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A. My name is Mary Schochet, I was born in
Richmond, Virginia, October 3, in the 1900s.
Q. And where was your family from?
A. My father was from Austria. My mother
was from Austria-Poland, and they both came here as children and became
citizens very early, very bright people, but very young when I was born.
Q. And how did you get to Asheville, North
Carolina?
A. We got to Asheville, North Carolina,
through my marriage.
Q. How did you meet your husband?
A. I met my husband at the Bethel Hall, USO dance during
World War II.
Q. In Richmond?
A. In Richmond, Virginia.
Q. Then what happened?
A. Then what happened, we wrote, and he came to see me,
and then on the following Christmas he invited me to come to Columbus, Ohio,
where he was stationed at the Army Depot in Columbus. He was at that time a
second lieutenant. I went to Columbus to visit an aunt, and during that
time we had a wonderful time with my aunt, and I became engaged. My father
said to me, are you very sure? This is awfully quick. I said no, it isn't
quick, I said I know it's good when I see it. And so we were married on
February 20th, 1944, and we had been married 61 years when he
passed away.
Q. That's great. And where did you live after you got
married?
A. We lived in Columbus in a brand-new apartment
development, very similar to the local Edgewood Knoll apartments, and nobody
had lived in my apartment. We had – not borrowed furniture, we rented
furniture from one of the furniture stores in Columbus. And actually, we
lived there for two years after thinking every week he was going to go
overseas, but it just so happened that he was an Army – he became first
lieutenant not long after he got there, and he was in charge of two
connecting supply depot units. And the people who worked under him were
civilians, and this was the first office that really had rapport with the
civilians. So obviously that is why we did not go overseas. We, meaning my
husband of course.
Q. So then when was it that you came to Asheville?
A. Well, I don't really quite remember the year, but we
came to Asheville when he came out of the service. We took a month
and-a-half vacation in Florida after his – trip down the east coast. I
don't remember the year that we got here, but we got here in the late 1940s,
and my husband opened a business and I was involved in his business.
Q. Was that the first time you came to Asheville, or had
you been here –
A. No, we came here on our honeymoon. We went to New York
City for a long weekend, and then the next weekend we came to Asheville. He
had 10 days leave for his wedding, and that's what we did.
Q. So what was it like the first time you saw it? What
did you think?
A. Asheville?
Q. Yes.
A. Well, I thought it was a charming city, and Sidney had
a great family. I was met with an orchid, given to me by Sidney's Aunt
Shirley Bloomberg, gorgeous flowers, and I felt very welcome to the family.
The greatest thing, I have to tell you this. The greatest thing is when you
met Colordora, and Coladora was my mother-in-law's housekeeper, and the
reason she was called Colordora is because we had an aunt Dora, and this
made a differential. Which Dora were we talking about. When I first met
Colordora she was just a character. She invited me into the kitchen. I sat
there visiting with her and the first thing she said to me was I'm glad
you're here. You know ???, I said really? She said yeah, and I had never
noticed, but she was squinting with one eye. And that was Colordora, she
was really a pistol.
Q. What was that, that she said to you?
A. ??? means I have one eye.
Q. In what language?
A. In Yiddish.
Q. What did she mean by that?
A. She just wanted me to know she was part of the family.
Q. And how long had she worked there?
A. She had worked there since Sidney was a baby. So she
wasn't ???, she was up there. But she was a great lady.
Q. Where did they live?
A. They lived on College Park Place, which
at that time was across the street from the only junior high school at north
Asheville, and although it was central Asheville, but all the kids from the
northern part of the city went to that junior high school.
Q. What was it called?
A. It was called David Miller, and they
lived on College Park Place, right across the street from there.
Q. Then when you came back to live in
Asheville where did you live?
A. We came back to live in Asheville we
lived on College Park Place, which was on the corner. My mother-in-law's
house was in the middle of the block, but we had a corner apartment house, a
little apartment house, lived there after our first son was born. He was
about eight or nine months when we moved to Gracelyn Road.
Q. What was that neighborhood like, the
central –
A. When I first moved there, working
people, old families on one side and then my building, where I lived it was
an apartment home, had been converted from a big house into apartments, and
most of the young people were there.
Q. Was it a Jewish neighborhood – were
there a lot of Jewish people in the neighborhood?
A. No. The only Jewish people in the
neighborhood was around the corner on Oak Street, was Chandler's grocery.
Q. What was Chandler's like?
A. Chandler's was the meeting place of all
the Jewish people in Western North Carolina, because they sold delicatessen
and Jewish items, food items that people enjoyed.
Q. Like they had lox and –
A. Oh, yes, they had everything that was
traditional.
Q. What were the Chandlers like?
A. The Chandlers were a wonderful family.
In fact, Jack Chandler, which is about the second – third youngest of the
Chandler children, was ??? they were together all the time.
Q. So was he married also –
A. Jack at that time – Cindy had gone to
North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and Jack had gone to State at Raleigh. And
of course they were bitter rivals in college, but they were the best of
friends. Then Jack got married and moved up north. He moved to Camden, New
Jersey. He had his job up there after the service, and Sidney opened the
Bootery. That was on Patton Avenue in downtown Asheville.
Q. And what kind of things did it sell?
A. Family shoe store.
Q. Did it have other things, like
accessories?
A. Pocketbooks, not many other things, just
the normal things a shoe store would carry. It was a big family shoe store,
and we had customers from all over Western North Carolina, and I was very
active in the business.
Q. What did you do?
A. Everything. Everything you do in the
store. I helped with the bookkeeping, and I waited on customers, everything
that was to be done, I did.
Q. Was it just the two of you who ran the
store or were there other family people –
A. No, we had two or three help all the
time. We were very busy at that time.
Q. Was anybody else from the family
involved in it?
A. Not in that store, no. We opened the
store next-door to my 's brother-in-law's business, it was a family business
that had been there for many years, and they had Army-Navy supplies and blue
jeans and all kinds of things associated with the service. After the war
that wasn't necessary, so they went into western wear, different items that
you would find in a department store.
Q. What was the name of the store?
A. That store was the Star store.
Q. Were there other members of the family
who helped in that store besides just your brother-in-law?
A. My brother-in-law Gene and his sister
Lillian, and at one time the mother was there. She would come in and be the
cashier and help. They were very busy too at that time.
Q. Uncle Dave.
A. Oh, and then when his sister got
married, she married a gentleman from Bynum, New Jersey, and he was an
attorney, but was in service, and she met him when he was in service. And
after they were married she conned him into coming to Asheville because she
didn't want to move to Bynum, New Jersey. He did come, because he liked it
very much, and he was a great guy. And he was involved in that particular
family business, the Star store.
Q. So he gave up law?
A. He did. You know, he had had three or
four years of service, and at that time if you don't have a law office, if
you leave, you have to start all over again, so he just as well started all
over again in Asheville with the family business. It was lucrative and they
did well.
Q. So what was downtown like when you came
here? What kind of stores were there?
A. Oh, there were four or five shoe stores,
we were not the only ones. And they were moderate priced, and then there
were a couple of very very expensive shoe stores, but they were up on
Haywood Street. But on Patton Avenue we had Belk's, we had lots of
businesses and lots of Jews owned businesses.
Q. What were the names of some of the
businesses?
A. Well, there was Gross Jewelry Store on
Patton Avenue – do you want just the Jewish names or all the names? The
Charles store was directly next-door to us –
Q. What was that?
A. The Charles store was a big, low-priced
department store, pretty big.
Q. Who owned that?
A. The Charles store was a department – one
of these big fixtures that came from out of town.
Q. But didn't somebody Jewish manage it or
something?
A. No, not the Charles store. And next to
the Charles' store was the Holly Shop, which was another franchise business
–
Q. Going towards Pack Square or Haywood?
A. Going towards Haywood. Towards Pack
Square, next to the Star store was Tall-McCann Shoe Store, which was on the
corner. And then on the other side was the Charles store and the Holly
Shop, and then a movie house was there –
Q. What was the name of it?
A. The Paramount – I'm not sure about it.
Q. Was it the State?
A. I don't think so. It may – I don't
know. That's so many years ago and I don't think I ever went into that
movie. But I think they primarily showed cowboy pictures, that type of
stories.
Q. Not your kind.
A. And then across the street from our
business was a corner store that was like a cigar shop, and then next to
that was Brooks Clothing, which was a franchise store. Then on the other
side of that, that was the Leader, which was a big department store owned by
Sidney's uncle, S. I. Bloomberg and Buster Bloomberg. And next to them
was Ben Shost's store, the Hollywood Shop.
Q. What did he sell?
A. He sold ladies clothing. And then next
to that was cleaner's, on the corner, which was 16 Patton Avenue, which was
our future home when we had to leave the location we were in at the
Bootery. Then down the next block on the corner was the Man's Store, which
was owned by the Zagiers, and they had a very very beautiful big ???, and
then, in that block there was Belk's, and that was a big department store,
and that was a North Carolina chain. And next to Belk's was a jewelry
store, Lee's jewelers.
Q. Who owned that?
A. Lee Lacman owned that.
Q. So that was a Jewish –
A. That was a Jewish store.
Q. Then next to Lee, between Lee and the
movie house there was –
A. I don't remember the name of that.
Between Lee and the movie was a little newspaper stand owned by E. C.
Goldberg, and he was one of the wonderful characters in Asheville. He was a
Jewish guy.
Q. What made him a character?
A. Because he knew everybody, he knew
everything, and he had great stories, and everybody liked him. He was a
very very nice guy.
Q. Was he funny? What were his stories
like?
A. He never told me the stories, so I can't
tell you what the stories were like, but they were all kind of stories, and
always he had good things to say, and everybody liked E. C. In that same
area was Field's, which was run by Joe Cooper, and a man's store, a very
nice man's shop. And the next block was this big bank, I think it was the
Citizen's, and next to the Citizen's was the S&W, the S&W cafeteria was the
meeting place of all the people of Asheville, all times of their life. It
was a wonderful meeting place. Everybody in downtown Asheville went to the
S&W for lunch, and most of them brought their families back for dinner, and
it was a buzz buzz buzz cafeteria, and a good cafeteria. We loved going to
the S&W.
Q. What kind of food did they have?
A. That was there for many many years.
Q. Southern cooking?
A. No, just every kind of good food. It
was a very very nice meeting place. Then beyond the S & W were the banks.
There was Bank of Asheville, First Union, Bank of America, and then across
the street –
Q. Stop for a minute. (recording pauses)
We got to the block with the banks, and so – what banks there were.
A. At that point, across the street were
Pritchard Park, and across the street were a number of Jewish merchants.
There was Kerr Jewelers which was run by a Roth family. Around the corner
from them was Fader's, which is on Haywood Street.
Q. What was Fader's?
A. Fader's was a cigar/cigarette/sundry
kind of shop, and it was very very popular, because that particular corner,
College and Haywood Street, was a very very busy corner.
Q. Did they have booths or tables or
something?
A. No, it was not a very big place, but it
was a meeting place, all newspapers and everything you would find of a
Sunday shop. Cigars –
Q. Drinks? Everything was packaged, like
you could get peanuts or things pre-packaged, drinks, snacks.
A. Right. Then you go up Haywood Street
and you find the Bon Marche, you know, all the things you that you grew up
and ???
Q. Was there anything else on Pritchard
Park, on College Street?
A. Pritchard Park – on Haywood Street at
Pritchard Park, Dora ???, our aunt Dora that I mentioned earlier, had a
little hat shop, and then across the street from there was Lerner's, and in
the middle of the block, somewhere there on Haywood Street was Worth's,
which was uncle ???'s daughter, Madeline Sandman, and her husband, Dave
Sandman, ran. They were family members and –
Q. What kind of store?
A. A ladies' dress shop, very nice. And
then further down the street on Haywood Street you would find Harry's
Cadillac-Pontiac place. He was our cousin, mom Bloomberg's cousin, mom
Schochet's cousin, she was a Bloomberg.
Q. I noticed that a lot of the people were
called by their initials, like S. I. And E. C. Goldburg, what was that
about?
A. I have no idea what that was about.
That's the way it happened, that was tradition.
Q. Just wondering if you knew any more
about that.
A. I don't know, I have no idea about
that.
Q. What were the customers like who came to
your store?
A. The customers were just normal people,
and they were very very nice people.
Q. Were they from all – where were they
from?
A. From everywhere, Western North Carolina,
not necessarily all from Asheville, but a lot were, but everywhere. When
your doors are open you don't really know who's going to walk in. We've had
some wonderful wonderful experiences in that store, and we met wonderful
wonderful people. At one time I remember, Chief ??? from Cherokee would
come in, and the store might be minimal busy, but somehow or other we always
got to visit with the chief. But then he would get in the middle of a
story, and in would walk an influx of people. It got to the point where we
would say to him, chief, if you would just let us pay you to come in, we
would just do fine. He always drew a crowd, and not necessarily because
they knew he was there, it just happened that way.
Q. What kind of stories did he tell?
A. Oh, he, the chief had at one time been a
boxer, and a very very big name. He was a big man, and a good man, and a
great guy. We really liked chief ???. And the stories he told were about
interesting things that happened in his life.
Q. Did he live in Asheville?
A. No, he lived in Cherokee. He was chief
of the tribe of Cherokee. And he did not look like an Indian chief as you
would think he would. He just looked like a normal American citizen from
Asheville, North Carolina.
Q. Can you remember any funny or weird
stories or happenings in that particular store, like anything memorable as
far as a customer or incident or anything?
A. Oh, well I will never forget what your
daddy told one lady when she came in to get point shoes for about the second
time in the year. She was really quite annoyed with the daughter, because
her foot had grown and she couldn't still wear point shoes. She was getting
on your dad's nerves. He finally said to her, you know, you just have to be
very very thankful that she can walk, and that she can dance is an added
virtue, so let's just not complain too much about it, will you? And all I
could do was sit there and applaud. That was really a wonderful thing to
say.
Q. Was it around the time of the polio
epidemic?
A. No, no, it wasn't. It really had no
bearing on the fact that it was polio epidemic, it was just the fact the
child couldn't help it that her feet were growing, and the mother shouldn't
have made such a scene and in public, because the child was embarrassed, and
I think your daddy saying that gave the child a little feeling of somebody's
on my side. That was just something that stuck in my mind for a long time.
We've had lots of incidents, some of them I must not talk about.
Q. Why? Why?
A. Well, I remember the time that Morris
Mamlin, who was one of our clerks at one time, and a great guy, he was an
actor, he was quite a character, and a little background on Morris is that
we was born of a Jewish family if Philadelphia and had moved to Asheville
after a broken marriage and couldn't decide where we wanted to go. Knew he
wanted to go South and landed in Asheville. And he married a lady and
subsequently they had four children, and he was a family man, but he was an
actor and a character and quite a nice guy, and very active in the Baptist
church, and the reason he joined the Baptist church is because he felt that
he was asked to come into the synagogue, but he would have to pay x number
of dollars, which he couldn't afford to do, and the Baptist church didn't
require any money, so he went to the Baptist church.
Q. But his wife was Baptist.
A. His wife was Baptist, and they reared
their four children as Baptists. And one day a customer came to the door, a
probably customer came to the door, a person came to the door and said to
him you know, I'd come in there and buy some shoes, but I know you're a Jew
and I don't think I would like to do business with a Jew. And Morris looked
at him and said tell me something, are you a Christian? And the guy said –
he was taken aback and said I guess I am. And Morris said oh, no, you're
not a Christian because I'm a Christian, and Christians don't talk like that
and act like that, and you should never walk the streets and say things like
that. And the man was so taken aback he ran. But that was a good story,
because it was true, and Morris felt that way. And he was a Baptist, but he
also was a Jew.
Q. And did you go to the Temple or the
Synagogue?
A. We went to the Temple, we always joined
– when I moved here we went to ???, but at one time we also belonged to the
Synagogue, because, oh, for years we belonged to the Synagogue, because we
supported things that were Jewish.
Q. Can we go back to the store for just a
minute. Did you have any other people who worked for you that were Jewish?
A. Yes, at one time we had Nat ??? who was
a young guy who came here after the war to go to Oteen, because he was a
veteran. And he was from New York, and came in looking for a job because he
had to stay at Oteen. He didn't live there, but he had to be there for
treatment. It seemed that he had contracted a non-contagious disease
similar TB, but it was due to his prior business. He was a saxophone
player, and he was a young fellow, and we got friendly with him and he
needed a job, so we gave him a job. He was in our store a couple of years,
and he was quite a nice guy.
Q. Whatever happened to him?
A. He married a girl from Asheville and
subsequently he was cured at Oteen, and he went back to New York with his
wife.
Q. Was she Jewish?
A. No, but they were a nice couple. And we
could tell you many many stories about the Bootery and the characters who
worked for us, because they were great. But they were odd characters.
Every person, by characters, I mean they weren't individual, but something
unique about them. It was an interesting experience. And we also had a
fire, when we were going out of business, because the bank was coming and
they had to take our businesses and we had to move, period. So we bought
the building across the street, at 60 Patton Avenue, I knew that we would go
there, but the lease had not been up on the ??? establishment, and they were
there for another year and-a-half, so we had to find a location to be for a
year and-a-half, temporary deal. So both Gene in the Star store and Sydney
at the Bootery had to leave. So the Bootery went up to Wall Street for a
year and-a-half and Gene went over on College Street for about a year
and-a-half, and when the lease was up on the cleaning establishment they
refurbished, redecorated the corner store and it became the Star-Bootery
because one side we had the Bootery and the other side we had the Star
store. So we were there for many many years.
Q. You didn't finish telling us about the
Jewish people who worked for you.
A. Oh, no, okay. When we were on the Bootery on Patton Avenue
across the street, in the original store, we always hired young Jewish girls
for cashiers. There was the Silver girl and the Roth girl, Charlotte, and
there was the Rosen girl, Jeannette.
Q. Phil's sister?
A. Phil Rosen's sister, the youngest
sister, the baby sister.
Q. Who was the Silver girl?
A. The Silver girl was Herman Silver's 's
daughter. He was with the Wadopian and Lurie group in the shirt factory.
Q. Were these high school girls?
A. They were all high school, in high school.
Q. Who else do you remember? Were there other girls?
A. I'm trying to think. That's a long time ago, I can't
think of any other Jewish kids, but they were nice. Oh, yes, I do remember
that we did hire Rodney??? Weinberg. When we went out of town he worked for
us a couple of times, just to be an extra while we were out of town. And he
was in high school.
Q. How about people that weren't high
school people who were Jewish. Didn't you have some other – Harry Miller?
A. Oh, Harry Miller was a Jewish fellow who
was in the insurance business, and he didn't work on Saturdays because in
the insurance business you just don't work on Saturday and Sunday, so
Saturday – Harry was our Saturday help. He was a wonderful guy. He was a
little fellow, and we got him when he was single, living with his mother.
And then he married a little girl, a wonderful girl, Virginia, and
subsequently they had a child. And Harry worked for us for years and years,
always on Saturday.
Q. But was he in a concentration camp?
A. Oh, he came here – no, Harry, I don't
think Harry was. His mother may have been, but they got out of Germany and
came here.
Q. Do you know how they came here?
A. Somebody here, and I'm not sure which
family, I don't want to give the wrong person's name, knew his mother was
Jewish and his father was not. But when your mother is Jewish in Germany
you're Jewish. But Harry basically didn't live Jewishly, but he was a very
very good person. I really don't even know what his religion was. I'm sure
he went to church with his wife Virginia because she was an avid
church-goer.
Q. So among the Jewish shopkeepers, would
you say you were friendlier with the Jewish shopkeepers –
A. We were friendly with everybody. Our family was a lot
of the Jewish shopkeepers, but we were friendly with – the Pollocks had a
shoe store in the next block, but we were friendly with the Pollock family,
we didn't feel animosity toward anyone.
Q. Who were some of your best friends?
A. When I was growing up – first in Asheville? Well, I
used to play cards with cousin Helen Bloomberg, who was Buster Bloomberg's
wife, and Madeline Sandman, who was S. I. Bloomberg's daughter, and Marta
Adler whose husband owned Adler's shop up on Pack Square, and Caroline Grand
whose husband was a furrier, and we would play cards once a week, sometimes
twice a week, whenever the notion struck us, at each other's homes, we would
play canasta. That was the big thing back there. When I first moved here
you either played canasta, or mahjong, and I didn't play mahjong, so I
played canasta and bridge, those were my two favorites.
Q. Well, tell the story of how you learned
to play bridge and why did you want to play bridge, and who you learned
from.
A. I learned from a lady when I was just
about 12 years old, and her husband was a traveling salesman. And I lived
on an apartment house on – and she lived in an apartment house across the
median from us. But she was a very nice lady and always lonely, so I always
felt sorry for her, and she would invite me to come up and watch her make
home brew, so while the home brew was cooking in the kitchen she and I would
sit. And she taught me how to play bridge. We would deal out hands, and
she would explain the game to me. And we would ??? for hours while she made
home brew, we were playing bridge.
Q. What was her name?
A. Her name was Miss Armstrong, and I don't remember her
first name because I always called her Miss Armstrong. She was a nice
lady. I don't know whatever happened to her, but when we moved off of the
boulevard I lost contact with her.
Q. How did you start playing bridge in Asheville?
A. I really don't remember quite. I know when I started
playing duplicate bridge. I sort of played ??? bridge while Sid was in
service. There's playing bridge and then there's playing bridge. You think
you know how to play bridge until you get into the big leagues, and that's
duplicate. But I really learned duplicate, and the fine parts of from – my
elders, Mary Gottlieb, Sophie Kaplan, Julie Cooper, they are all elderly,
wonderful, and marvelous teachers. They were my mentors and I can't say
enough about them. They were great ladies.
Q. If they were all older, how is it that you – were you
the only younger person who was playing bridge with them? A.
No, I wouldn't say I was the only younger person playing bridge. I was one
of the only people playing at that time.
Q. Who were these ladies? Who was Mary Gottlieb?
A. Mary Gottleib was part of the Roccamora family, Mrs.
Roccamora, Fran Roccamora and Mary Gottleib were sisters. And Louis
Gottleib was involved in business with the Roccamora boys who had Asheville
Showcase, and at that time Asheville Showcase was on Biltmore Avenue.
Q. I think it was on Broadway.
A. Broadway.
Q. Who was Julie Cooper?
A. Julie Cooper was the wife of Field's – Joe Cooper.
Julie, Mary and Thelma Burkele was a lady who lived here at one time and
played bridge, and I never had the honor of playing with her. She was one
of the older ladies who was a smart bridge player. And if you involved in
duplicate bridge you just don't go back to rough ??? bridge. But he had
lots of fun, and part of my life growing up in Asheville, there was a
segment of my life that was devoted to going to the sisterhood meetings and
going to Hadassa in? ? Meetings and I was always an officer in Hadassa. I
never was an officer in the Sisterhood, but I always went to their meetings
and helped them all I could. And one of my close friends, Leola Rosenstein
was sisterhood president, and a lot of our friends involved in an investment
club which we had. And investment club consisted of a large group of Jewish
women who were interested in stocks and bonds but left all the big buying to
their husbands. But we were curious and interested enough to form this
club, and we had, I think 12 or 15 members. I have to think of some of the
ladies who were involved. Would you like to know their names?
Q. Sure.
A. We're talking about Helen Gumpert, Jodi Lichtenfeld,
Joe Lichtenfeld's wife. I think Julianne??? Harry Winner's wife, Sylvia
Finkelstein, who was Leo Finkelstein's wife. Jane Haber who was Richard
Haber's wife.
Q. Was Leola in it?
A. I don't remember if Leola was in it.
Q. Was Evelyn Ness in it?
A. No, she had gone – I can't remember some of the other.
I think Miriam Kell was in it, Lou's wife. And she was originally a
Cooper. I hate to leave somebody off, I know I am.
Q. Were they mostly from the Temple, or not necessarily?
A. I don't think they were all from the Temple, although
all the once I mentioned were from the Temple.
Q. Was Mrs. Frumpkin?
A. No. We would meet at each other's homes, and usually
we would have a luncheon, and we would have a speaker from Merrill Lynch
come and talk to us. And I'll never forget the one time I had it at my
house and we were waiting for one of the brokers to come and speak to us,
and all the women were in here visiting and talking and we looked up and
here comes the broker in a little broken down car, and all of our cars
sitting in the driveways are Cadillacs and Buicks and Chryslers, and they
were pretty up-to-date, but here this man in this little broken down car is
going to come and tell us what to buy. We had fun, and we made money, and
we eventually broke up and split the money. And it was a fun thing while it
happened, and it happened for several years, but that's a long long time
ago, at least 25 years ago.
Q. And what changes did you see in downtown, in the store
owners?
A. Downtown itself at one time was a hollow city, when the
Asheville mall came about, the things that are new always attract people,
and people rushed there to shop and buy, and downtown became a little on the
hollow side, although we never worried too much about it. That's the way it
was, that's the way it was. We saw all the wire fences go up around all the
new buildings, all the construction that was coming downtown, and at that
point there was some hope that maybe there's some good life left in the old
???, so we managed to keep afloat. Business didn't suffer too much, because
it was pretty specialized, and people still were coming downtown, because
crowds sometimes are not attracted to people, the traffic and all. And it
was just easy for some people to shop downtown.
Q. What kind of stores were there after the mall came?
What was left of downtown?
A. Pretty much what's there now. Except we didn't have
all the restaurants. And eventually the theaters closed, because there were
two theaters, one up on the square and one down in the middle of the block
next to Belk's on Patton Avenue. And then the S&W closed and when the S&W
closed that was a big blow to downtown, because it drew people from
everywhere. It was very very good, the people enjoyed the atmosphere and
the prices and the food and it was excellent.
Q. Was it owned by one family or –
A. No, I think it was a little chain, a small chain.
Asheville wasn't a ghost city but it was slow, and then eventually with all
the building, the BB&T building, the parking decks came up some of the life
came back. Because when they were building it was very hard to park on the
square where they were having all this activity over where the theater used
to be, the library was.
Q. Why did they tear down that whole block in front, after
your store, where Field's was and the Man's Store –
A. Why did they do it? I don't know, they tore a lot of
it down. The Man's Store was left, and he eventually gave it to the city.
The girls did, who inherited it, gave it to the city, and they just cleaned
it off, because the banks owned it, and they wanted the parking.
Q. So what do you think about downtown now? You're the
last of the original stores except for Asheville Showcase.
A. Asheville Showcase, of the jewelry stores, T. S.
Morrison down on Lexington is one of the old stores –
Q. But the same people don't run it –
A. No.
Q. Morrison was Jewish?
A. No. But it was an older store, you're talking about
Sluder Furniture was an older store, Morrison's is an older store. I mean,
these stores are still there. What do I think of – what did you ask me?
Q. Well, the Jewish stores are sort of gone.
A. Well, actually most of the Jewish people were not
involved in retailing anymore. Their children all had either left town or
gone into professional life, done something else.
Q. Why do you think that was?
A. I think in a way smaller cities have that background of
being a good place to grow up, but when you grow up they are bigger ventures
than the bigger cities, and the children have careers, and they look to
further their goals, so they go elsewhere. I think that happens in most
small towns everywhere, all over.
Q. What changes do you see in the Jewish community?
A. Well, in the Jewish community the biggest change has
been the influx of people from other areas of the country who have moved
into town, and some of them have become very active. Some of them are still
unaffiliated, but that's their business if that's how they want to live. I
think it's up to all of us who want to see Judaism exist and become bigger
instead of smaller, and families are bigger and there's no reason why we
can't continue our heritage right here in this wonderful little town. It's
not so little anymore, but compared to New York City it's little.
Q. So are you still involved with the Temple?
A. Well, my life still resolves around the Temple, but I'm
not that active in anything much anymore except my hobby.
Q. Which is?
A. Which is bridge. Duplicate bridge.
Q. How long have you been a life master?
A. Since 1970.
Q. Well, actually, you didn't tell us how you got the
Dancer's Place from the Star Bootery.
A. Oh, that's my daughter's street. She said to me when
she got out of college that, mom, if we don't have a separate place for
dancing somebody else is going to come in and have a separate place for
dancing. And I said that's true, so we decided to take the space that we
had a store we had used for years for reservation area for our stocks, that
we needed at the Bootery, on the corner. We took that space and converted
it into a dancewear shop. That became Jan's baby for a couple of years
until she decided retailing wasn't her thing. And mom took over. And it
became my baby. I just love all the little babies.
Q. But how did you start selling dancewear to begin with?
A. To begin with, how we began dancewear was over in the
old Bootery when it was at – across the street at 9 Patton, Beale Fletcher
came to Sidney and said Sid, I'm having a problem. You know, my kids need
pink dance shoes, and ballet shoes, and equipment, and Ivy's carries it, but
they have a small department and their department is only allocated so much
per month, and in September when dancing school starts we just don't get
equipment for months, and we need it, and we need it that month. We can't
wait until December. And that's what was happening in Ivy's. One month
they would get a little bit in, and another month they would get some more
in. We need it all in one lump. They just don't do business like that. So
why don't you put dancewear stuff in here? And Sidney said well, we're
here, we may just as well put dancewear in. So we carried, for a long time
we carried just the ballet shoes and tap shoes and point shoes, and then we
slowly got into the equipment of leotards and tights. And then, when we had
to go over to the place on Wall Street we got more into the garment part of
leotards and skirts and costumes, and then from Wall Street we came over to
the Star-Bootery and we were selling dancewear on one side and cowboy boots
on the other side. And sometimes they didn't mix quite well. And Jan, my
daughter, said oh, mom, you just need a separate store, this is what we
should do. And when she got out of college, she was my inspiration, and she
did 90 percent of all the planning and we got a Dancer's Place in spot, and
that turned out to be fun. It's been my – between the Dancer's Place and
bridge it keeps me busy, and I thank goodness for having both of them at
this time when I need to be kept busy.
Q. When did the Bootery close, and the Star store?
A. The Bootery and Star store went out of business about
10 years ago when –
Q. 1995?
A. Yeah, about 1995. We just sold everything to a stock
buyer and closed the doors, and that was hard, because closing the doors
isn't so easy. You have all this equipment inside. And finally we just
decided to give everything, all the fixtures and everything we didn't need
to Elida Home, which we did. And we were happy that they could use it, and
the Humphries were wonderful people, I think he was the head at the time.
But they came in and helped us, did an awful lot with us, we gave them a lot
of good stuff they could use, and they've used it. And then Sidney wanted
me to give up the Dancer's Place, because he was free, but he didn't like to
travel. He liked to stay at home, so I didn't see the percentage in not
having a fun place to go to when I could, because I liked the Dancer's
Place, I still like it. It's a fun place.
Q. What's your favorite part about it?
A. The little kids are my favorite part about it. I love
making them feel like they're dreamboats, and they are. They are so cute.
And that makes me feel young. I don't remember to feel old. I don't want
to feel not worth anything, because worthless is an awful word.
Q. You have a story about this cute little girl one time –
A. Oh, that was over on Wall Street. I won't ever forget
this. This mother comes in with this little girl, and she's not
particularly a pretty little girl but she's a little girl, and all little
girls have a certain charm. But this one didn't have much charm and much
beauty, but she was a nice little girl. And her mother came in and said
she's just starting dance class and we need a little equipment for her. I
said what do we need? And we got her ballet shoes and a leotard and just
dressed her up, got her looking so cute. She got a skirt on and went to the
mirror and looked in the mirror and said oh, mother, have you ever seen
anything so beautiful? Oh, that was – that got to me. That was just the
cutest thing, and she was, she turned into a little beauty, because she was
so happy and her ego just went up so much. That made my day.
Q. We're out of tape.
A. Good.
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