Betty Bronner:
Unity Center Family History Project. Tonight I have the pleasure of introducing
Leonard Abraham. It's April 29, 1992, and Mr. Abraham, would you give us your
name and your address?
Leonard Abraham:
Leonard. Leonard Erwin Abraham. 5308 Hempstead Road, Louisville.
B.B.:
Thank you. Would you tell us something about your family and about who your
family consists of and what the immigration path was of your parents to
Louisville? Or your grandparents? Or your great-grandparents?
L.A.:
My father was Louis Abraham, and he was born in Shelbyville, Kentucky. He was
the
1:00sixth of 12 children of my grandparents, Jacob and Theresa Abraham. As faras I know, Jacob was from Frankfurt, Germany, and he settled in St. Louis and
subsequently moved to Shelbyville at the turn of the century, and he married
Theresa Roman, who was from St. Louis, and as far was we know, born in St.
Louis. All indications.
L.A.:
My mother was Rose Garon, G-A-R-O-N, originally Gawronsky, G-A-W-R-O-N-S-K-Y,
and she was born in New York and came to Louisville as an infant. Her
2:00father wasHyman Garon, and her mother was Fannie Garon. My mother was the eldest of seven
children. My mother's family consisted of Jake Garon, whose wife was Freida
Evans, and they had two children, Norton and Lamar Garon. Norton is not living.
And let's see ... There was Lilian [Cananbaum 00:02:52], Lilian Garon Cananbaum,
who ... None of these people are living. None of them are living at this point,
except
3:00 Max.L.A.:
So let's see, there's Lilian, there's Louis Garon, and Max Garon, formerly Dr.
Garon in Louisville, was president of the Jewish hospital staff and practiced as
an internist in Louisville for many years, successfully. There was Sarah and Lester.
L.A.:
On the Abraham side, there were eight boys and four girls, most of them were
born and raised in Shelbyville, as was my father, and their names were
4:00 Hilda,who passed away during World War I of the flu epidemic, and there was Harry
-none of these people are living - there was Harry, who was a bachelor, [Isidore
Radgay 00:04:13], who was married to Hilda Daum, D-A-U-M, from St. Louis. She's
currently well, and they had three children, Harriet, Rose ... Dr. Rose, Vivian,
and Jay Abraham, who lives in Louisville. And then there's ...
L.A.:
Betty Abraham married Barney Miller, and he was from Providence, Rhode Island,
they lived in Lexington. They had
5:00twins, Harry Miller, who's currently there,and Mimi Bloom, who lives in San Jose, California, and then there was Edward,
who married Christine Neil; and they had three children, Betty-Jean, who's
married to Norman Grossman; Ronnie, who's married to Jerry, they live in
Alabama, he's with the space program. And Edwina Eiser, who had two children,
Scott and Smith, Betty-Jean had two children, Terry and Randy. Big operation.
L.A.:
Judas Abraham was married to May, I think her last name was Gordon, from New
York, They had one daughter,
6:00Carrie. My father and mother and my sister, JulieRothstein, who currently lives in California, and she has four children, Gail,
Ronnie, Kenny, and Glenn. There was Morris Abraham, married to Gertrude Cohen
from New York, and they had one child, Doris, her name's Doris Benjamin. Adolph
married Ceal, and I didn't know Ceal, she died, she was from Milwaukee, she was
a concert pianist, as was her sister. But I don't know ...
L.A.:
None of these people are living, of course with the exception of the children. I
had one aunt, Rosalynn, which was the
7:00youngest, was married to Ruben Weisenberg,and they lived in Owenton, Kentucky, as did his father, Weisenberg. They had a
chain of stores, and she had one child, Janice, who had five children. Another
aunt that never married, Gertrude Abraham. I hope that's -
B.B.:
That's a big family.
L.A.:
Yes, large, large. Lot of first cousins, you know what I'm saying?
B.B.:
And where did your parents meet? Do you know that?
L.A.:
They met in Louisville.
B.B.:
In Louisville.
L.A.:
In Louisville. They got married in 1921, my father had a business in
Lawrenceburg, Kentucky, he had a meat market in Lawrenceburg, Kentucky. The
whole Abraham family, they traded in cattle in Shelbyville, had their own
slaughterhouse and would slaughter the cattle, they would trim it, cut
8:00it, anddeliver it, and they had the store in Frankfort, they had a store in Lexington,
and they had a store in Louisville. All the boys worked in the different fronts,
but for various and diverse reasons, it didn't pan out.
B.B.:
Sure, And do you know what it was like for your family, early on, when they were
in Louisville? Your parents?
L.A.:
My parents?
B.B.:
Mm-hmm (affirmative).
L.A.:
Well, they lived in Lawrenceburg in 1921, and my mother was pregnant with me in
1923, I was born in September 1923, and my father was in the barber shop in
Lawrenceburg, and there was a guy who came in a put a poster on the wall. It
said if you're free, white, and 21, we're having a meeting at such-and-such
9:00lodge hall tonight, which indicated to him that it was a Klu Klux Klan meeting,and he put his store up for sale the next day, and he sold it, and he moved to Louisville.
B.B.:
Lawrenceburg is a small town, is it not?
L.A.:
Very.
B.B.:
And not very much of the Jewish community ever, is my understanding.
L.A.:
Well, they were the Jewish.
B.B.:
That was it.
L.A.:
Yes. Keen Johnson, who was subsequently Lieutenant Governor ... I don't know if
he became governor or not, but I know he was the Lieutenant Governor, he was the
publisher and editor of the Anderson County News, and I remember hearing them
say that at the time, it was during the Jewish holiday - that his mother came
from a very orthodox family. The Garons were very orthodox, the Abrahams were
not, but when the holidays came, they would come to Louisville, and he
10:00put aheadline in the Anderson County News, "The Entire Jewish Population Goes to
Louisville for the holidays." Something to that effect. Now, that's what I was told.
B.B.:
Well, I'm sure it was probably pretty well true. So then when they-
L.A.:
When my father came here, he'd always tinkered with electronics and radios and
that sort of thing, and he opened a meat market and grocery on St. Catherine
Street between 1st and 2nd on the South side, called the Southern Market. He and
Lou Garon went partners. Max Garon worked there while he was going to med
school. And my father was building battery radios, so that's how he got involved
in Louisville radio service and people were familiar with him, knew the family
from that because we had those record shop connections, Grand Theater on
11:00 ShelbyStreet for 40-some-odd years.
B.B.:
Right, and do you remember any special stories about your family, your grandparents-
L.A.:
Well, my grandfather Garon was involved in the clothing business, and he was
here, he had the seven children, he had a home on Preston, near Mann, and he was
in charge of ... I don't know if they manufactured pants, or jackets, or
whatever, and all this I was told, of course I wasn't there, and he was in
partners with a man named Sodsky, who was relative of Marvin Sodsky, here in
town. Now, I don't exactly what brought him, probably a Greyhound bus to Marvin.
But I knew Marvin's
12:00father, and I think he was an uncle Marvin's father, which[inaudible 00:12:08]. And another man, and apparently, during the panic of 1913,
somewhere like that, when they had a depression situation, and they had to put
up more money, and he didn't have any more money to put up, so he was washed out
completely, out of this. And, like I say, all of it was half hushed up whenever
they talked about it, so this was refined as it came down to me. Whether there
was any blame involved either way, I don't know. Obviously, there probably was
some because he was washed out.
B.B.:
Because things had happened.
L.A.:
Yeah. And he had went to the shul and borrowed some money and opened a grocery
store on 7th Street, on
13:00the east side of 7th, between Broadway and Chestnut,right where Magazine Street, used to be called Lucas Place [inaudible 00:13:14],
and he ran that store until 19 - He got sick and had a heart situation in the
early 1930s, and he passed away in 1938, and they'd sold the business in '31 or
2, or close to it, but they lived out behind that store from, I would say, right
before World War I to 1928, they moved to the Belvedere Apartments at 4th and
Hill, and then they moved to 408 Kensington Court
14:00in - just before the flood -1937. They moved there in 1937. And of course, he passed away.
L.A.:
My grandmother survived, and she had an apartment on 2055 Douglas for ... I
guess, let's see. She was there from before World War I, I mean II. She was
there from World War II to about ... She died in 1947. 2055 Douglas.
B.B.:
Their path through the city imitated, kind of sort of described the move of the
Jewish community, too, during that time.
L.A.:
Yeah, from the Market, Preston, Jefferson Street area into the southern part
15:00 ofthe city proper and then gradually in towards the areas of the Highlands.
B.B.:
Very much so.
L.A.:
Oh, definitely.
B.B.:
It seems that we move as a group, more or less.
L.A.:
Yeah, I think the whole body of ... There were a few very, very wealthy Jewish
families that lived on 2nd Street and 3rd Street and 1st Street at the time.
When I was born, my parents had an apartment at 1601 South 1st, we were staying
right on the other side [crosstalk 00:15:32].
B.B.:
962, mm-hmm (affirmative).
L.A.:
This was 1001, when I was born, we moved to 1001. Did I say 16? 1001 is what I
meant. I guess my birth certificate would -
B.B.:
And you say you were delivered by Dr. Henry Ruble?
L.A.:
Henry Ruble, correct.
B.B.:
16:00And where did you grow up? In what place?L.A.:
Early on [inaudible 00:16:10]. My first recollection of where we ever lived was
on Oak Street, between Brook and Floyd, cross streets were named, until I was
about three or four years old. Then we moved to Lexington for about six months.
Then we moved back to Louisville behind stores at 713 East Broadway, we were
there temporarily, and then we moved to an apartment, a four-plex at Lauderdale
and Dorothy, belonged to Maxwell Keen he lived in a duplex on the corner, where
we lived, called the Hannah Apartments, they're still there. We lived there, and
Judy was born there, and then we moved to
17:002020 Eastern Parkway. [inaudible00:17:04] And we lived there, and then the Depression hit in 1932, and we moved
to 125 West Lee Street in 1932 or 3.
L.A.:
At the time that they build the Manuel or whatever you call it, and there were a
lot of people lived there. Dr Arthur Goodman was there; [Heinsons 00:17:38] ...
Oh gosh ... Burn lived there; there were a whole of Jewish people, two sixths of
them, and we lived there from almost 1933 to almost 1936, and then we moved back
to Eastern Parkway at 2022, which is right next
18:00door to where we used to live.Silverstein was upstairs, and the [Dingles 00:18:13]. You know the [inaudible
00:18:14] he lived next door?
B.B.:
Yeah.
L.A.:
He lived next to the ... Anyhow, we lived on Eastern Parkway. We lived there
several years, In 1938, we moved to 1848 Alfresco. We lived there one year, and
then we moved to 2155 Bonnycastle. Maybe it was cheaper to pay rent than it was,
I mean to move, than to pay rent, I don't know. We moved to 2155 Bonnycastle,
and we lived there until after World War II, which, for the most part I went
away to college, and then went into service. From there, we moved to Strathmoor
Boulevard. My parents bought a house up
19:00there, but then I got married, and wesubsequently moved to 21 ... Well, we lived in an apartment on Joseph for two
years. We lived in the Barrington Manor for one year, then we lived on Douglas
Boulevard for two years. Then we bought a house at 2150 [inaudible 00:19:19],
lived there for 10 years. Then in 1961, built the house we're currently living in.
B.B.:
Where did you go to school?
L.A.:
Well, I went to the usual grade school, mainly Longfellow. Velnath, Longfellow,
Cochran, I went to [Hally Calbrew 00:19:47] for 1 semester, then I went to
Highland, then I went to Male High, then I went to the Citadel. Then after a
year I transferred back to the University of Kentucky, then I went into the
20:00 service.B.B.:
Can you tell me something about the Citadel? Your time there?
L.A.:
Yeah. I didn't like it, everybody can tell you that. I mean it was so fully
rigid training. I was really young, so I wasn't really into that much politics
... As a matter of fact, I didn't even know I was going there. A bunch of
fellows from school - Stewart Allen, Emmet Wimberly, Ted Bates, three or four
scholars - just talked about going there, and I asked if I could go with them.
My folks said, "yes," I could go, and I went there, but I didn't like it. Now I
understand, my father was laughing like crazy because he knew that I was ...
that they couldn't hold me still that long.
B.B.:
Interesting experience.
L.A.:
Yes, very. I could see some people would like that
21:00type of regiment, but I wastoo loosy-goosy to take care of what ... I was in the service, from the latter
part of '42 til the end of '45.
B.B.:
And during the years that you were growing up, do you still keep in contact with
any friends from those times?
L.A.:
Oh yes. I know most all of the friends and fellows that I grew up with that live
in Louisville, I mean, we're still in contact. Tremendous amount of young
fellows that were within a year or two of my age that used to go to ... I went
to Keneseth Israel and Brooken College added to Sherwin right around the corner.
And every Saturday, we would all go, because we were getting ready to be Bar
Mitzvahed, and then from there, we would walk into town, and go into Jud's and
get
22:00roast beef sandwiches, and some of them went to the movies, and I went towork. Fellows like, Howard Lanker, gosh I could think of tons of people. Marsha
Traeger, Doc Morton, all these people were all around the same age, we were in
high school together. Herb Segal. Stuart Berman. But there were - the Irvines -
but I went all the way to Keneseth Israel the whole time. We all studied for the
Bar Mitzvah situation. Then after that, it slowed up a quite a bit. There were a
lot of ... Herban Carl -
L.A.:
I can tell you something, when I
23:00was very young, we lived in the Highlands andthey all wanted us to go to Hebrew school. They had a Hebrew teacher, I think
the lady's name was Mrs. Babb, if I remember right. Anyhow, they had a school
room in the Schuster Building, above the, uptown, the [Notto 00:23:25] drug
store. They had cabs pick us up after school, and there was Henry Sag, Herban
Carl, and Ira Ship, and Eddie Sag. Eddie was older, I think, and Ira Ship. There
was just a span of age in there because Henry was about two years older, almost.
Speaker 1:
That's right.
L.A.:
We went to - of course Ira Ship was [Wayne 0000:23:55] Ship's - that was her
24:00husband's... And we went to Hebrew school there, then later I went to Hebrewschool down at First Street, at the Common [inaudible 00:24:10] I went down
there for [inaudible 00:24:13], because my Grandfather Garon, was a big
operator, with a big operator. I mean, he was very interested in Hebrew School-
B.B.:
Certainly.
L.A.:
-And he was part of the whole situation, and he was also an officer at Keneseth
Israel and he was one of the ... Keneseth Israel was made of up to two
congregations, it was - I think and I may be wrong on this, but the B'nai Yacob,
which is B'nai Jacob, and Beth HaMedrash HaGadol, and those two formed Keneseth
Israel, which was more of a Lithuanian or Northern Polish
25:00group, [Lithbaush00:25:02] as opposed to the Russian, more Southern Russia, like, I guess Kiev or
Moscow, or some place like at that were at First Street. Went to, what they call
First Street. Which [Arnold Lynch 00:25:12] was staying [inaudible 00:25:17] specifically.
L.A.:
My grandparents, the best I can understand, were from a place called Kovno,
which is the name of Vilna in Lithuania. It's called Kovno Gubernia, that's the
best I can do. I'll try to find out more about it, but I haven't been able to.
Milton Garon, who just recently passed away, I talked to Milton about it first,
but they never talked about it. They didn't say much about it, you never heard
anybody mention it either. Although I have no reason to think they got here
illegally, they may have, very well, gotten here illegally. But they did go
through all the - Ellis
26:00Island - and all that stuff. They were from Lithuania.L.A.:
There was a Catholic family in town, named Lucas. And one of them married,
someone name [Vaughn 00:26:20], who managed the Howard Johnson's, here, for
years. This one Lucas brother was a broker with Steinberg and [Voight's
00:26:26] for many years, he came over on the boat with my grandfather, they
were very close friends, even though he was Catholic, they were bondsmen from
the same area.
B.B.:
Right.
L.A.:
And I never had sense enough, or possessed enough, to think to ask, because I
knew this guy's mother, I could've got all this information. I could've easily
gotten all this information. It never occurred to me. My grandfather had a
number of brothers, Garon, I know the sisters more than the brothers. He had
27:00 asister ... He had one tht lived in South Carolina, he had one that lived in
Rome, Georgia. And he had a sister that lived in Cincinnati. And he had another
one that lived, here, in Louisville. He had a brother who is Milton Garon's
father. Then he had some other brothers, up in Lynn, Massachusetts, and so
forth. I've met some of them, but some of them I haven't. A recent one in
Georgia, by strange coincidence, just passed away, and his grandchild married
Sonny Samuel's son or daughter, now I don't know if it was his - and I just got
a real nice letter from him. His name was Borochoss,
28:00B-O-R-O-C-H-O-S-S. He wasborn in Louisville, and his mother was [Yetta 00:28:09] Gawronsky Borochoss.
B.B.:
Right.
L.A.:
They were up here, for the wedding. They called me and I went down to see them.
B.B.:
That's terrific.
L.A.:
I hadn't ... I think I saw him at a funeral, many, many, many years ago, but
that's the last I ever laid eyes on him, and he's a first cousin.
B.B.:
That's terrific.
L.A.:
I got a lovely letter from her[inaudible 00:28:41]. Anyhow, his mother was Yetta
and there was [inaudible 00:28:48].
B.B.:
Now, the Gawronsky became Garon?
L.A.:
Became Garon, my Grandmother Garon's maiden name was Goodman, she was from
Detroit. One of
29:00her nephews, was Ernie Goodman, who had a very, extremelysuccessful Labor Law practice in Detroit, and had something to do with the
Nuremberg Trial, situation. I'm not real sure, I mean, I'm not really long on
that. I don't know a lot about it. I know he had a lot to do, and was a
consultant, from the stand point of the trade unions redeveloping in Germany or
something, after World War II. Also, something to do with, as I understood it,
the Nuremberg Trial, I don't even know if Ernie is still living, I remember.
B.B.:
Right, but that's very interesting.
L.A.:
Yeah, and I hadn't seen hide nor hair of him since I was less than 10 years old,
but their name was Goodman. I'm sure there's some still living.
B.B.:
Sure.
30:00L.A.:My father's ... My Grandmother Abraham's family in St. Louis, her maiden name
was Rome. She had a lot of family up there, name Gorman, G-O-R-M-A-N, and
Sanders, from Sanders' Cleaners. Her sister married a Sanders, and these people
from the Sanders, they don't practice Judaism, but they had a relative on the
Sanders side that was a rabbi in Kansas City.
B.B.:
Oh how interesting.
L.A.:
I don't know which one. And [Izzy Sanders 00:30:38], IJ Sanders played ball with
[JC Stangler 00:30:40] in City League, for whatever that's worth.
B.B.:
That's interesting.
L.A.:
Then there was another Abraham, Henry and Edwin, who are passed away, but
Henry's son still lives in Louisville, and married to Sugar
31:00Fox, here. Theirgrandfather - they lived in Harrisburg. They had an ant that lived there, Hattie
Abraham, very well known, was with the bank for a hundred years. Most people
that come out of Harrisburg, you'd just call them and say Abraham, they say,
"Oh, did you know Miss Hattie?" Edwin was the lawyer, here, in town, and Henry
was the with Commonwealth Insurance. He was probably best known as taking care
of the cemetery down at Adath Israel, for many years, on the Board.
B.B.:
Certainly.
L.A.:
Not physically, taking care of it, but a director. Their families where not
particularly close.
B.B.:
Right. The family was fairly observant, then.
L.A.:
The Garon family was very observant.
B.B.:
Mm-hmm (affirmative)
L.A.:
Because of the parents - the children were not that
32:00 observant.B.B.:
Which happens often.
L.A.:
Yeah, the aunts and the uncles were not that observant, my mother was reasonably
observant, especially up till the time I was ... We had two sets of dishes.
B.B.:
I see.
L.A.:
Up until the time I was Bar Mitzvahed. When they did away with it, I thought it
was the Holocaust.
B.B.:
That's right.
L.A.:
I though it was going to be all over.
B.B.:
Do you remember that Bar Mitzvah?
L.A.:
My Bar Mitzvah?
B.B.:
Mm-hmm (affirmative)
L.A.:
Yeah, I wouldn't study, so my grandfather had, you know at the time ... There
were many of the young fellows like [Farell Saltzma n00:32:45] and different
ones that would lead the service, in addition to ... It was big deal for a long
time, and you would lead the whole service. And they wanted me to do that, and
finally they gave up on that. They saw that I wasn't going to work that
33:00 hard.L.A.:
I know that I had to fight to wear long pants, because I was not very tall and
my father wanted me to wear knickers, and that parade wasn't going dance. You
were up there in September, and in a blue shirt and suit and it was hotter than
blue hell. I remember that. And we lived on Eastern Park, we had a very big open
house, huge, I mean a lot of people.
B.B.:
For the Bar Mitzvah?
L.A.:
For the Bar Mitzvah, mostly adults, it wasn't like the children had to stay,
because there were two big families, number one, and they knew an awful lot of
people, and Clifford Abraham met Miriam Silbar at that affair.
B.B.:
Oh is that right?
L.A.:
They subsequently married. Also, there was a Greenblatt family that was related
to my Grandfather Garon.
34:00One way or another, they were related to either a womanthat married Bob Stanout's mother - Robert Stanout's -mother ... either related
to her, or her sister ... Inter-related, some way or another, okay - Greenblatt,
he had two daughters, Evelyn and ... Gosh, Evelyn moved to Houston and the other
one, gosh, I can't think of her name. Anyhow, I don't know whatever happened to
... Miriam Silbar kept in touch[inaudible 00:34:42]. I think they're both dead.
B.B.:
How do you keep all those relationships, with such a big family?
L.A.:
[crosstalk 00:34:50] Well there's, you know, we're all related, somehow.
B.B.:
Do you remember anything about the merchants of that time, when you were
35:00 growingup, like you said they went to the movies downtown.
L.A.:
The merchants? The Jewish merchants?
B.B.:
Mm-hmm (affirmative) Jewish merchants.
L.A.:
Well there was, of course there was ... A lot of the bigger stores were
subsequently owned by chains, but a man named Harry [Schacter 00:35:24] ran
[Kaufman-Strauss 00:35:25] city stores, and Lewis [Cohn 00:35:30] owned the
grocery stores, which subsequently became, I think they were Sanders, or
Saunders, and they subsequently became Stiden stores. Someone named Nathan
worked for Mr. Newmark, and he owned a gym, and subsequently Nathan wound up
owning the
36:00gym. Of course, Will Sales, in the jewelry business; Al Sales, atSales Furniture Company. Charles Densinger, they had Densinger's. Joan Lynch's
father, pretty sure about this Joan Lynch - there was another department store
called, gosh, it was on Market Street and fronted on Fourth Street, I think it
was, anyhow, it went broke and he subsequently later - Joan's mother worked for him.
B.B.:
I see.
L.A.:
He ran, it was ... I know the name of that store, like I know my own. It was a
department store and it closed in the
37:00Depression and subsequently they opened aBond house. She was a very talented lady, she was a business lady.
B.B.:
Yes.
L.A.:
She ran the Bond[inaudible 00:37:02], and Jo [Greenstein 00:37:02] died. Bob
Greenstein's family had a dog style shop, on Fourth Street. Some Jewish people
owned Lewis and Hasting's. The Lewis' were Jewish. I don't know that they were
married, they're related to Elise Sales, in some way, or Lewis, L-E-W-I-S,
Sales, and they owned Lewis and Hasting's. There was another out there called
[Crutcher and Starks 00:37:42], they were owned by Jewish people, I can't
remember, I used to know who owned it. Then there was Jefferson Dry Goods, the
manager was Jewish. There were a number, of ... All the dress shops, up and down
Fourth Street, between Chestnut and Liberty
38:00Street were all managed by Jewishmanagers, that roam down there and most of them where down in New York
[inaudible 00:38:15] by Jewish people, [Sellman's 00:38:27] was managed by a
Jewish person. [crosstalk 00:38:28]
B.B.:
That's quite a lot.
L.A.:
Yeah, well I grew up downtown, so it was easy to remember almost every-
B.B.:
Right.
L.A.:
I could almost tell you every store out there. The only people at the time that
were involved in banks, were Barney [Barnette's 00:38:49] first wife, they owned
a Mars Plan bank, I can't think of their names, I know it just as well. They ran
the Mars Plan bank, which subsequently
39:00became Royal Bank of Lousiville Merger.[inaudible 00:39:20] I can't think of it. I mean I know it, I just can't put my
hands on it.
B.B.:
Okay, I think-
L.A.:
They were the only ones that had a bank, and that Mars Plan was a bank setup for
installment type lending, grew out of Depression times. A lot of Jewish people
were lawyers, I remember a when lot of the big name lawyers, that you wouldn't
think today, during the Depression, worked in shoe stores.
B.B.:
Mm-hmm (affirmative).
L.A.:
I mean, heavy guns, like Frank [Garla 00:39:48] those kinds of names, I'm using
those names, I don't know specifically about Frank, but I'm talking about people
right around his time, because I knew
40:00them. They went to law school, with[Arthur Bensinger 00:40:03], a prominent Lawyer, [Sullys 00:40:07] was a
prominent lawyer, and [Greenbaum 00:40:09], prominent lawyers. There's another
Sully in the family that owns [Sneed 00:40:13] Manufacturing. They turned heavy industrial.
L.A.:
My grandmother Garon's family doctor was Florence Brandeis, she was the first
cousin to the Chief Justice, She had an electric car, her office and home was on
the east side of Fourth Street, just north of Oak. She wouldn't have a man
doctor, there was no man who's ever come there. She was a woman that was so,
would you say prudish, what would you call it?
B.B.:
Sensitive, I guess.
L.A.:
Absolutely, she was
41:00so modest, that they had to have a family, woman doctor forher. She was our family doctor, and then later, Dr. [Cowen 00:41:10], I forget
his name, he looked like [Morris Nelton 00:41:10], like a great big person. He
was her family doctor after Dr. Brandeis, when Dr. Brandeis retired, she lived
in a little house with a companion - she never married - with a companion in
what they call Castlewood Dell, it's now, part of Castlewood where Barrett
crosses, but it's not on the side where Tyler Park is, it's on the other side.
She had a little house and we used to go visit her. She's a brilliant lady,
lovely. She was my grandmother's doctor. And then as I
42:00say, a lot of peoplewould know this Dr. Cowen, I can't think of his first name, he was a great man-
Speaker 1:
Mm-hmm (affirmative)
L.A.:
A very well thought of man-
B.B.:
I should know him too.
L.A.:
A wonderful man, I can't think of his first name. Anyhow, then of course Max
Garon started practicing, he interned in New York and in Panama, and he came
back in 1931, and went in practice with ... First office was with Dr. [Crayweek
00:42:33] the psychiatrist's father. Then subsequently, I think he was with
Marge [inaudible 00:42:33] for many years, then he formed his own office with
Dr. Cowen and Mike Garrison. Then he took in [inaudible 00:42:42].
B.B.:
Mm-hmm (affirmative). Do you
43:00think there were a lot of Jewish lawyers at that time?L.A.:
Oh yeah. A lot of Jewish doctors, in the University of Louisville Medical
School. At the time, there was a lot of quota situation, across the country. And
it was - a lot of New York, Eastern, and Northern Jewish men could not get into
medical school, except U of L was pretty wide open and it was cheap. A lot of
them came down here, then married and stayed here. Practiced medicine. At that
time, these men today were being courageous.
B.B.:
Right.
L.A.:
But there was a lot of that. I remember, especially through Max, you know when I
would
44:00meet,[inaudible 00:44:00] I would see him.B.B.:
Sure.
L.A.:
One of them married a cousin, came down here, her name was Catherine, Milton
Garon's sister.
Speaker 1:
I see. Was your family particularly involved in community affairs?
L.A.:
Not really, probably my grandfather, to the shul and the [inaudible 00:45:24].
Speaker 1:
Mh-hmm (Affirmative).
L.A.:
My father was not into it at all, he struggled to make a living.
B.B.:
He didn't have time.
L.A.:
Well, he didn't have time, and he had a lot of other interests, other than
community interest. He was kind of a free spirit and my mother was just never
interested. She was interested in the store, we had a store, she liked that, she
liked being around people.
L.A.:
None of them were ever involved in politics
45:00on either side of the family. Theywere all reasonably successful, but just never were involved in politics, nor am
I into organizational work, I mean I don't have a taste for it.
B.B.:
How were they impacted, Or were you impacted by the flood in 1937?
L.A.:
In the flood we lived on Eastern Parkway. My grandparents lived In Kensington
Court. We brought them up, and they slept with us. Also, Clifford and Miriam
moved in with us, and so did Uncle Morris, and his daughter Doris. Everybody
moved in with us when the flood came. About when it was almost over they sent a
bunch of us to
46:00Lexington. Not our family sent them, but the whole city ofLouisville sent us to Lexington to go to school, because school was out and they
didn't know when it was going to start again. So we were in Lexington for maybe
a month, and the school never came back.
B.B.:
Mm-hmm (affirmative)
L.A.:
My uncle Lou Garon had a grocery in Highland Park. He could get through, through
Ellison Avenue into the Highlands, it was the only open path and he made a
number of trips and brought loads of food out. Matter of fact, he dispensed food
to a lot of us.
B.B.:
So your family, personally, had no shortage of food, because his-
L.A.:
They didn't, they didn't have shortage of food-
B.B.:
His-
L.A.:
They lost some, you know, maybe furniture downtown.
B.B.:
Sure.
L.A.:
In the basement. They weren't hurt on the personal.
47:00I don't think our businesson Chester Street was damaged.
Speaker 1:
You didn't suffer from it.
L.A.:
We really didn't, no. It was an inconvenience, but other than that.
Speaker 1:
Sure.
L.A.:
We were very fortunate, true.
B.B.:
How about the World Wars? Or any wars.
L.A.:
Well, we didn't have any losses. A lot of us, younger than my generation, were
in World War II.
B.B.:
Right.
L.A.:
Of course, I was in World War II, the only one that was in ... There were
several in the Abraham family were in World War I, the Garon's were not old enough.
B.B.:
I see.
L.A.:
At the time. I don't think they were old enough because my mother was the
oldest. I don't know that they were ... They were not involved, I know that, in
the service, there were several Abrahams that were. I know Harry was, Morris
48:00was, my father worked at the Swift Sausage department in [inaudible 00:48:11].He was very young for his age, but he had talking skills as a young man. He was
trying to enlist, from what I understood, and they kept getting heavy [inaudible
00:48:22]. They were shipping sides of beef and ground beef and sausage to
Salisbury, and they wanted a different wanted a different name for hamburger,
because it's so German.
L.A.:
I was told this, and I won't vouch for it, but it was told in all seriousness,
and it has been told a number of times, that my father decided he'd turn in a
name, they had a contest. He put in the name Salisbury Steak because they're
49:00shipped [inaudible 00:49:01] and he said he won $100 for that, at the time. I'venever seen a certificate or anything about it, but my mother vouches for it ...
He vouched for it, and she vouched for it, but whether it's true or not, I don't know.
B.B.:
The name did have to come from somewhere.
L.A.:
It had to come from somewhere. It could have.
Speaker 1:
Very probable.
L.A.:
I wouldn't want to bet a lot of money on it, but on the other hand it was told
to me in seriousness. It was very serious.
Speaker 1:
Very interesting.
L.A.:
Mm-hmm (affirmative)
B.B.:
About your time with World War II.
L.A.:
Well I was in the Signal Corps, Technique and Radio Intelligence Control, I was
a German high-speed radio intercept operator, and I was in Europe for about a
year and a half in Germany and France.
50:00It was fall of '42 when I gotout[inaudible 00:50:07].
B.B.:
Have you ever been back since then?
L.A.:
Yes, oh I have been back a number of time. I went back in '59 then '79. I'm
struggling to think of the numbers, but I've been back to Europe.
B.B.:
Did you - [crosstalk 00:50:29]
L.A.:
Five, six, seven times. [crosstalk 00:50:31]
B.B.:
See some of these places - [crosstalk 00:50:31]
L.A.:
I saw some of them, but it was, the only thing that really had a profound effect
on me was the cemetery in Luxembourg, the other places have changed so that you
didn't recognize them as what you knew everything was devastation, but we went
to the cemetery in Luxembourg and that had a profound effect.
B.B.:
Why was that?
L.A.:
I was just, I don't know. It was, I don't know if you would call it a spiritual
effect, but it had a profound
51:00effect - [crosstalk 00:51:02].B.B.:
I can understand.
L.A.:
one being a - I think the massing - the graves - the massing of all the graves.
Seeing all that at one time, and then I think you start thinking, "What was this
all for? What was solved? What did we do?", because it's all back again.
B.B.:
Right.
L.A.:
I see on 60 Minutes the other night, that all these Nazis back in Germany.
Apparently we only kept them down temporarily, if that.
B.B.:
Not long enough.
L.A.:
Yeah, for sure.
B.B.:
Did you have memories of a Jewish event? Or memories of the Jewish Community
Center? Or-
L.A.:
Well, I remember my mother talking at the YMHA, which was the focal point of all
Jewish, young Jewish peoples activity. Of course I, my experiences at YMHA, they
were at
52:00Second and Jacob.B.B.:
Yeah
L.A.:
I was a member of the Brandeis Club, and of course the fellows I ran around with
at the time, like [Marty Keslin 00:52:11] and [Henry Saggin 00:52:14], [Henry
Corn 00:52:16] and [Alvin Youngren 00:52:17], [Stanley Grill 00:52:23]. I was
not as active in the YMHA, I attended some stuff there and I would go there, but
I was not real frequent ... I didn't frequent it that much. Later on when I was
a little bit older, and into the Brandeis stuff, High school years I was there
more probably.
B.B.:
It's, sort of, a unique situation today when
53:00people can maintain friendships forsuch a long time.
L.A.:
Oh, yeah. I have a lunch every day with a fellow I went all the way through
school with, he's not Jewish, but we're the same exact age, I play tennis with
him three times a week and we have lunch together, and for a lot of people
that's a phenomenon, it's rare, in a lot of places you just don't see that, but
there are many fellows that I grew up with that I see all the time, socially.
Guys like [Marty Cas 00:53:33] and I were very, very close[inaudible 00:53:36].
B.B.:
Mm-hmm (affirmative)-
L.A.:
There are so many, we were all born after - most of us were born after - World
War I, [inaudible 00:53:45] hell out of us, like it did in World War II, we were
like the war babies, from World War I.
B.B.:
Your
54:00children, would you give us some information on them?L.A.:
Okay. I have a son Mark, who's 42, or he's 43 this month, May. He's 43! I have a
daughter Peggy, who is 41, 42 ... 41. I have a daughter Nancy, lives in Oregon,
she's 40. I have a daughter Deborah, she's 34. Deborah lives in Boston, she's
unmarried, and she has a - has to do with facilities management, with Putnam
Company. My daughter Nancy is an attorney, she lives in Sallisaw, Oklahoma. She
has two young kids, daughter seven
55:00and a son five.B.B.:
You want to give us their names?
L.A.:
The little boy is John Louis, and her daughter is Sarah, Sarah Wood. Peggy has
two youngsters, Peggy lives in California, Peggy produces the news for KPLA, a
TV station - she does some reporting. She has two youngsters, one is named Jake,
and he's two years old and the other is named Lily, she's five years old. Mark
has a daughter, Cleo who is going to be seven years old. Peggy's husband is Phil
[Banny 00:55:54], Nancy lost her husband about two and half years ago, his name
was Joe
56:00Martin[inaudible 00:56:03]. Mark is divorced. Peggy's married to a youngman named Phil Banny. He's a security business[inaudible 00:56:15]. Mark he's
proabbly in multiple movies - he's a movie producer and he's been in a couple
movies with a screenwriter, he wrote [inaudible 00:56:29] and series [inaudible
00:56:38]. He's done a lot of writing, He just spoke to the Olympic Bruce
Jenner, he has done some sports work, but then he got serious into movie
production and they have a company that is called [inaudible 00:56:52], he
produced one that did very well and won all the Oscars. They got one coming out
57:00or is already out. Which, will be in Lousiville in the middle of May.B.B.:
What is the name of that?
L.A.:
The first one was The Commitments, and the second, the one that's coming out is
called The Midnight Clear, and then they're working on another one. They have a
contract with 20th Century FOX. They have a contract, so they won't release
homemade pictures[inaudible 00:57:26], but I'm not sure.
B.B.:
Mm-hmm (affirmative)
L.A.:
He's doing very well, but he's earned a every minute, because he struggled for
20 years [inaudible 00:57:38]. He didn't have success dressed upon him, he
earned everything.
B.B.:
It's a difficult business, when he went to the west coast, he knew no one.
L.A.:
No one, no, he was with Young and [inaudible 00:57:51] that year, the West coast
and he went to work in advertising, and he was there for a
58:00while, he did allkind of odd jobs, he did everything. Until he decided what he wanted to do, I
think if he really - had - was totally financially secure, which hopefully he
will be, he would like to buy a place in Oldham County or in Connecticut, or
some place he could come back write [inaudible 00:58:27] He's going to be home
in three days, he likes to go fishing, and I'm going to satisfy his desire, and
I like fishing, you know?
B.B.:
Tell me about fishing.
L.A.:
Well I was an avid fisherman and I enjoy it, and I fished with a fellow named
Raymond Sales, he was well known for fishing, we fished together for about
30-some-odd years. We go down to the lake [inaudible 00:58:58] trout fishing, we
had
59:00a two bedroom mobile home.L.A.:
We would thoroughly enjoy it, We go down in three days, it's very relaxing, I
recommend it.
B.B.:
I think we have forgotten one very important person.
L.A.:
My wife.
B.B.:
That's right.
L.A.:
Yeah. Well she's, Beverly is from Florida. Her maiden name was Sommer,
S-O-M-M-E-R. Her grandparents on her mother's side, their name was Smelansky,
S-M-E-L-A-N-S-K-Y. Her mother and father were divorced when she was very young.
Her grandfather Smelansky, they were all from New York and they subsequently
moved to Florida, and when I knew him Beverly, for the most part was raised in
60:00Florida. But he would go down and lend money on the crops, to the farmers, thensell the crops, in New York[inaudible 01:00:13]. Beverly's real father was a
tomato broker, he operated out of the Dallas area[inaudible 01:00:21]. I heard
he was very successful, I've never met the man, I don't know who in her family
is living[inaudible 01:00:36], but they're mostly elderly.
L.A.:
Beverly was an only child. The Sommer's on that side of the family, I really
don't know what ... I had met her grandfather only one time. It was in the '90s,
[inaudible 01:00:54]when I was[inaudible 01:00:54] so I had to know, we married
in 1948, and Beverly is an
61:00Occupational Therapist. She graduated from OhioState, she was with [inaudible 01:01:06] and I met her down there, when I was on
a trip with [Marty Desmond 01:01:09], he had been down there before the war, he
and Sonny [inaudible 01:01:14], Stanley [Grill 01:01:16] and a whole bunch of
fellows [inaudible 01:01:17], Marty still had their names [inaudible 01:01:20],
so when we were down there, we called on [inaudible 01:01:24] and I met Beverly,
they had all been down there before the war [inaudible 01:01:34] six or seven
years later [inaudible 01:01:42].
L.A.:
So Beverly moved to Lousiville, and I got married to Beverly, and continued to
work for the DA, and then as the children came along she did a lot of volunteer
occupational therapy for a long time. She worked with, I'm
62:00trying to think ofthe name of the clinic. It was at Floyd and Broadway, where all the crippled
children were. She did a lot of work there, she'd done a lot of work ...
Volunteer work, in her field, with children, [inaudible 01:02:20] and then as
our children grew up, she was no longer required, you know, they no longer
required the attention. She went back with the DA, and made a deal. She worked
like 20 hours a week, she had to call her own shots at the office with the
outpatients, she had a unique set of abilities, she didn't normally take part
[inaudible 01:02:41].
B.B.:
Tell me if they're very good at what they do.
L.A.:
Well she was [inaudible 01:02:44] what she did, there's no question. She did an
excellent job, well they call her now, she gets calls from all over the country
- well there is a short of them [inaudible 01:02:55]. Of course she, you know,
she
63:00raised the children. She's very active, I travel, we went on trips everyyear, several trips a year, in the late '70s, the early part of the '80s after
the children were grown, and subsequent to that she's been all over the world,
you know, Russia, Thailand, Korea, Japan, China, Scandinavia, she likes France
and she goes back there at least once a year, she'd take at least two or three
days, [inaudible 01:03:40], she really likes to travel, much more so than I do.
B.B.:
And as I recall her mother was very artistic
L.A.:
Her mother was as talented too, very talented, won a lot of awards, won some
very fine awards, in her [inaudible 01:03:54]before passing, we gave got a
number ... A lot of her awards, she was
64:00extremely talented artist she couldpaint, she could sculpt, she could do ... She had a lot of talent as an artist
[inaudible 01:04:13]. Beverly has a lot of talent with her painting, not as a
painter, as an artist, she can - of course occupational therapy she's done well
too. Mark has some talent with painting, [inaudible 01:04:39].
B.B.:
Obviously expresses his creative ability in a different way.
L.A.:
Oh yeah, Mark is very - is extremely creative - extremely. Much more so than
[inaudible 01:04:49]. The Garon's side also seems much more creative, I would
say, and the
65:00Abraham's, a lot more practical people, you know.B.B.:
Sounds like they would make a good mix.
L.A.:
Well, yeah, I don't know if they thought so at the time, but wound up that way.
The grandparents got along beautifully, on both sides.
B.B.:
Is that right?
L.A.:
But the families [inaudible 01:05:27], for whatever reason, you know one was
German, the one was Lithuanian, and that was like boiling water, and didn't
dance ... Did in later years, in later years it was so calm, everything mellowed
out. As a matter of fact the Abraham's were more interested in the temple in
Lexington, was very vital in all ... That whole family of theirs has [inaudible
01:05:57], very much more so
66:00than the ones now down here, the Garon's side.Speaker 1:
[inaudible 01:06:05].
L.A.:
Yeah, for whatever reason. Betty and I, were just discussing as on the side,
some different circumstances that she has met in Dr [Waller's 01:06:34] recall
about that Jewish Community and I said that I was [inaudible 01:06:34], which I
knew him and as a matter of fact, many years ago, when I was single, even David
[Waterman 01:06:42] called me at 10 o'clock at night, to come in and witness a
will for a Dr. Ralph's sister. They lived on Woodford Place, Wood- yes it was
Woodford Place, and they lived two doors from Louis [Shoesman? 01:07:00] on
Woodford Place,
67:00and we were talking ... I said, Well, Dr. Ralph used to make acircuit in the smaller cities, and estates, and he would ... he went to
Shelbyville [inaudible 01:07:12], spend the night at my grandfather - Jake
Abraham's - home, which is at the corner of 7th and Washington in Shelbyville.
He made, for whatever purpose, a different [inaudible 01:07:31] services,
staying in touch with people with his congregation, because many a mountain
state did come to services, at Adath Israel for the holidays.
Speaker 1:
And so probably, if there were special occasions good or bad, in the family -
L.A.:
In the family, and he was called, or he needed to be called, or for whatever
reason, he would travel about, and I know for a fact that I was told a number of
68:00times and there even when I talked to him later, he would mention something ...Also I had a [inaudible 01:08:08] talk to - I know Henry [inaudible 01:08:11]
wife. It's awful, she was an Asian, she's from Lexington and she's a lovely
lady, and she was telling me, she went to [inaudible 01:08:24] school, and it
was a finishing school for young ladies, on the outside of Shelbyville, and near
there, as a matter of fact, when my grandfather passed away in 1928, they leased
a house there, the [inaudible 01:08:35] school, and subsequently after they sold
the place - but I'm not sure of that.
L.A.:
She said my grandparents would have those girls over, for the holidays - the
Jewish holidays - or even just for a weekend meal, and these Jewish girls -
folks - that were at school there. And she
69:00mentioned that [inaudible 01:09:00] ...B.B.:
We can come back-
L.A.:
[inaudible 01:09:08], and anyhow, she said they were several Jewish schools
[inaudible 01:09:12], and she said she remembered when my grandfather[inaudible
01:09:16]. We were all musicians, every one of them played music, including my
grandfather, he played the mandolin, and they were all musicians, except my
father. I was 12, they had their own family orchestra.
B.B.:
And the people in the family had their own orchestra, they had plenty of people.
L.A.:
Yeah, there were 12 of them, and they each ... They all played instruments.
B.B.:
That's great.
L.A.:
Yeah, [inaudible 01:09:51].
B.B.:
Leonard, thank you very much for sharing your memories, and your time with us,
we appreciate it.
L.A.:
It was
70:00sweet to take the time ... 71:00