Interview with Anne Karl, November 4, 1990

Naomi Pressma:

Conducting an interview by the Jewish Community Center Family History Project. The present date is November the fourth 1990, and I would like to present Ann Karl, who has consented to share her recollections with us.

N.P.:

Ann, I'm going to call you Ann. And I've known you so long, I can't call you Mrs. Karl. Would you please give us your name, address, and if you wish, your phone number and your age.

Anne Karl:

I was born in Louisville Kentucky, August the 25th, 1900. I now reside at 332 Stonehenge Drive, Louisville Kentucky, 40207. My phone number is 893-8497.

N.P.:

And what is your name, Ma'am?

A.K.:

My name is Ann Karl.

N.P.:

Ann, would you please trace your family's immigration pattern to Louisville?

A.K.:

Since I wasn't around at the time, I'll have to improvise. My father came over here somewhere in the early part of the 1890s. I've often wondered why he came to Louisville, Kentucky, but I since resurrected that he had a sister who was 13 or 14 years older than he was, and she had come to America first, and married a man by the name of Dave Isaacs, who was a brother to the well-known family of Bea Isaacs. And she was here in Louisville, and he came to her.

N.P.:

Yeah, let me interrupt just a minute. What was your father's name?

A.K.:

My father's name was Jacob Simons, and he was trained as a shoemaker, not a shoe 2:00mender, but he could build and make shoes, and that was his profession. But when he first came here, he couldn't find work in that, and he became a peddler with a pack on his back, and went out for several years doing that. Then he brought over my mother with a six year old boy and a two year old child.

N.P.:

And where was your father from, and also your mother?

A.K.:

Kovno Gubernia, which was Latvia I think at the time.

N.P.:

And your mother?

A.K.:

And my mother came from the same shtetl.

N.P.:

So he brought her over and they married. Oh, he was married already. I 3:00misunderstood you. I thought that he brought her over.

A.K.:

No. He was already married, but he had deserted from the Russian army. And then he brought her over several years later. And there were other children born afterwards. I have a brother and a sister who was born later. There were other children that didn't live. As I recall, we lived on Preston Street on the east side between Market and Jefferson.

A.K.:

And when I was two years old, I think my mother was the ambitious one. She no longer wanted him to be a shoemaker. So they moved to Market Street, between Preston and Floyd, and opened a shoe store.

N.P.:

What was it like? What was the neighborhood like?

A.K.:

There the shul was on Jefferson Street, on the south side of Jefferson Street, between Preston and Floyd, and was called the Beniyanka. And everything surrounded, there was a Jewish butcher shop, their name was Reskanski, but they all knew him as Louie the Butcher. And that was on Jefferson Street, between Preston and Floyd. And there wasn't much to the area at the time that I remember it. There were little shops.

N.P.:

Were they mostly Jewish people with a completely Jewish neighborhood, with merchants and so forth?

A.K.:

It was all Jewish, but there weren't very many merchants, or very many shops, very sparse. And then, as I grew older, I went to school at the, Floyd and Chestnut Street, that became the Morris School, and we walked to school. There was no such thing as automobiles, or transportation, or even bicycles were a luxury.

N.P.:

And how about after-school, or Hebrew school, or Sunday school?

A.K.:

There was a Sunday school at that time. The shuls didn't have them. But the old 6:00YMHA they called it, was on first street, North of Broadway. I don't know, I can't remember the exact location. But it was on the east side of the street, south of Broadway. And they had a Sunday school that we attended.

N.P.:

You mean it was not attached to the shul? It was attached to what?

A.K.:

It is not attached to any Jewish, any church or shul organization.

N.P.:

Just a Sunday school.

A.K.:

Just a Sunday school.

N.P.:

Was that, the shul that you've mentioned, was that the only shul in the city at the time?

A.K.:

No. My recollection doesn't go back far enough for that. As I grew a little bit older, there was another shul that was then called the Conservative, and it was 7:00on the corner of Floyd and Chestnut Streets.

A.K.:

I think Rabbi Gittleman eventually came there as their pastor and carried over to the others.

N.P.:

So that eventually became Adath Jeshurun.

A.K.:

Adath Jeshurun, but it was started way back then.

N.P.:

Right. Do you remember anything of that or do you remember anything about the shuls? Was there activities around them?

A.K.:

No, there was no activity. They used it on Fridays and Saturdays, then usually in the holidays, and all that I could recall of it was the double seating, the women upstairs and the men downstairs. I think it still stands there. It's being used. It was sold to some other organization and I think it still is a church. 8:00And there was one other one, called the Vishma Drishagutl, and it was on the corner of, it was then called Fear Avenue and Preston Street. But I don't remember too much of any activity around it concerning the shuls.

N.P.:

Tell me, Ann. Did your grandparents or uncles or aunts, anybody like that live with you?

A.K.:

No one lived with us. I never met my grandparents. They never made it here. My mother did have two sisters that came to Louisville, I presume because she was here. I don't know of any other reason.

N.P.:

But they didn't live with you?

A.K.:

No, nobody. No.

N.P.:

Okay. Tell us about your school, elementary, high school-

A.K.:

Elementary went from the first grade to the eighth grade. And then at the end of the eighth grade, we had, at that time, one girls high school on the corner of Fifth and Hills Streets. And there was one boys high school, and one manual high school. And then, by the time I got to high school, I walked to school. But with the time I got to high school, it was too far to walk, so we went on street cars, which was quite a long ride.

N.P.:

What time did school start? Did you have to start out at daybreak?

A.K.:

School started at 8:30 in the morning. And you had to leave in plenty of time to 10:00get there.

N.P.:

Yeah. No such things as cars or riding groups in those days.

A.K.:

No. You waited through the snow. I remember in 1917, they had to build, cut out pads at the street corners to get onto the street car, because we had a terrific snow. It was a very bad winter. I don't remember any other one being that bad.

N.P.:

What did your mother do? Your dad evidently ran the store, and your mother?

A.K.:

She was busy having babies.

N.P.:

How many did she have?

A.K.:

She had eight. Five remained living. She died with the eighth child.

N.P.:

How old were you when she died?

A.K.:

She died in 1905. I was five years old.

N.P.:

Well, who raised you then?

A.K.:

Sort of like topsy. We just grew with the aid of outside help, because my father never married again. He only lived 10 years longer.

N.P.:

So you lost your parents very young.

A.K.:

Very young, yeah.

N.P.:

Well what happened to a family when you lost your parents that young?

A.K.:

We went to live with my sister when I was about 10 years old, because she was eleven years older, and she married, and we lived with her until we grew up and married away.

N.P.:

Well, so you talked about your elementary school and a little bit about your high school. What kind of activities did you have as you were growing up? I mean-

A.K.:

I remember that we had a group at the YMHA, which is now on the corner of Second and College. It was called the Grace Aguilar Circle.

N.P.:

Grace Aguilar?

A.K.:

Aguilar, A-G-U-I-L-A-R. And we used to meet there on Sunday afternoons. I don't recall what we did, or why we did it.

N.P.:

Boys and girls, or just females?

A.K.:

It was just girls. And I think it was the beginning of a Zionist organization. And when I mentioned before, I specified the name Bea Isaacs, because that was one of the first families in Louisville who were ardent Zionists, although I didn't know the meaning of the word at the time. In fact, there was a Miss Minnie Isaacs, who's well known in Louisville Jewish history.

N.P.:

And she was part of this, beginning of Zionist-

A.K.:

She was the beginning of the Zionist movement in Louisville, as far back as I 13:00can remember. And occasionally, they would come around and have the tree day, you know, when they collected for trees, it was to buy land in Israel.

N.P.:

The forerunner of the National Jewish Fund, I guess.

A.K.:

That's right.

N.P.:

Do you remember anything about the political situation and in Louisville at that time?

A.K.:

Yes. Strangely enough, I remember that the Whelans, I didn't know what politics was all about. All I knew that there was a family with a name of Whelans, John and Jim, and they ran the whole city. They had mayors, but they put in the mayors and anything you wanted, you had to go to them. And they had their offices on Jefferson Street near Second.

A.K.:

They even had, which I think is a terrible thing, they set up their son-in-law, 14:00or brother-in-law, that had a claim shaving organization, that when the people worked for the city and received a magnificent sum of $2 a day, they couldn't get the $2, they had to go to this Mr. McGrath and he shaved it, took the thing and gave them a $1.60. So the politics were not any cleaner than they are now.

N.P.:

Ann, let's go back to the Jewish community. I would like to know if there was kind of organized Jewish community, and just how did it function in those days?

A.K.:

There was very little organized activities that went on that I recall. It was 15:00mostly, your entertainment was being with families. The families got together and visited, or told stories of what happened through the day, or the children entertained. But there was very little active things going on, see, and I can recall that the shul had what they call a Gemilas Chesed. It was a fund that people donated small amounts of money to, and if anyone was in dire straits, he could go there without any fanfare, and borrow the money, and he was morally obligated to return the money. He would never be done if he didn't, but it was a moral obligation, and most of them paid it back.

A.K.:

And then some of the women got together and formed what they called the Ladies 16:00Hebrew Society. I remembered one time that Mrs. Borenstein, who was Aly Borenstein's mother, was the president of it at one time. And they would meet once a week at somebody's house, and pay their little dues, and if they knew of someone who was hard up, or couldn't afford very little stuff for that, sorry, they would take care of it.

A.K.:

Rabbi Zarky was the rabbi at that time. And at that time, I look back on it now, he wasn't paid a salary. A couple of women, I remember one distinctly, Mrs. Saltzman, Mara Salzmann's mother, would come around and say, "An Adovit, please." And my father would give her some money and she went to all the other people in the same manner, and he explained to me, when I wanted to know what 17:00she was asking for, that she was a very honest woman, and that somebody was in trouble, and that you had to help them, but you must not know who was in trouble, because it was not charity if you knew who the person was no, what's the word for ... if you knew, it wasn't good. So you didn't ask who it was for. You'd trusted her. And in that way, they aided people who were in terrible trouble. Remember that the community was very small. It was a few blocks. You could get to everybody in a very short period of time.

N.P.:

Why is the Jewish community mostly centered in one area?

A.K.:

They centered in one area, but then probably others took over in other areas. 18:00But since there was no way to get to each other, they kept apart, they were separate.

N.P.:

Do you remember if they had a Jewish cemetery?

A.K.:

I remember it. My mother was buried there in 1905. It was my first stop, was the cemeteries. And there was another cemetery closer in on Preston Street that has since been done of-

N.P.:

Jewish?

A.K.:

Jewish, since been done away with when they finally, after a certain number of years, they're no longer any heirs, that they could do away with the cemetery. But that was closer in on Preston Street.

Speaker 3:

Always found somebody-

N.P.:

Ann, this is so interesting. You're talking about the early 1900s, and it 19:00certainly is a different world. Give us some of the differences that you're so aware of now. For instance, where did you buy your clothes?

A.K.:

You didn't buy clothes. There was no such thing as ready-made clothes. You had to have a dressmaker, and there was always somebody around that sewed, or you learned to sew yourself. The ready-made came in later. Bread was around 5 cents a loaf. Milk didn't know getting come in cartons. Milk came in big cans. The milkman came with a wagon, and you came out with a pitcher, and he poured it into your pitcher. How sanitary it was, I don't know.

N.P.:

No cottage cheese for diets.

A.K.:

No cottage cheese that, I never heard of cottage cheese until I got older. And at the time you're asking, there was a park, it's now called Iroquois Park. And 20:00there was a man that was one of the early mayors of Louisville by the name of Jacobs. And at that time, I always knew it as Jacobs' Park. Another mayor that I recall was a John George Smith. And the only reason I remember him was because they named a race horse for him, who won the Kentucky Derby in 1916, I think it was.

A.K.:

As I said before, the entertainment was just strictly family visiting. I can remember distinctly, when mantles came-

N.P.:

Mantles?

A.K.:

Gas mantles. When you had gas, and you burnt a burner, and then they came in with mantles, and I felt that was a marvelous institution, to watch him put on the mantle, and go up and flame, and then it would blaze sort of a light. This is the days before electricity. There were no telephones, a few of them, but 21:00they were in isolated places.

N.P.:

How about iceboxes?

A.K.:

There was no such thing as icebox. You had a box that had a place for a 25 pound or 50 pound piece of ice and then you had to have a pan under that to catch the water. And I remember when I first married in 1922, luckily I lived on the first floor, because I always forgot to empty the pan, and it ran over.

N.P.:

How about ice cream cones?

A.K.:

There were no ice cream cones yet, in the age I'm talking of. I think they came in somewhere around 1914 or 1915, because I remember going to a place that was called Cuscaden's on Second Street, south of Jefferson Street, when I'd visit with the cousins who lived at First and Market Streets, and buy a pint of ice 22:00cream for a nickel, and we would tear off the tabs and eat out of the box.

N.P.:

Well, you certainly are talking about a completely different world. No suburbs.

A.K.:

You know where the, I think it's on-

N.P.:

Ann, from what I've gathered, we're still talking about the early 1900s. I'm assuming that this meat market that you talked about at the beginning of your interview was kosher, because most of the Eastern European people were kosher. Do you remember anything about the other necessities, like vegetables or fruits, and so forth?

A.K.:

No. There may have been farmers that brought in vegetables through the week to sell, but I don't recall any stores at that time. There may have been small 23:00grocery stores. They were usually run by widows. They called them Almanahs. And people bought from them, because they felt sorry for them, and they carried what few items people needed. But there wasn't the selection that you have now.

N.P.:

Were these Jewish women, these women?

A.K.:

Yes, they were, yes. The area I'm speaking of, and the area I lived in at that time was strictly all Jewish. It revolved around, you're close to the shul, and you were close to the Jewish butcher shop.

N.P.:

And the school? Well, the school wasn't-

A.K.:

The school was not, no. The schools were-

N.P.:

Regular.

A.K.:

Regular schools were there. For Jewish teaching, you had to have a Lamed to teach the children to be Bar Mitzvah'd.

N.P.:

Well, did you all have one in Louisville at that time?

A.K.:

Oh yes. There was a family. All I can tell you is that the family was called, 24:00they never knew people by their last names. He was called Herschaleh, and it was his wife's father who was an old rabbi, and he would do the teaching.

N.P.:

Okay. Let's move on a little further. If I'm not mistaken, didn't you teach school? Where did you go to school to get your training, and where did you teach? How old were you and when did you get married?

A.K.:

I went to the public schools through the eighth grade, and then the Louisville Girls High School. I entered in 1913, and I graduated in '17 and a half. And then I was employed there as the laboratory assistant in the Chemistry Department until 1922, until I married. In between time. I went to the University of Louisville for three years. But I did not receive my degree. I 25:00married. I got an M-R-S in matrimony instead of a BS in chemistry.

N.P.:

Where did you live when you married?

A.K.:

I lived on Brook and Caldwell. I think the apartments still stand there. There was a row of apartment houses, but that was in 1922, was right after the first World War, and the apartments were very difficult to come by. And we were on the streetcar line, which made it very nice, since by that time, we had an automobile, but there was only one automobile for the whole family.

N.P.:

And who was in her family?

A.K.:

In my family? Well now it was a family and my own, I went off to live with my husband. But he had a father, and a mother, and a brother, and I had two 26:00sisters, and two brothers.

N.P.:

They didn't all live with you?

A.K.:

No. Nobody lived-

N.P.:

But you're saying the car was for the whole family. You mean that there was one car, you all chauffeured everybody.

A.K.:

Yeah. But you ask about the kosher, I don't know of anything but kosher at that time. I didn't know anything about what wasn't kosher.

N.P.:

Ann, this is kind of personal. You were such a good friend of my parents that I've heard so many stories about the YMHA. Was that a center for all Jewish young adults?

A.K.:

I got married there in 1922. And that was the one that was located at Second and Jacob.

N.P.:

And it was called the YMHA, right?

A.K.:

It was called the YMHA. And it was a very nice building. It had a nice auditorium. And there was a very nice man, who was quite good lawyer here in Louisville, Charlie Morris, who was very interested in the Jewish world, and he saw that they had declamatory things, debates, and he started some of the outside interest groups. And in the war years, in the first World War, it was quite a place, because the soldiers, we were Camp Taylor then, we didn't have Fort Knox yet. And the people who were at Camp Taylor could come in here, and people would take them home for dinners, or for the holidays, or things of that sort. But it was quite an institution.

N.P.:

So that sounds like it was the beginning of organized Jewish life, a place to go, and people with whom to contact and so forth.

A.K.:

Before that they had organized a Jewish Welfare Office. I don't remember what they called it, but that's when you really had somebody to call, if someone was in trouble, or sick, and to help take care of them, or to guide them on.

N.P.:

You said before that, what-

A.K.:

Before the YMHA grew up. They did not take part in any of this charity thing. The charity was a separate organization.

N.P.:

So the YMHA was really recreational. And if my memory serves me correctly, I think it was a settlement house for immigration. Is that correct, or do you 29:00remember that?

A.K.:

After World War II, before they moved away from there, I taught a class there for new Americans, because at this time the government had passed a law that you could not become a citizen until you could read and write. Before that was their own idea to do it. But now they had to learn that. So it took over quite a bit.

N.P.:

What was the first community fundraising activity that you can remember?

A.K.:

I think it came in with the advent of Hitler in Europe. And they began to get the cries of the Jews over there, and a few of them got out and came here. They were the luckier ones. But now, Louisville organized and started with a big 30:00bang, and formed the United Jewish Appeal, and we were all called as volunteers to go from ... there was no telethons in those days. We had to go up three flights of stairs, everywhere in the world to get a couple of bucks. But it became big business after a while. In fact, I think that the Community Chest took lessons from the way that Jews had organized it.

N.P.:

Can you remember the first year that you worked on the United Jewish Campaign?

A.K.:

It was 1939.

N.P.:

And you really worked long and hard, bitter years, did you?

A.K.:

Yeah. I was laughed at when I told them I was selling insurance against Hitler. They didn't believe it. Now what I was asking them for was to take a little tin 31:00box and put in 5 cents a week.

N.P.:

Well, I think we're about coming to a close. Ann, I want to thank you for a very, very, wonderful interview, Ann. May I wish you many more years of happiness.