and it boils the water. You light the charcoal, make hot coals, and it boils the water. And then there was another piece to it that got lost, I don't know, a little teakettle that you're supposed to make concentrated tea in it, and then you put it on top there to keep it hot. So you poured a little concentrated tea in the cup, and that's why there's a tray underneath. A tray belongs to it. And then you add water. And my mother did, indeed, use it in France, yes. And when we came to this country you can still see, it's battered up, it was, it had the, it was much more battered up than that, and my brother Sol never got over it because I had it refinished. So I would then have to polish it, you know, and I had a special finish put on. And when they refinished it they took out all the bumps, and he said, "You shouldn't have done that! That was history! You shouldn't have had those taken out!" And he was right, but I didn't think at the time. I only thought of the beauty of the article, you know. The urn is at my son's house. It's up at Bar Harbor where he lives, in Maine, because I don't, this is, I didn't have room here for it so I didn't bring it, but he's got that. And so that's still in existence. When we came to this country we were met, oh, Ellis Island. So far I'm visiting Ellis Island and I see these three things that to me brought back, it was like reading my parents' and my history right there at Ellis Island. Then I went outside and I saw the wall with the commemorative plates, and I thought that was so significant. The names of families immortalized, that came through Ellis Island. And I went back into the building and they had a form there where they, you know, they ask for your name and a little bit of your history. I took that with me, and then the papers to have our name put onto one of those. I brought that home with me with the, you know, with the intention of having our name commemorated there. And then I determined, then I went outside. When I went outside and walked around, then I went to the front of the building and I thought to myself I remember hoards of people. You know those wide steps? It was filled with people from our, you know, the time I came. Children, there were quite a few children. Mothers, walking up those steps into the building, and then I remembered the darkness, the wooden benches, the poorly-lit hall, the screaming, the crying. It was awful. It was a bad experience. I'm sorry to have to tell you this, it was a very, very, very, very bad experience. There was so much commotion, so much sadness, people were, some families were being turned down because their papers weren't in order, or maybe they had some kind of an illness. The kids were running around mad, but it was so dimly lit. And it's this way today, I mean, they show it, the benches. And just lines, such long lines, and such impatience, and people waiting in line, carrying packages, you know, whatever they brought off the boat with them. It was a very bad, very bad time, very bad time.

LEVINE:

How long were you there?

SCHULTER:

I don't know. I don't think we were there, we weren't there, I think we might have been there overnight, I'm not sure. Because I remember, I think we were looking for a place to lie down on one of those benches. And, you know, with all these people there, you know, there were people lying on the floor. There were people on the benches. There were babies screaming. There were kids running around. But the whole place was so sad, it was so dimly-lit, it was so unappetizing, you know.

LEVINE:

Un-welcoming?

SCHULTER:

Yes, yes, yes. It was a very bad time.

LEVINE:

Do you remember any exchanges that you or your family had with inspectors or physicians or anybody in that processing?

SCHULTER:

Yes. I remember standing in line with my family until we reached there, but apparently everything was in order, and by the time we reached the little cubby-hole, you know, where they took our papers and looked them over, things were all right. But it was the, with that hoard of people, everybody couldn't get into line. I mean, you had to wait for a space. And then by the time you got to the head it was bad.

LEVINE:

Do you remember your mother and father being questioned, or you being questioned?

SCHULTER:

As far as I know it must have been right there at the window. There might have been other little places where if there was a question in the mind of the man who passed on whether or not you stay, but I know the unhappiness of the people that couldn't stay. I mean, the crying and the sadness. I mean, the huddling together of these families that apparently were going to be sent back, you know, or kept at Ellis Island for a few days. But we were all right. Our papers were in order, and it was all right.

LEVINE:

Did you, do you remember having a meal there?

SCHULTER:

No, I don't. No, I don't remember that. I know there are a lot of, I saw a lot of utensils that were used right there for meals that you have exhibited on one of the floors, and it didn't bring back any memory, personal memory, except the memory that, well, we must have eaten there, but I didn't, it wasn't very vivid.

LEVINE:

So you really didn't, if you did stay over, I mean, there was no problem. There was just the matter of being processed. And then you left by a smaller boat to Manhattan?

SCHULTER:

My, yes. And my mother's brother picked us up when we landed. He had a T-Ford, you know?

LEVINE:

This was in Battery Park?

SCHULTER:

Yes. And so there were five of us and him, that's six of us, right. And we got into this car, and we started. Oh, I want to tell you, when we were in France and about to come, we had, we had "carte." What's that in English, "carte?" Maps, we had maps. And we looked and we saw Washington. You know, we didn't see Wilmington, Delaware, we saw Washington. We're going to a big city now, big city. Then we discovered that's the capital. Oh, boy! But we landed to Wilmington, Delaware. ( she laughs ) We got a little mixed up, you know. So my uncle put us, and I remember in those days they didn't have the roads that they have today like the New Jersey Turnpike, which by New Jersey Turnpike from New York it's about a three-hour ride. Then it was like five or six hours from New York to Wilmington. And I was so thirsty. Now, here my mother, my father and my uncle. The only common language they had was Yiddish. We spoke only French. So we couldn't converse with my uncle. We talked to my mother and father. I was thirsty. I'm talking in French. "I've got to have a drink." Five hours. I don't know, I don't know what she said to my uncle, her brother, whether she told him I was thirsty or didn't, I don't know, but I never got my drink, and I was dying by the time I got to Wilmington. ( she laughs )

LEVINE:

Do you remember what struck you as a child that age coming to the United States? I mean, sort of your initial impression?

SCHULTER:

Oh, yes. It was wonderment, it was anticipation. It was looking forward to a new life. There were many disappointments after we got here. You know, I told you one of them was the family group disintegrated. No, we were very happy, very joyous, very full of hope for the future and the opportunities here. No, it was, it was a great time after we got out of Ellis Island. Then, of course, we were all going to go to school, right? My mother's sister, who's named Aunt Mamie, decided that my hair was too thin, as it is today, and she decided if it got shaved off it would come in thicker. Now, this is June. I have to go to school in September. She didn't do it in June. She probably waited until July or August, I don't know, and she gave me a little purple cap, like a dust cap, you know, it was a cap with little fringe on it, you know, a rubber. Put it on my head to go to school, and I'm taken to school with this thing on my head, because it's, knowing not a word of English. An interesting thing is when I came here in June there was no common language. They spoke English, we spoke French, the adults spoke Yiddish. I learned Yiddish, and I became very fluent. By the time I went to school I could speak and understand Jewish beautifully. And I forgot it now, because I went into English, and I was so fascinated with English I forgot the Yiddish altogether.

LEVINE:

Now, did your mother and father speak Yiddish in France?

SCHULTER:

Yes, and Russia. That was where the language, the secret languages, otherwise it was French, yeah.

LEVINE:

So you had a little exposure to the Yiddish in France.

SCHULTER:

Yeah, but, but . . .

LEVINE:

They weren't using it.

SCHULTER:

No, I hardly knew anything. It was the secret language, and they didn't have that many secrets, I guess. ( she laughs ) Or else they spoke that way when they were out. It was French. It was very French in France, very French. So here I am, they put me into school. I have my report cards, the first one. All I could say, I learned to say, "I don't understand English." But the teachers, some of them, they'd call on you and they'd put you in front of the class. You can't sit at your desk. In front of the class, and here I am with this purple dust cap, not knowing English. And we were learning how to read, so I had learned with the rest of them, you know, T-H-E is the, and D-O-G is dog. You had to go up front to do it. It was so cruel. But there I was, I don't understand, well. I went through that. I had failure in everything. I had my report card. Except arithmetic and music, which is the same in any language. ( she laughs )

LEVINE:

Did you go right into the first grade, or did you go into . . .

SCHULTER:

No, it was the fifth grade. I have my report card here. It was 5-A, they call it here. It was called 5-A, was my first report card.

LEVINE:

I see. So most of the children knew how to read then.

SCHULTER:

Oh, yes, oh, yes. And, of course, they were all Americans, you know, fluent in English.

LEVINE:

Were you the only immigrant child?

SCHULTER:

I was the only one, I was the only one in the class. We all went through school known as Frenchie, my two brothers and me. And my father went through his whole life in France, until he died, as Frenchie. Not my mother.

LEVINE:

In the United States?

SCHULTER:

In the United States. We were called Frenchie.

LEVINE:

And what did your father do once he got here?

SCHULTER:

Oh, when we got here to Wilmington, Delaware we were parceled out. My two brothers went with the uncle that picked us up to live with them for, until they decided what to do, what to do with them, with us. My mother and I and my father went to the sister of one of the aunts, aunts by marriage, one of the brother's sisters. And I remember that we had these two rooms. She had a big house, and so she gave, devoted two rooms to us, and we stayed there until it was decided what was going, what the future held for us. And it seem that in those days the big future for immigrant families was opening up a grocery store. So they, my mother and father had a little money, they bought a grocery, they found a grocery store for us at 635 Springer Street, a corner. And then it was a matter of months only. Then we were reunited, and the living quarters were with the store. There was this store, grocery store, which also was selling meat, chopping lamb chops and cutting steaks. On the same level, two steps up, was an immense kitchen. Then there was a second floor and a third floor. The bathroom was on the third floor. We all moved in. We were together. We were very happy. That was the hub of the whole family. That was where everybody always congregated on big holidays. And my father and mother, you know, Passover, and for meals, Yom Kippur, high holy days. And we were the hub. We became the place where everybody gathered, yeah. So for years my father and mother got up at six o'clock in the morning and had the store open till nine o'clock at night and sent three of us to college. My brother Sol to Harvard, my brother Maurise to George Washington University, and me to the University of Delaware. Can you imagine what work went in? My mother and father went to night school to learn English, and then they took a course to be naturalized. To the day, five years after they'd been here, they got their naturalization papers. They became American citizens. They knew more history than I, than my brothers or I did, about the United States.

LEVINE:

And did they, did they want to become Americanized, or did they want to retain their traditional . . .

SCHULTER:

No, they were pretty, they were pretty attached to the French ways, but they had to adapt to the American way, because you're here and that's what you have to do. If the adults choose not to fraternize with the children and sort of segregate them, that's what, they couldn't say, "Well, I want my children with me." You know, it just, you had to go along with certain mores of the times.

LEVINE:

And how about your father? Was he, did he, he wanted to go back to France but he . . .

SCHULTER:

Yes, but he knew he never would because my mother was so happy here being with her two brothers and her sister and she had, she gained great satisfaction out of that, and she had wanted it for so long. She had raised these three, by the way. In Russia, where her mother and father, I'm talking now about my grandfather and grandmother, came from Kiev. My grandfather, my mother's father, had a big forest in Kiev. That's how he made his living. He used to sell lumber. But the mother died. There were twelve children from the first marriage. My mother, my grandmother died, and he remarried. And the second wife was very, very cruel to the children of the first marriage. My mother raised all the children until they were on their own, old enough to leave, because it was a very, very cruel type of life they were leading. And for some reason the father either didn't care or didn't notice or was too busy with the lumber, you know, in the forest, and maybe didn't know what was going on. But she stayed. She was the last one. After the last one left home and went on his own, then she left and went to Odessa, where she met my father. Well, then these three, this sister and two brothers, I mean, she raised them practically. You know, they were all younger than her.

LEVINE:

And they were here?

SCHULTER:

They were in Wilmington. That's why we went to Wilmington, Delaware. She had that closeness to them, that affinity, you know, because she had raised them, practically. She had put them on their feet. And they were there. So she always, she was so happy to be with them.

LEVINE:

Well, then, now, what, you stayed in school how long? You went right through to college?

SCHULTER:

I went right through the system in Wilmington and I went to the University of Delaware. And by the, when it came for me to go to school my father said, "Girls don't go to university, no." Still a European idea, whether it stemmed from France. It couldn't have stemmed from France because they're, you know, education there is a very big thing, so I don't know where he got this idea.

LEVINE:

Even for women, at that time?

SCHULTER:

I really don't know. I was too young to realize what the differences might have been. But France is known for its educational system, and I don't see, but it might have stemmed from Russia. I really don't know. You get married and raise a family. Of course, there's a grocery store and there's the register, you know. So my mother goes to the register, takes out the money, and sends me to the University of Delaware. I had a little T-Ford I used to drive, you know, because we were in Wilmington and the school was in a town called Newark, Delaware, and I had a little T-Ford. But when we got the store, everybody helped out. We went to the store and relieved my mother and father, you know, for an hour here and an hour there and waited on customers. I delivered the orders. I scrubbed the kitchen floor. I got meals ready. We all pitched in, and the boys did their share. But they were older and they had outside interests earlier than I did, you know, because there was two years' difference between all of us. So I got to the University of Delaware. Then after a while my father was talking to the salesman that come into the grocery store, "My daughter is in college." ( she laughs ) You know, right away, now he's proud. So now my mother doesn't have to "steal" the money to send me. Now he's happy.

LEVINE:

So what did you major in?

SCHULTER:

In languages, in languages.

LEVINE:

Did you work after you graduated?

SCHULTER:

Yes. Yes, I did. I graduated in 1931, and unfortunately my father died in March. He didn't see me graduate. Yeah, he died. But, uh, and he was only fifty-eight. Yeah. We couldn't find out what ailed him. We went to all kinds of universities for observation, university hospitals, they couldn't. He, the last thing, he died of a stroke. But . . .

LEVINE:

You worked using your language background.

SCHULTER:

Yes. In those days it was very difficult to get, to get teaching posts. And when I graduated school I wrote so many schools applying. Teaching posts were very scarce. They were really political plums. And in the town where I grew up, in Wilmington, Delaware, we had a high school, and they needed a French teacher. And here I am, speaking fluently, having done my major in college is French, and I couldn't get that job. It was given as a political plum to the daughter of somebody that was important who had had two years of high school French and had to go that summer for a refresher course in French in order to be able to teach. God knows what she taught. I couldn't get it. But I have letters of reply, "We have no openings in French." And one place in Washington, D.C. had an opening and said, it was a private school, "If you will pay your own way to Washington we will interview you. We have, we do have an opening, and you will be expected to teach all grades of French and to supervise a certain section." I was desperate. I went. When I got there they couldn't believe, because I lost my French accent. The rest of the family all had a thick French accent. I'm the only one that didn't. They couldn't believe it. So we engaged in a French conversation and she realized this is true, she knows her French. Well, she gave me the book I was to teach from, she gave me the classes and the time. And I was about to leave with all this information, and when I was to come back, and the date, and she said, "Oh, by the way, what is your religion?" I said, "Jewish." And with that her arms went up in the air. "Ahhh, we can't have that in this school. Our parents wouldn't stand for it." That was my first brush with anti-Semitism. And it was a horrible, heartbreaking, unbelievable experience. I went back home so crestfallen. I gave her back the book, the roster, you know, the program, everything, and went back home. And the only kind of a position I could get was what they called a cadet teacher, which meant that you were a substitute, a permanent substitute teacher in the school system for peanuts, like five hundred dollars a year, a semester. And whatever class they needed a teacher, was it sewing, was it cooking, was it Latin, whatever it was. Was it arithmetic, was it French, was it English, you were sent there. And it was a horrible time because you couldn't cope with these, you can't keep order if you don't know your subject. So it was a horrible time.

LEVINE:

Do you remember your attitude at that time, I mean, when that happened to you, that experience?

SCHULTER:

You mean the anti-Semitic experience? It was, I couldn't believe it, because in French we had, in France we had never, never encountered anything like that. I understand now in France there is anti-Semitism which is pretty observable, but in the days we were there, I tell you, we went to the Catholic church. We didn't know. We knew we were Jewish, that's all. And nobody ever made a fuss over it. Nobody said anything. It was great. And this was so shocking. It was a real, big shock. So anyway I taught night school. I got a job teaching night school. I did tutoring in the afternoon, you know. I found, and I was a cadet teacher for two years. But during that two years I met Sol, who lived in New Jersey.

LEVINE:

And how did you meet?

SCHULTER:

Well, it was a blind date, believe it or not. I had a cousin, Miriam, who had a friend in New Jersey, in Newark, New Jersey. And he wrote to her, after having visited her a few times, "I'm coming with two boys, get two girls." You know, one of those things. And that's how I met Sol. Except that he chose the other girl. ( she laughs ) But by the end of the sojourn, he decided he'd made a mistake. ( she laughs ) But even having, he went home and he wrote about it, the mistake he had made. But it wasn't long before, he was a struggling lawyer. He had just become a lawyer, and he had a desk someplace in a storefront. So it was 1931. I'd graduated, and I was married in 1935 and poor as a mouse. I had a car, I had a Chevrolet and two thousand dollars. But that was sort of a fortune, wasn't it? That's only because my mother would, whatever money I made tutoring or teaching night school or this darn cadet job I had that paid peanuts, she wouldn't touch it, let me touch it. "Put it away, that's yours," you know. And she conducted the grocery store and continued to help us all. She was a great person, a great pioneer, a great life. END OF SIDE TWO, TAPE ONE BEGINNING OF SIDE ONE, TAPE TWO

LEVINE:

Who were you closest to, would you say, in the family?

SCHULTER:

We were all very, very close. I have letters, I mean, my brother, I went away once on vacation from home, and my brother Sol wrote a letter, "Come back as soon as you can. We're all missing you." ( she laughs ) We were very close. And their friends came to the house, my friends came to the house, Maurise's friends came. It was Grand Central Station. It was great. Because we were used to that kind of life. It wasn't, we found that families here had segregation. There wasn't that much going on, you know. But our house was very, very active. There was always somebody there visiting.

LEVINE:

Then did you move to New Jersey after you married?

SCHULTER:

I got married, I met Sol on this blind date and when the time came that he was coming every weekend my mother says, "You know, enough's enough!" ( they laugh ) "He's spending so much money traveling back and forth that whether he's poor as a mouse or not, I mean, you just go and, you know, make the best of things. Try it out, I'll help you." And she did. Whatever we needed, I mean, you know. So we got married. That was 1935. And I worked all my life, actually. When I was married Sol had this logo. By that time he had an office of his own with three rooms, right. Three separate rooms. And his sister, who was a college student at the time, worked for him. And she was about to go back to school, and he needed somebody in the office. I didn't know shorthand. I didn't know how to type. I didn't know those. A legal office. But I said to him, "Look, I'll learn. Let me take Lilly's job." His sister, Lilly. And he said, "Oh, no way." He says, "You're not going to work." So I went to Bamberger's, a big store, comparable to Macy's, in Newark, and I got myself a job selling. So he said, "Well, if you're really that serious come to the office." So I bought a book and learned how to type and I learned a few shorthand things. "Dear Sir," "to the," "of the." ( she laughs ) I learned all these little shortcuts. And I got along, and I learned how to type, and I was there for about five years I worked in his office. Then came the war, and I got a job at the Office of Dependency Benefits where they send checks out to the soldiers and it was a pitiful, letters we used to get about the families that weren't getting their checks, you know, that these soldiers were sending to their wives and families. And I worked there for about four-and-a-half years till I got pregnant, and then I had to give it up. And I worked daytime shift, night. I'd go to work at eleven o'clock at night and was through at seven in the morning. Two weeks, two weeks, two weeks. And Sol . . .

LEVINE:

With the writing the letters to the soldiers, getting the benefits to the soldiers?

SCHULTER:

It was, the Office of Dependency Benefits was a great big office. They took up a whole office in Newark, New Jersey, where they were sending out the checks. Now, some of those were allotment checks that the government sent to families of soldiers. Others were Class E, they were additional checks that the soldiers were sending to their families from their pay. That was called Class E allotment, and that's the section that I worked in. And we used to get such pitiful letters about women who wrote letters to their husband, they weren't getting the money, the Class E allotment, and they had big families, and the soldiers would send us the letters to the Office of Dependency Benefits about the dire need. And their affairs were so mixed up that it needed somebody with a great deal of patience and know-how to unravel, to see how much was due them, and to send out the check as fast as possible. So they chose me to head a special unit to unravel these cases and expedite them. And there were about six or seven under me, and we were this very special unit to send out these checks. So they made me a supervisor, and I went up in grades from two to five. ( she laughs ) And it was, you know, what they call civil service, right? And I loved doing that. I got such satisfaction out of sending out those checks, you know. In my unit were two black girls who were crackerjacks. They were wonderful, marvelous minds. And I know when I left because of pregnancy I invited them over to my apartment. At the time I was still in the two-room apartment with a little kitchenette, and I had them for lunch, it must have been a weekend. And you know I was criticized by the people living there, "What do you mean bringing black Negroes," they were called in those days, "into the apartment house."

LEVINE:

Well.

SCHULTER:

You know, and I wasn't used to that. Because in France there were, because of the French colonies there were black people there, and we never made a difference. There weren't an exuberance of them, but they were there. You know, and . . .

LEVINE:

It was accepted. So you really ran into prejudice here that you never experienced in France.

SCHULTER:

Yes, I did. Yes, I did. So then I went through school and, let's come back to Ellis Island. My first day there, I told you what I found, and how I was transported. I mean, with the whole idea, what they were doing there. And I went home, I stayed, I spent the whole day, bought one of those throw-away cameras, and I had taken pictures of all these things. I had taken pictures of the plaque of 1905, how many were killed, you know, and how it was organized, how this came about. This man wrote it by hand, and then he had to flee for his life. And the picture of the boat, which never came out. And then, that day, the second day, I had a camera by then, I go out, and that's when I remembered going up, I looked at the building, and it flashed in my mind, was these hoards of people going up the steps when I first came. And then visualized the rest of it that I already told you about. So I went outside and I took a picture of the front of the building, and I took a picture approaching, because I remembered approaching and seeing the building as we approached Ellis Island. I snapped a picture of that, and I snapped a picture of actually right in front, and the surrounding article, and then the plaques. I snapped a picture of those, and threw away the camera. ( they laugh )

LEVINE:

Tell me the names, the name of your husband and of your children.

SCHULTER:

All right. My husband's name was Sol George Schulter, and I only have one child, and his name is David, and he's now living in Bar Harbor. He's the one that has the big vessel that my mother brought from Russia.

LEVINE:

Okay. Well, is there anything else that you want to say before we close?

SCHULTER:

Well, now, my second day on Ellis Island. I told you about the report cards. Oh, I'll tell you two cute little stories. Now I'm here, I'm Frenchie, I'm in school in Wilmington, Delaware. And I used to talk about my dog, Titi. Then I suddenly realized they were saying "titty." I learned what that meant. No more did I talk about my dog, Titi. Then I said to them that my mother had a favorite name for me. It wasn't Zelda, it wasn't Zelie, like they gave me on my. In school I was known as Celine, C-E-L-I-N-E. On all my records, school records, Celine. They decided that was the name for me, I don't know. But I happened one day to tell somebody that my mother called me Ni-ni, and from then on it became "ninny."

LEVINE:

Oh, dear.

SCHULTER:

N-I, dash, N-I. I become, I never told that story again. ( she laughs ) I was glad to change schools. ( they laugh ) So those are, oh, and there's another cute story about my two brothers when they went to school, both of them. Sol was a better student. Maurise was a more, had a more brilliant mind, but Sol was a better student, okay. Maurise had a photographic mind, but he couldn't care less. Sol was a student. So they're both in the same class, even though there's two years apart, because they were about the same stage in the English, or Sol had to be put back and Maurise was put a little ahead. They were in the same class. And the teacher used to ask questions, and my brother Maurise, the younger one, used to say, "I don't understand. I don't understand." And Sol would talk French to him and give him the answer. ( she laughs ) And this went on for a long time till somebody told the teacher. So these are the cute little stories. But my father was a real, he was a Frenchman in America, because at his . . .

LEVINE:

What was that like, being a Frenchman?

SCHULTER:

Because that means that he befriended everybody. Everybody was his friend. They loved him, just loved him. He was happy-go-lucky. He was, he lived for the day, never mind tomorrow, he lived for the day to the hilt. And he had so many friends that at his funeral, after he was already buried and the people were already leaving, there were still streams of cars coming into the cemetery. It was all over and they were still coming in. We didn't know this. But if a salesman came to the store to sell his wares, you know, stock up the store, immediately he was invited for a meal into the kitchen, which was adjacent to the store. My mother knew this. She always had food for them. Everybody was his friend. There's a, there's another cute story. I don't know.

LEVINE:

Go ahead.

SCHULTER:

Here they are, mother and father. A grocery store, and the only way they could operate is to try to get an inkling of what the people wanted. You know, when they came in they'd say, "Well, point." You know, they'd point to the bread, they'd point to the meat, they'd point to (?), to vegetables, potatoes. And somebody came in and wanted ExLax. So the only thing they could say was, "What's it for?" ( she laughs ) You know, to get an inkling of what they were looking for, because this was a store that had everything, you know. These little grocery store had everything. So that was an embarrassing moment. We'd tell that story because it's cute, you know, how they struggled and finally made it. Went to night school, learned English, learned the history of this country. I became a citizen of the United States, and my two brothers, through my father, because in those days the father, you could become a citizen if your father did, but the mother had to take out her own citizenship papers, so she had to take out her own. But I remember the swearing in. When they became citizens I went to both swearing ins. And the questions they were asked, you know, the historical questions.

LEVINE:

Was that a big day for them?

SCHULTER:

Oh, yeah. Oh, yes. As French as my father was, he was quite proud. It was a proud day for him, yes, it was. But he lived the life of a Frenchman in America. He really did. I mean, with the friendliness and the openness and the "joie de vivre." You know, "joie de vivre." He loved life.

LEVINE:

That's beautiful. Okay, well . . .

SCHULTER:

I think that's probably about it.

LEVINE:

Anything you know about your coming here, being here, summing up your life here.

SCHULTER:

I think, I think that's about it. My life in France. Beautiful memories, beautiful memories, yeah, I must say. And it was altogether different here. I missed, I missed the closeness of the families. I didn't like to go on my own to visit a cousin or something. To me we all did things as a family. I don't know whether it's still that way in France or not, but it certainly was when I grew up. So I had a very beautiful, a very beautiful childhood. And we were very closely knitted, and we still were until the very end, here in the United States, we were a very close family. My two brothers and I and my mother, we continued to speak French. I could, if my mother were here, and I'd turned to her, I'd go into French. If I turned to you I'd go back into English, you know. It was so, it was so uncontrollable because we continued to speak French at home always.

LEVINE:

That's very interesting, because that kept the family closeness, as you were in France.

SCHULTER:

Right, right. And I'm the last one left. My brother Maurise died at the age of sixty-two, I think it was. I'd have to look it up. How can I forget? He was a young man. And my brother Sol I lost only last July 4th. And when I came here to visit, which is a whole other story that has nothing to do with Ellis Island, he came to stay with me two weeks for three years in succession which, during the winter months his home was Wilmington, Delaware and he stayed there. I don't know whether you'd want to hear about him. I mean, he'd won a scholarship to Harvard. And while he was in Harvard, I don't know whether you'd want to hear this, but it's such an interesting story. He was a go-getter, my brother Sol. He formed an orchestra in order to survive, you know, to get extra money, called the Crimsonians. And, by the way, that orchestra is still in existence. It's handed down from year to year. They play at school dances and things of that sort, give concerts. Well, he's interviewing people, he's forming this orchestra, and somebody came and said, "What do you play?" "I play the piano." "Well, I don't know. I just hired a piano player for the orchestra." He said, "Well, let me play for you. I want you to hear me." He played beautifully. Eddie Duchin.

LEVINE:

Oh!

SCHULTER:

He said, "I'm sorry. I can't go back on my word. I'd love to hire you in my band, but I can't use two pianos. I'm sorry." Eddie Duchin. Years later, my brother's married, Eddie Duchin is playing with his orchestra in Philadelphia, which is about a half hour away from Wilmington. Sol and his wife, Sadie, go to hear him play, you know. And after the session went backstage, and my brother Sol says to Eddie Duchin, "Do you remember at Harvard coming to play the piano? You wanted to play in the Crimsonian." He said, "I never forgot it." ( they laugh ) It was such a shock to him. He's a marvelous pianist, piano player, you know, pianist is classical. Piano player, and here he couldn't get into this orchestra. And he also formed what they call the student laundry. He collected laundry from the students, took it to a commercial laundry, delivered it back at a profit, and that student laundry's been handed back from senior to senior. It's been sold from senior to senior, a graduate student to a senior, and it's still there at Harvard.

LEVINE:

Oh, that's great.

SCHULTER:

Isn't that something?

LEVINE:

That's wonderful.

SCHULTER:

Yeah, he was quite a person.

LEVINE:

Okay.

SCHULTER:

And so was Maurise, in his own way. Maurise was like my father, a bon vivant. He loved life. This is why he died. He had a heart condition, and he died at a young age because he couldn't care less. He was going to live his life, and he was going . . .

LEVINE:

(?) in America.

SCHULTER:

Exactly. And he engaged in all the wrong things, but he enjoyed life.

LEVINE:

Well, that's a wonderful story. I thank you so much.

SCHULTER:

Well, I hope I didn't tell you too much, but . . .

LEVINE:

No, it's just, everything is very interesting. Okay, well, this is Janet Levine and I'm here today on May 7, 1992 with Zelda Zoumarkine . . .

SCHULTER:

( correcting Dr. Levine ) Tou, Toumarkine.

LEVINE:

Toumarkine Schulter. And we're in Florida, and I am signing off. ?? EI-146/SCHULTER - 1 -