DALLETT:

My name is Nancy Dallett and I'm speaking with Evelyn Golbe on Tuesday, February 4th, 1986. We are beginning this interview at 10:12 and we are about to interview Mrs. Golbe about her immigration experience from Russia in 1914. This is side on of Interview Number 131. Let's start back at the beginning of your story and can you tell me where you were born.

GOLBE:

In Minsk, Russia.

DALLETT:

And when was that?

GOLBE:

July 14th, 1901.

DALLETT:

Can you tell me a bit about your family in Russia as a little girl?

GOLBE:

Oh, I could tell you a lot of stories about Russia. Well, anyway, I think, we had a happy childhood. We had a good home and we had our own, everything growing. We were like home farmers, a family farm. And we went to school. But first we had to have teachers to prepare us for school. Well, I went to school. First my father got me into a Russian school. He had pull. In Russia you couldn't get into school, Jewish people couldn't get in. But he had pull. He was working for certain higher ups. And he got me in. But at the beginning I was okay, but after a while the boys found out I was Jewish. So they gave me a lot of trouble. They were pulling my hear and tearing my papers, throwing away my books. So I found out a place where they have a Jewish school, kept Jewish people for Jewish children. And I went to school there. Then my father didn't want my brothers, we were a big family, eight children, two older brothers were ready to go to service for the czar. And my father didn't want it. So he broke up everything and he went away to America first. He had a brother and sister here. and after a year and a half he brought over the two boys, the two older ones.

DALLETT:

What year was it that he came to America, you father, first?

GOLBE:

Well, that was two years, let's see, in about, 19--, I don't remember the date. It was two and a half years before he took over my brothers and then we came in 1914. Yeah.

DALLETT:

What kind of things did you grow? You said you had like a farm in Russia, what did you have on the farm?

GOLBE:

What?

DALLETT:

What kind of things did you grow, did your father grow on the land?

GOLBE:

Oh, we had everything growing, just for ourselves. Potatoes, onions, carrots, turnips, whatever. We had a couple of cows and goats and chickens. We were a big family. We needed food. (She laughs.) And my mother baked twenty loaves of bread every week. And well, we gave out to some poor people, also, some of the food. Well, that was something to break up and leave, leave a home. Well, he came here and he got himself a little bit established and he brought over two of the boys. The first two boys. And ah, then but we had a house and everything else that we couldn't just leave it and go. So it took a little while. My mother sold the houses. We had two houses there. One was kept for a school for the children. We had teachers there. And ah, she had to sell everything so she had money. By that time she had money, before she didn't have it. Although my father was here with the two boys, he had to take care of the boys. So we had money, we came over and my father had furbished an apartment. A five room apartment, only two bedrooms, a living room, a dining room, and a kitchen. And of course it was a cold flat at that time, but we had hot water from the boiler. (She laughs.) The first thing that he put in there that was important to him, that he thought it was important to the family, was a piano to teach the children piano, and a sewing machine. (She laughs.) And folding beds that were put in the corners. After all, we were a big family. Well, anyway before that we came here, what would you want to know, how we came on the boat?

DALLETT:

Yes, could you tell me what you remember about actually leaving home?

GOLBE:

I remember getting on a wagon. There were no cars then. There were horses. And with all the packages and everything and I looked back and I said in Russian, "Goodbye to the woods." We lived near pine woods. I turned back and said goodbye to the woods. Well, we went as far as Germany, we passed on, my mother had to prepare passports and all that, but we had all that.

DALLETT:

Do you remember what she packed up, what she actually brought from home? What were in those packages?

GOLBE:

Well, candlesticks, of course, and a samovar, that was important. And whatever was important of the clothes that we had. In fact she brought shawls for some of the relatives here that couldn't get here. Woolen shawls. And, well, all the necessities, bedding and all the important things. Breakable things she packed into the bedding. And a couple of copper pans (she laughs). Okay, I don't think that's so important, we found better things here. And we were traveling with my grandmother. We were six children, my mother, and my grandmother, we were eight. And in Rotterdam, when we reached Rotterdam we had to wait there for two days for the boat. So we were in some kind of a dormitory. We were hungry and my mother bought oranges. (Shew laughs.) And I got sick and I was throwing up, eating so many oranges. Finally we got on the boat and it was all the way down. It was one room, all the females were in that one room. The three of us girls and my mother and grandmother. The boys, there were three boys, they were in another room. One was a little boy of eight years old. And, well, after a while we all got sick except my older brother, sixteen years old, and my little sister was five years. They weren't sick. They were roaming the boat and they were bringing us certain foods that we were able to eat. We couldn't eat the meats and the potatoes and herrings they were serving on the table. And my little girl, she was a very pretty little baby, that the sailors there took care of her. And they gave her goodies (she laughs). Well, it took about ten days to get over. We finally came to America. And when we walked out we felt better, the air, and of course the, whatever we saw there, the Statue of Liberty we didn't see yet. We didn't know what to look for. All we knew was we came to America. It was there.

DALLETT:

What was the name of the boat?

GOLBE:

The boat was Ryndam.

DALLETT:

Ryndam.

GOLBE:

We came through Rotterdam.

DALLETT:

And who else was traveling on that boat? Were there many other people like yourselves coming?

GOLBE:

We were all sick and we couldn't see anything. We were in bed all the time throwing up. And my older brother took care of us. So we couldn't remember much from the boat. We couldn't even get out on deck. We were all so sick. We couldn't get to the table to eat. It was just miserable. Can you imagine so many people in one little room? And bunks. Then, finally we came until we passed through. My grandmother was holding my little baby, and my mother was taking care of whatever had to be taken care of. I was only a kid, I didn't understand too much. All we were interested in was to see my father. Finally, well, and they held us back because they found my grandmother had a black nail. It wasn't black it was crepey. Crepey sort of nail. She raised us all the years, all the children she raised with that hand and with that nail. There was nothing wrong with it. At one time she had an infection. She stuck it with something. And it festered and the nail fell off and that was the new nail that came up. And there was nothing wrong with it. And they held her back. They held us back eight days. All of us. Because where will they send her if she has nobody there? Her whole family was here. All the children and grandchildren were here. She had nobody there. So they wanted to send us all back. That's why they were holding us back. Finally my brother came up and said she has a nephew in Russia. But only a nephew, he wouldn't think of keeping her. Well, anyway, after that it didn't take very long. They let us off and they didn't take very long. They sent her back. Nobody knew enough to fight it. They were all stupid. And those that processed, letting people off the boat, they were stupid to let an old woman when she has the whole family here, to let her go home by herself. Well, we don't know what happened there because we couldn't get through anymore already. Because we came in March and the war broke out in June. So we never saw her again. And she died there. After the war, years after the, you know, it took a long time. After the war, some people started coming in and we had some of our, what they call "landsleute", (she laughs) that came over and they told us that she died in the hospital. Although some of the neighbors where we lived, they were looking in on her. But that was heartbreaking to know the way she died. I am still crying over it. I used to sleep with her. Well, finally we saw my father, so who was interested in anything else? And they had to take two vehicles, that's something I don't remember whether they were cabs or carriages, it was two vehicles, because it was a crowd and luggage and when we came to Myrtle Avenue with an elevator passing over us, coming from such a peaceful place, coming with elevators. But we were happy to be here and we all had the baths when we came in. There was hot water, the stove was on, in March the stove was on and there was a boiler of hot water. We all took baths and we started figuring out who's going to sleep with whom. There's only two bedrooms, there were two beds in each room and folding beds of course, so my older brother started showing us who's going to sleep in this bed, who, where its going to be put, there was a couch in the living room, a black couch, not in the living room, it was in the dining room, in the living room we had a living room set. My father got somewhere a second-hand, of course, green velvet, I wish I had it here now, it was beautiful and we had a carpet, not a wall to wall, but a carpet and the piano and the mantlepiece with the scarf on it and the, couple of pieces of ceramics, whatever that my brothers, they, and they fixed that with nice lace curtains, my brothers fixed it up. And they were so happy we came into a nice apartment with, and what else, what else can I tell you?

DALLETT:

That's amazing. Um--

GOLBE:

I enrolled in school, they enrolled me.

DALLETT:

What languages were you speaking now, when you came to this country, which languages did you speak?

GOLBE:

In Russia, I spoke Russian, Russian and with my folks, Yiddish, both Russian and Yiddish. So, when we came here, I was past twelve already, that was in March, I didn't start school until September and uh, they put me in a special class and it didn't take very long, they put me in the 3B, the third year because I knew everything else. I had my Russian education like history, geography, math, I had to learn the language from the, from the 3B I only stayed there a short time, they put me in the 4B. Before I knew it, in two and a half years they threw me out (she laughs), I graduated Public School. By that time I was fifteen and a half, already close to sixteen.. I took out working papers and I went to work, in a big family you need money.

DALLETT:

Where did you go to work?

GOLBE:

Oh, I did all kinds of things. The Abraham Strauss, and the Kaisers, the factory, Kaiser's Silk Stockings they used to make, in gloves, and finally as I was growing, I used to sew always on my own clothes,ever since I was a little girl, I"d sew my own. So, one time my brothers had this friend, a lady friend came and she says, "You sew so nice," she saw my clothes, "Why don't you come up," I was working at that time at Abraham & Strauss as a saleslady, you know how much I make, sixteen dollars with a little commission so I made already twenty-two dollars approximately. And she says, "You come up, I'll take you to my factory, you'll sew, you'll make a lot of money." She was making sixty dollars, seventy dollars, that was a lot of money, fifty dollars piece work. So, they put me to work, piece work, so I worked for a week, I didn't like it, so she says, "Work another week, see, maybe, maybe you'll--. I didn't like it, I didn't like operating, I like creative work, I liked designing and cutting and making my own. So, after two weeks, I got a piece of material from the cutting room and I cut, I cut a dress for myself and this trimmings (?). Saturday we worked half a day so I stayed in after work because the crew, the bosses and the forelady and, stayed in and the fitter, she stayed in. So I, I asked her if she'll pin it out for me to put it on, so I put it on and she pinned it out for me and the boss passed by, he says, "What's that?" So she tells him, "She made it herself, she designed it herself and put it together and I'm just pinning it up." He looked at it, he says, "Gee, that's beautiful," and he starts asking me all kinds of questions, I told him I'd been doing this kind of work, I don't like operating and I'm leaving. He said, "How would you like to be copyist for us?" I says, "Well, I can try it." So I tried it and they liked and they would bring in expensive dresses and I would copy it down to a cheaper line. And they paid me fifty dollars a week. And I liked it. Well, after a while, after a while, I met my husband and we were engaged and married (she laughs) and I want to go back to work, I didn't want to give it up, I like it because it was creative, just what I wanted so I get up in the morning after the honeymoon, I get up in the morning and I started getting dressed, he says, "Where are you going?" I says, "I'm going back to work, they're expecting me." He says, "What?" and he gets under the quilt and says, "Okay, I stay home, you go to work!" (they laugh) and he wouldn't let me go to work. Isn't that terrible? I would have become a famous designer by, in another year or two (she laughs). What else do you want to know?

DALLETT:

Take me back a little bit, in time, were, when you were starting to do the piece work. were there unions organized at that time?

GOLBE:

Yes, yes.

DALLETT:

So you were, were you part of that movement?

GOLBE:

It was a good factory, it wasn't from way back when they talk about the sweat shops, this was not a sweatshop. Of course they didn't have any air conditioning but they had fans and it was a big, roomy place with windows, a lot of windows all around. That's something I can't complain.

DALLETT:

Were there a lot of women like yourself who had come from Russia?

GOLBE:

Yes, yes, it was dress factory. What else?

DALLETT:

Um, I want to go a little bit further back in time, to Ellis Island again, just to get some more details.

GOLBE:

Ellis Island, well--

DALLETT:

Can you tell me what you did for those eight days while you--

GOLBE:

Eight days. I was sick, I had boils on my stomach and my mother was afraid to tell the doctors, they might send me back (she laughs) so she kept on putting hot compresses on my stomach, what else could she do? And tried to keep it clean until it broke, I had three of them. And I have scars to show it.

DALLETT:

Had you, did you have to go through a medical examination at Ellis?

GOLBE:

Yes, that's before I got the boils so they see healthy looking children, they see us walking and they shake our hands, you know, to see if our hands are coordinated and they see our eyes, they were all bright so they, we didn't have to go through too much but they did examine us to a certain extent. And they saw my grandmother's hands so one nail was crepey. That's all. So all right they put us in a dormitory and my two brothers. the little brother was with us, he was eight years old and my two older brothers, one was fourteen and one sixteen, we're all two years apart. So, I don't know, I was in bed most of the time. And in the end, I can't remember much, just running around those long corridors and my mother tried to keep us together, we shouldn't get lost. All we were anxious to see was my father come and take us, finally, they got us after eight days, but they held my grandmother back, my grandmother back and--

DALLETT:

Where was it you first saw your father? Did he--

GOLBE:

In Ellis Island, when they were questioning him, yeah. How he's going to take care of the children, how will he take care of the family. My mother had a little money left from the trip and he had the apartment all set up and my two brothers were working, one was working with my father. My father opened up two cellars for ice, ice and coal, he was selling ice and coal. My father didn't speak English and he got an Italian man to help him to work with him and the Italian man couldn't speak Yiddish or English (she laughs) and somehow they got along and he made a living, my father. Then there were houses, I don't remember how many, I think ten or twelve houses, it was on Myrtle Avenue, they were four-story houses, there were twenty tenants in each one, four or five-story, five stories. The stoop didn't count as a floor, there's four floors up. There were twenty tenants in each house, they were all the same houses, so my father took a lease, two houses, he gave up the cellar after a while and he took these houses on lease so we had the apartment and my father did everything, carpentry, paper-hanging, painting, anything that had to be done on the house, he did. And the landlord paid him for that. So he made a living. Then there was a dairy store in that building, downstairs, it was in the basement, the wholesale dairy. So my father used to help that man too with the dairy and he got butter and cream and milk, we got everything there. So my father made a living.

DALLETT:

When your father came to pick you up at Ellis Island did your brothers come too?

GOLBE:

No, they were working.

DALLETT:

So do you know if there was a translator or someone that would help--

GOLBE:

Yeah, Yiddish, Yiddish, there's always the Yiddish, yeah.

DALLETT:

Was there any other aid, did HIAS help to get your grandmother off Ellis Island?

GOLBE:

They didn't know how to go about, they should have gotten a lawyer and he would have taken care of it. They were all stupid. Even those that were here for a few years, they were stupid. They didn't think, they couldn't imagine, they couldn't visualize that they should do a thing like that, all of a sudden we get a telegram that they send her off. They didn't know, they just didn't now what to do. That was heartless, she wasn't sick and with a whole family like that she would be taken care of--

DALLETT:

Uh-huh, of course. When you got to Myrtle Avenue and your brothers came home from work, that first day--

GOLBE:

Well, they fixed up, they fixed up the apartment, they were happy and one of my brothers, the one that helped my father, he also helped my father, he came up first of course and right away he wanted everyone to take baths. So he started with my little sister, then it came to me, I say, "Oh no, you don't go in with me." (She laughs.) And then my, you know, we were six children.

DALLETT:

Yeah, did he help you to start picking up English, had he learned some English by then?

GOLBE:

No, no, he just knew how to say window, a few words he knew, but we picked it up quick enough, in a year I spoke already and I was reading and writing, you know, young children could do it. Older people can't learn that quick, but young children do.

DALLETT:

Did you also continue your Hebrew education in--

GOLBE:

Hebrew?

DALLETT:

Yeah.

GOLBE:

No, we were learning Hebrew, yes, I had a Hebrew teacher, well my mother had in the second house, an uncle that had a school and we had three Hebrew teachers. So I went to school that time already, I started my Russian school and he was teaching the boys Hebrew so when I used to come to school, I, he would teach me also. Yes.

DALLETT:

How about in this country?

GOLBE:

Not speaking Hebrew. That was in Russia you're talking about--

DALLETT:

Right, right.

GOLBE:

Not speaking Hebrew but the prayer, ancient Hebrew that, you know what, you're Jewish?

DALLETT:

Yes.

GOLBE:

Yeah, so they taught Talmud. So that I know and I know a little bit Hebrew but its ancient Hebrew, it's not that, that Israel Hebrew, Israel's speaking Hebrew. But I think if I should come to Israel I would be able to get around or if I come to Russia I certainly would get around, 'cause I still speak Russian.

DALLETT:

When you first got adjusted to life in Brooklyn, do you remember what your first impressions were? What was strange to you, what was new?

GOLBE:

Well, we were walking up the steps, it was only one flight and I didn't like it, the steps were dirty because in March there was dirty snow on the ground, slushy, mushy dirty snow and that's something we didn't see in Russia (she laughs), we saw snow, beautiful, white, crunchy snow (she laughs).

DALLETT:

And also you mentioned the noise and the elevators made a lot of noise, the elevated trains?

GOLBE:

Of course we thought it was terrible. some told me, "You'll get used to it." Some of the neighbors came in to meet us, "You'll get used to it." So, we got used to it, after a while it would lull us to sleep.

DALLETT:

How about the food? Was that different?

GOLBE:

Food? (?) even Jewish people stick to their own food of course. My mother couldn't bake those big breads, so she was able to buy but challah. She used to bake, so she baked enough to last a few days and cakes, she was a terrific housekeeper. And she loved that stove, that's she didn't have to use wood. In Russia we had a lime, made of lime, a stove, and there's no way to describe it. It was a big square thing from the floor to the ceiling, all the way up, big one with an oven and it wood was burned there, wood. And all the cooking and baking was there. Its amazing, I don't know how they did it. I never bothered going in the kitchen because my grandmother was there and my mother, the kitchen was by itself and on one side, one wall of the stove was in the dining room, that heated the dining room, then the rest of the house it was in four rooms. There was a tile stove again from the ceiling to the floor and a oven, the fireplace, the opening was in the dining room, that was for wood, we burned wood there for the warmth to keep the house warm. It was a nice warm house, we had plenty of food and good parents, affection, and love, and we came here, we had the family back again, we had to get used to living the way, according to accommodations here. But it wasn't bad. As children, you know, children get used to it. We made friends and we learned to speak.

DALLETT:

One second, we just have to turn the tape over.That is the end of side one of Interview Number 131 with Evelyn Golbe. END OF SIDE ONE BEGINNING OF SIDE TWO

DALLETT:

This is the beginning of side two of Interview Number 131 with Evelyn Golbe. When did you become a citizen?

GOLBE:

Oh, after I was married.

DALLETT:

After you were married. Did you apply for your own?

GOLBE:

My husband went as a witness, I couldn't be a citizen with him, I had to be on my own and so my husband and my brother-in-law, they were my witnesses.

DALLETT:

And what year was that?

GOLBE:

In 1922.

DALLETT:

1922. And did, how did, was that a special event, did that make you feel good?

GOLBE:

I just had to read and remember about who the president was, very simple, all that I knew and my brother and my husband they were standing behind me, they were laughing that they asked me questions like that. That's all.

DALLETT:

Yeah, so it was really just a formality and--

GOLBE:

Yes, a formality, well some people don't know, but I went to school so naturally, I knew that in Russia yet, what was going on here.

DALLETT:

Um, what did you think when you were in Russia, before you came here, did you have any idea of what it was going to be like, did your father write to you and tell you what he had found in America or--what was your impression?

GLOBE:

We didn't know, all we wanted was to get away from Russia and the anti-Semitism and be with the family. That's all that was important, giving up a good home like that and with a garden with everything growing there, giving up and coming here to rocks (she laughs). Well, after my father took over those two houses, they weren't dirty anymore. One of my brothers used to polish the brass on the railing, and the letter boxes were always polished and it was marble steps, they were cleaned, they were white. So, after a while they were the two nicest kept houses on the street. That's all.

DALLETT:

And do you have any of your original papers or anything that you brought with you from Russia?

GOLBE:

Oh, I gave it to my daughter.

DALLETT:

Uh-huh, what was it you had? What did you give her?

GOLBE:

Uh, the passports and the ship we came on and the date, whatever we had to give.

DALLETT:

The candlesticks, the samovar?

GOLBE:

No, that's my youngest sister has because my mother stayed with her after awhile when my father passed away, she stayed with my, with my sister. So, I didn't want to take it away, even she had a diamond earrings, little ones, little diamonds, I didn't want it, gave it to my sister, I have nothing from her. I just had a lamp, it was a vase, that I gave to my daughter.

DALLETT:

It was a vase that you had brought, that your mother had brought from Russia?

GOLBE:

No, my brother decorated the apartment with two vases like that and a pitcher it was on the mantlepiece with the scarf, so one vase after awhile, I used to do the cleaning in the house, so I was cleaning and I pulled down accidently the scarf, and one vase broke, so from one I made a lamp and gave it to my uh, daughter.

DALLETT:

So there isn't those candlesticks that you mentioned and the samovar--

GOLBE:

No, my sister has it, she's here, my sister is here but she wouldn't remember anything,she was five years old.

DALLETT:

Did you play the piano that your father put in the house?

GOLBE:

We all took lessons, not all, starting from me and my one brother, the little brother, the eight year old, being how he was getting bigger and my two other sisters, we all took piano lessons but none of us have any talent for it. Played a little bit of three quarter time, I started going to work already so I didn't have time for practice but my brother had a nice voice. He used to play a little and sing. My mother used to sing. She used to have a very good voice, that's why she was always hoping to have a piano and she wanted the children should play. But none of us were any good at it.

DALLETT:

What kind of songs did she sing? Yiddish songs?

GOLBE:

She used to sing Hebrew and Jewish and Russian and I knew a few of her songs, just a little bit of the beginning of a few songs.

DALLETT:

Did you teach those to your children> Did you teach your children those songs?

GOLBE:

I'll tell you a story about what my children. My son started to take violin lessons and I wanted the teacher to teach him some of the songs that I remembered so he learned some of the songs, then when he went to war, you know he was in the Second World War, but he was with the Russian, he ended up, up in between Germany and Russia, almost at the end already and got acquainted with some Russian girls that were in camp that were held prisoners. He got them out, you know, they got them out and he became acquainted with them and he couldn't talk Russian so he sang some of those little Russian songs that he learned and he found a violin there and a fife and he was entertaining them, when he was in Russia, Russian little songs. Wasn't that cute?

DALLETT:

That's wonderful. Okay I think that--

GOLBE:

(She begins to sing Russian songs.) He'd always sing that to her--

DALLETT:

Oh that's wonderful.

GOLBE:

I have no voice, my mother had a beautiful voice and none of us except one brother, the youngest, he's dead now.

DALLETT:

What does that song mean, how does that translate?

GOLBE:

Uh, in the gardens in the cities grew up--it's a little, it's nothing, grew up a turnip, the boy and the girl love each other that's a toy, something like that, you know, you can't, it's a whimsy.

DALLETT:

That's wonderful.

GOLBE:

There's no translation for that.

DALLETT:

Do you ever think about how, in making that big move to come to this country, you--

GOLBE:

Well, it was a very big move but it was to save the boys and we were very fortunate that we went out just in time. So, we made a, we had to make that move.

DALLETT:

Right, right.

GOLBE:

We, who's we? I was only a kid. Oh yes, a year before we went, in school our eyes were examined, there was a doctor came to examine older children and they found I had trachoma because a lot of children had it and you know it was transmitted from one to the other. I had trachoma, so the doctor told me to get my mother, that it has to be cured and told him we have to go to America, my mother's working on passports. He says, well, he asks me how many children we have there, younger ones, so my mother took all the children and we went to the doctor. So he found that the younger ones, my sister and my little brother, they all had trachoma. So they had to take me out of school, a year before we went to America. I missed a year. I had a teacher, his name was G (?)ovich)?) (she laughs) he came to my mother and told her not to take me to America because I have accomplished so much here, I'm a good student, that I'll have to start all over again and I won't accomplish anything, so what do you think? (They laugh.) I'll remain there, so they cured our eyes.

DALLETT:

How did they treat your eyes?

GOLBE:

Treat, I don't now, they used some kind of pencil, they used some, first they had to operate on it to squeeze out, it was like fish roe in there, in the lids, they had to squeeze it out and then for almost a year, I had to go every other day and they would put something in there, medication. And my other sister and little brother too, all the three of us. But we were all cured.

DALLETT:

So by the time you got to Ellis Island, it was no more?

GOLBE:

It was cured. It was gone before that. We lived near the woods, the pine woods so the doctor says I need fresh air, good climate, I should run through the woods. I would get up, mine was the worst because I contracted it from the kids, so I used to go picking berries every morning, in the summertime and it got better, got cured and well, the climate was very good.

DALLETT:

Did you ever go back to visit?

GOLBE:

I would have liked to, no.

DALLETT:

You never did?

GOLBE:

Never.

DALLETT:

Do you miss the woods, did you miss the woods when you first came?

GOLBE:

What was the sense of going to visit, it was the war, and after the war the house we lived in must have been demolished. Yeah, we were told that was, they cleared away. We had a sandy road when we lived there, they cleared away all the little houses and they put up, actually skyscrapers and they paved the roads, all the way into the woods. They cut away part of the woods and they built up tall houses, tall brick buildings.

DALLETT:

Who told you that? People who came later?

GOLBE:

People that came after the war. A few years after the war. That was all changed, so what was the sense of going? I remember when I went to school, it was almost three miles walking, used to walk every morning. My mother used to give me three cents, three kopeks for the fare, one way, at least going, and I had to walk almost a mile to get the trolley, it was horse drawn cars, trolleys. So I used to take the three cents and save it up and buy ribbons and little combs (she laughs) and walk and I didn't mind walking, I was dressed warm with felt boots with rubbers over it and very warm coats, now they're using this stitching in coats, the feather stitching, that's what I remember having, a coat like that, it was stitched with feathers. And a parka hat and straps for my books and my shoulders what stick it in like this.

DALLETT:

When, do you still sew now?

GOLBE:

I sew not only for myself, I supplement my income, I don't have too much of an income. There, there's my sewing room there.

DALLETT:

Ah, so you still do it?

GOLBE:

Go ahead look there.

DALLETT:

Wonderful, that's great. Okay, I think i'm finished everything I have to ask you unless there's anything else you want to add.

GOLBE:

I don't know, this is about all.

DALLETT:

Okay.

GOLBE:

Oh, I worked with my husband, after I raised my children, I had two children, when my daughter, my son was fifteen and my daughter was ten, I thought that's enough, I should do something. He was a salesman at furs, we should go into business, we had a little money then, so we got a partner, they went into business and I went in with them because I did the fitting and alterations and I learned to work at furs, I never worked at furs before but I learned how, I became a full-fledged furrier. I did everything. Matching the skins and stretching them, cutting them, sewing and nailing, finishing, I did the patterns, I did everything, that's why I can't give up my, my hand. Now I can't work with my hands, now my hands are stiff. I can't even hold a needle. But on the machine I work and people give me plenty work.

DALLETT:

Still going?

GOLBE:

I supplement a little bit, I don't make much but it helps. Whatever it is so I have enough for a show and when we have charity organizations, I give charity and not, if I should just have for food, food and my own care, I have enough, but I want to have a few dollars to give away.

DALLETT:

Have you taught your daughters and your sons any of these skills that you have?

GOLBE:

You know my daughter, don't you?

DALLETT:

I just spoke to her over the phone.

GOLBE:

That's all? Have you ever seen her? Oh, she's little like me but I give her a few more years, she'll be fat like me, she's little and shorty. And do you know what kind of work she does? The paste-on, wait a minute I have to show you something here--

DALLETT:

Wait, your hooked in here. I'm sorry, you're hooked in your microphone. So she does work with her hands, your daughter?

GOLBE:

She does work with her hands and with her brain and she does beautiful work in these here, designing, these here, what do you call it, this is wall-paper designing for dolls and colors and books--

DALLETT:

And interior decorating.

GOLBE:

All kinds of designs.

DALLETT:

And she sews too.

GOLBE:

She sews her own and for her children. She's very capable and she's a terrific cook.

DALLETT:

Did you teach her some of the, did you learn from your mother, some of the--

GOLBE:

I didn't have to teach her, no, I didn't teach her, she went, I didn't have time to teach her. I was at work all the time, she was actually raised without me. I just used to see her early in the morning and at night for a little while. That's all, she learned herself. When she was in school, she made her graduation dress and she won a prize. She didn't win the first prize because by the time she got through with it, it got tight on her, so she won second prize. She's a very talented girl.

DALLETT:

Okay, I think that's all I have to ask--

GOLBE:

She, did you know she's divorced?

DALLETT:

No, uh-uh.

GOLBE:

See and she took care of the children all by herself, she had to be father and mother and she did well.

DALLETT:

Good for her.

GOLBE:

They both went to college. They're okay.

DALLETT:

Thank you very, very much. This is the end of side two and the end of Interview Number 131 with Evelyn Golbe.

GOLBE:

Yeah.

DALLETT:

And its 11:04.