Cecelia Siegal, Interviews with Jews in Utah, Accn 998

Page 7

Cecelia Siegel p.6 He had lay-aways. But the merchandise remained in the store while the people paid on it. Because of the depression situation, the hard times. You just couldn 't trust people to take out a fragile thing like a fur coat and wear it and then not be able to pay for it. So he went in for a cash type of business. LF Do -- was many of the clientele jewish? CS Very small percentage of jewishpeople--in fact, my sister tells me that too-- that, the jewish people don't par ticurlary say, we'll patronize jewish merchants or jewish doctors or jewish lawyers. They go where they think they can get the best deal . And they are not influeneced by the religious persuasion of the people who own the place. LF So they didn 't feel the need the support each other. CS No , I never felt that in all the years that I worked for Dad. Oh, there were a certain number of jewish people who carne in, naturally it was a very fine fur store and top kno tch merchandise as very reduced prices and so they carne just because it was a good deal but actually not because Dad being a jew brought them in. LF It was mainly the hard times, then you 'd attribute it to, they had to get what they could get at the best price. CS I think allpeople felt that way very much. The conditions of the times was the prevailing reason to shop anything. LF How did the Jews at that time maintain a sense of community. CS Well, all during my teenage years, college years, they were very cohesive. They established a community center on East So. Temple . They bought it. It was called the Covenant House and it was the owners, or the estate of Curtin Wall , a mining magnate I believe, and all the jewish organizations met at this place. When the war came along, why they used to have many USO things. Now those were jewish oriented. There were -- at least during my growing up period -- there were two solid congregations. And my Dad- ~ LF What congregation did you belong to? CS He belonged to both of them . He was the president. When he first came to Salt Lake he was persuaded by a man by the name of Jack Finling to join the temple--that was Temple B'nai Israel. That's the reform congregation. And so we went in there and it was quite foreign to him because he was of more the conservative, laand a little bit towards orthodoxy and he just never could understand why they had the choir -- that was a non­jewish choir that sang. 1~ A nnn-l~wi~h rhnir at B'na Israel.