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Show Herman Bernstein june 16 p.2 ))~ 7"U«~,,k Thatbldg. is still standing. I don't know if you ..... My parents -- I guess the Congregation Montefoire wasn't orthodox enough and a number of families got together and built that congregation. [what year built] Oh, good heavens, late 20's. [your famil was orthodox] Yes, orthodox. J That must have been hard, is that whythey built the other congregation because it wasn't orthodo enough. H That's right. J Where did your parents come from? H From Poland. J What made them move to Utah. [first N.Y.] H He had an aunt here. T~'s what brought him here. He came alone and married mother in Europe before he came and after he was here for 2 or 3 years and made enough money, why, he brought her over here. He came alone. He often told us about how he was a bar tender in St. Louis at a World's fair. Saved enough money to continue on and come to Salt Lake. J From Europe hehad the idea he was going to come to S.L. H Oh, yes. I guess, yeah. I often regret not having talked to our parents more. To get their history. J Your mother--did they speak English when they came. H OH, no. Heaven's no. In fact, I remember going out with my father that he could sign his name on a check and then either myself or the farmer would have to fill inthe amount. He could read it but he couldn't write it. J So how did he get along w/out speaking english. H Just amazing. They finally picked it up, of course. J What language did he speak. H Yiddish. J so was there a community here that spoke Yiddish. H Oh, yes. I should say. J So did you learn Yiddish as a child. H No, no. My older brother did because that's what my parents talked in the home. And in fact they used to talk about how he stuttered so much and the reason for the stuttering was that he went-finally when he started going to school, he picked up English so fast that he started stuttering. J It m/ust have been hard if they were orthodox to come to a community where there wasn't very -- H I know ... J So what did they do in terms of .. H They had--there , as I remember, of course, when I --I don'tremember as a child, but when! waslike 12 or 13 years old, then there was a kosher butcher shop. J In some ways the community was more religious then than it is now. H I think so. |
