Interview with Selma Jacob, June 10, 1977

BB:Oh wait. Oh wait, wait a second. Her grandfather built the Galt House?

SJ:He was the owner, one of the, the last owner of the second Galt House. The present Galt House is Galt House number three. The first one was at Second and Main, it burned. The second one was at First and Main, and now the third one is at Fourth and river as you know.

BB:Now the one, when you would go down under the bridge and go down to River Road, it says right there "assigned gold hat".

SJ:Right.

BB:Is that where the second Galt house-

SJ:That is the very first.

BB:Oh that was the very first one-

SJ:And that's the one where Charles Dickens stayed and many prominent people from Europe.

BB:What, did you remember that Galt House?

SJ:No, I didn't remember that one-

BB:But was your grandfather living in Louisville at that time?

SJ:He probably was, but he became the owner of the second Galt House, and was its last owner. He subsequently sold it to Belmont-

BB:Don't pay any attention. No. Talk louder though. I'll tell you, talk a little louder.

SJ:When I talk loud my voice screeches.

BB:That's OK. When did your grandfather, your family first come to Louisville?

SJ:I don't know. I was born here. My father was born here.

BB:Was your father's father born here?

SJ:No, my father's father was not born here. They were Austrian.

BB:And they came to Louisville?

SJ:And they came to Louisville.

BB:Do you have any idea why they came to Louisville?

SJ:Well, everyone heard that life was easier in America. Things were very, very tough in Europe, in Austria at that time, and I don't know why he selected Louisville, except that Louisville was a river town and that's where all of the commerce and trading was. It was considered one of the high spots-

BB:Well did he have a background in commerce in Austria?

SJ:I really don't know what he had-

BB:Well a lot of people came over very poor-

SJ:Indeed he did. He came over here very poor and I'm sure that he pedaled through the country as many people of that sort did. But he was very lucky. Whatever he did, he took a great interest in and he was, the things that he did usually turned out well financially, so that by the time he was in his late forties he had amassed a good bit of money.

BB:This is your grandfather?

SJ:My father's father or my grandfather.

BB:Well your grandmother, now, the woman that your grandfather married, was she, was a Louisvillian?

SJ:She was born in New York. She was not a Louisvillian either.

BB:I see.

SJ:They met in New York.

BB:Yes, and then they came together to-

SJ:They came to Louisville together, but they had lived in Newark and Louisiana for a short while before they came here. And my father was born in Louisiana. My grandfather still has a living daughter. Mrs. Wills Sales is still living. She's about 86 years old but she lives in Louisville.

BB:Well, yeah. They didn't like it in Louisiana and decided to move to Louisville.

SJ:Right.

BB:Do you think they knew somebody here?

SJ:I don't know that they did. I don't think so. I don't have much family here. None as a matter of fact.

BB:Maybe your grandfather and his commercial businesses, you know, heard of Louisville or met-

SJ:I can't imagine why they came here really.

BB:Well, then he had money when he got to Louisville? Or he really made his money here?

SJ:I would say that he made his money in Louisville. He came here and he started a pawn shop next to Levy Brothers, the building is still there.

BB:Is this Levy Brothers on on Market Street?

SJ:Right. The original one, at Third and Market at the time. And for many years after that it was the only one. And from that he became interested in race horses. He had a farm out Bardstown road, he had about 400 acres.

BB:How far up out Bardstown road?

SJ:Well, it's exactly where Rest Haven Memorial park is because that was our farm. And the neighbors used to have such beautiful fruit orchards, [inaudible 00:04:28] bushes and the places that are still there. And my grandfather could not produce a fruit orchard and it irritated him. And he used to say "This place is only good for a cemetery". And we thought he was kidding. But he really did. He subsequently sold it to Rest Haven Memorial Park. He did not have too much luck with his race horses.

SJ:He had many and he had a stable, he trained them at the farm and had a stable 4:00at the downs, but he never had any heavy winners. But he and my grandmother were always extremely interested in race horses.

BB:What was the name of his stable? Did it have a name?

SJ:Just Greenberg, Greenberg Station was the name of the farm and the stable did not have a name as such.

BB:That's interesting. What, do you remember the racing colors?

SJ:They were green and white.

BB:Oh, I think that is fun. But they never had a Secretariat?

SJ:I'm afraid not. He didn't have very good horses.

BB:Well, what made him build a hotel?

SJ:He did not build a hotel. The hotel was built in, oh my dear, I have to find the date for you. But the hotel went up for sale at a certain time and he bought it. He only owned it about eight or nine years. He was the last owner of the Galt House.

BB:What happened to it afterwards? When he was-

SJ:He sold it to Belknap Park Company.

BB:Oh and it became, it became the harbor.

SJ:Right. They demolished the hotel and Belknap, the only thing they kept were the ionic columns-

BB:In the front, yeah. Oh, I think that's marvelous-

SJ:Well it was interesting. It really was.

BB:Sid you have brothers and sisters?

SJ:No, I was an only child.

BB:Did you all live in a Jewish neighborhood?

SJ:I would not say so particularly. We lived on First Street, First and Hill. There was an apartment there, the [inaudible 00:06:28] apartments and there were Jewish people there, but I can't say that it was a Jewish settlement, really.

BB:Was your family Jewish-oriented in there, in like Friday night services and were, did you go to temple?

SJ:The Greenbergs were always reformed. They always belonged to a Brith Sholom, which was at Second and Jacob then and I was confirmed from there and they observed, they respected their religion but they were not terribly observant I would say.

BB:Were, did they have many friends who were Jewish or were their friends not-

SJ:Their friends were mixed. It's a strange thing and my father, and my grandfather's business, he had business dealings at the hotel and in his jewel-restoring pawn shop with people from all over the world.

SJ:People would come here to the races and they would have bad luck with the horses and they would come in and pawn beautiful pieces of jewelry and things and they would become friends. They would meet my grandmother and they had a very mixed sort of life, I would say.

BB:Well, I think because your father also was at the, interested in horses he 7:00probably knew a lot of those people at the races.

SJ:Yes he did, but they had poker games and they had parties and they attended receptions and I would say that their friends were mixed rather than all Jewish.

BB:That's a sort of, you know, race horses and stuff. That doesn't seem very old Jewish.

SJ:It doesn't. And the-

BB:I mean it seems like now, but it doesn't seem like then. Although I don't know why not.

SJ:These people were not the average kind of people. I don't quite know how to tell you this.

BB:Was your grandfather educated?

SJ:No, he was not. He was a self-educated, but somehow his mind never bothered with the books or aesthetic things, the ballet, that sort of thing. He was strictly a business man and he liked nice things.

BB:But he must have loved to live.

SJ:Well he did. He did. He had one of the first Packard's that had a yellow wooden spoke wheel and a chauffeur and that sort of thing.

BB:Was your mother educated?

SJ:Yes.

BB:How about your grandmother?

SJ:My grandmother was educated and she went on with her education herself. That woman read everything that she could get her hands on and at the age of 60 I was a disappointment to her musically. She always wanted me to be a concert pianist and I didn't. I had no ambition along those lines, so she didn't do a thing but start to study music at the age of 60, can you imagine that?

BB:I think that's marvelous. Well now, your grandparents, now your father was their son?

SJ:Right.

BB:Okay. Did he have brothers and sisters? He had Mrs. Sales, was his sister.

SJ:Mrs. Sales was his sister. He had one brother and he and his brother both died when they were very young in their early twenties.

BB:Your grandfather?

SJ:My father and my father's brother. See, my grandfather had three children, two boys and a girl.

BB:Both the boys died-

SJ:Within a year of each other and my grandmother never got over it. It was a horrible thing.

BB:But your mother was a widow very young?

SJ:Yes she was very young.

BB:Did she ever marry again?

SJ:No. No she didn't.

BB:She must've been very young. It must have been hard for you, well you had your grandfather. How long did he live?

SJ:He died when I was about 19 so-

BB:So you did have a father to some degree.

SJ:Yes I did. Yeah.

BB:I think that's exciting about the Galt House.

SJ:Suppose I just give you this and let him.

BB:I'll bring it back, let Dr. Cox edit it or whatever.

BB:I would have to tell him anyway. Well I can, you know, somehow I don't know anything about, Oh-

SJ:All right now that's what I wanted to tell you. My grandmother had a bedroom that had Sally Ward Down's bed in it. Now you wouldn't know Sally Ward Downs, but she was a very famous Kentucky beauty who had several husbands and she would wear a huge [inaudible 00:10:46] hat trimmed with lilacs and she would wear lilac colored slippers and she had-

BB:Sort of like Lillian Russell type.

SJ:Exactly. She was the Lillian Russell of Louisville. She happened to have lived out on the, in the farm house that my grandparents bought. So my grandmother inherited her bed in some way. Now then, this article tells us about after the dining room was closed, just before they tore the hotel down, my mother and I would still go there for Sunday dinners and the Sunday dinners would be served in my grandmother's sitting room on a little marble-top library table. It wasn't quite large enough. I remember we always had to crowd things around and have little supplementary tables. Now, it just happened that a couple of weeks ago, someone was in an antique shop, a gentleman who collects books and he found a little book that he bought for his own pleasure because he's a historian and it was about the Galt House. And I read it and I said, "I can never give this book up". Now I must show you this little book - bought this in a little antique shop.

BB:Mr. Frank Rankin.

SJ:Mr. Frank Rankin, he's a historian, he is, he organized the Roundtable of the Civil War in Louisville, which has to do with the Filson Club, he found this and here it says, "The Galt House, Jay Greenberg, President, [inaudible 00:12:13]", who was a distant cousin, "Vice President". But let me show you this. It was unbelievable. Here's this picture of my grandmother's bedroom-

BB:And there's the table you ate on.

SJ:And there is the Sally Ward Downs bed. And there's my grandfather sitting there as big as life. And I looked at that thing and I nearly died.

BB:I would've cried.

SJ:I did.

BB:Oh, I think that that's beautiful. That's beautiful. Have you ever seen this book before?

SJ:Never saw the book. Had no idea it existed.

BB:Look how clean and new it is.

SJ:Well, it was reprinted in '74 and in this thing I write that when I was a child and there was a reception or a ball in the ballroom. I described the way they polish the floors and wax them and set up the bandstand at one end of it and the hundreds of little gold cotillion chairs. It's in here and I write some very humorous things about it and honey, there's a picture of the whole thing. Isn't that amazing?

BB:Oh I think it's marvelous.

SJ:I just nearly died, really.

BB:Do you remember, where most, were many social things held at the Galt House?

SJ:Many. There was a time when there wasn't, is this thing on?

BB:Yeah, that's on.

SJ:There was a time that there wasn't a wedding in town that wasn't held at the Galt House and at the time women all wore pastel colored satin shoes and things. Then they came and carriages just as much as they did cars because cars were just starting to come in then. And all of the big balls, the engagements and weddings and the debuts were presented at the Galt House. And in this article I also tell how my grandparents were so often invited to these affairs and I never was, but it didn't make any difference. They dragged me.

BB:That's great.

SJ:And I said I must've been the world's youngest and most persisting gate-crasher really, because I got in on all of them.

BB:How fun though. How fun. Do you remember the kind of clothes you wore and things like?

SJ:Oh yes and I, as a child I was subject to nosebleeds and they'd get me all dressed up of it in these very sheer long things with insets of lace and the big pom-poms of pastel colored ribbons and the shoes and socks to match. And when they got me all ready to go, my nose would start, and that would be the end of it really.

BB:Oh my. Well did you, did your mother live with her mother and father?

SJ:No. No. Not much. We did for short periods of time. But not much.

BB:Where did you and your mother live?

SJ:Well, I had another set of grandparents who were very wonderful people. Joel and Sara Shrader, they were my mother's parents. And they were Orthodox. So my background is a mixture, of reform and Orthodox.

BB:Where did they live?

SJ:They lived in a different section of the city. My grandfather was a tailor, a very good ladies tailor. And he had a place of business on Market Street and so many people in that, at that time, they had apartments over their place of business.

BB:Oh, so he lived on Market Street.

SJ:He lived on Market Street.

BB:Where was his temple, was he a pillar of the temple? Do you recall-

SJ:My grandfather belonged to Conesus Israel and he belonged to Conesus Israel 15:00for many years. And when he died he was a member there. But we were also members of a Brith Sholom too. We retained a double membership.

BB:I see. How did your mother's parents get to Louisville?

SJ:Oh my dear I just don't know. I don't know how they happened to come here.

BB:Well, you said something about your grandfather and his wife. She was born in New York. Do you know where they were born?

SJ:My mother's parents were born?

BB:Yeah.

SJ:My grandmother was born in Leeds, England, which I understand was a Jewish settlement in England and my grandfather was from, I would say from Poland perhaps, Warsaw or around there.

BB:And was, and when he came to, you don't know any, way he learned his trade. He just learned it, I guess?

SJ:I would think that he brought the trade with him from the old country, 16:00really, because he was very proficient at it.

BB:Did you know they were pillars of any organizations in this town on either side of your family? Were they members of the, what would you say?

SJ:My grandfather was a Mason, grandpa Greenburg was, well, both of them were made. Both of them were Masons, but I can't think of any organization that they were staunch supporters of, for instance, my husband is a 33rd degree Mason and he's very much interested in the Crippled Children's Home, of course goes there and he works constantly and steadily at different projects, but I can't recall that my grandparents were interested to that degree in anything at that time.

BB:After your father died, did your mother work or did you?

SJ:Yes.

BB:She did?

SJ:Yes. My mother worked.

BB:Did she work at the Galt House?

SJ:No.

BB:She didn't?

SJ:No, she worked in various stores.

BB:She did. I think that's the most-

SJ:I've had a wild life. I really have.

BB:You really, I mean it's just marvelous.

SJ:It has been very interesting. I'm interested in art. I love painting and I like to write.

BB:Are you interested in any organizations particularly?

SJ:Oh yeah. We're members of the Arts Club of Louisville.

BB:Ralph asked me about the arts club today.

SJ:Who's Ralph?

BB:My husband Ralph Brick. What is the arts club?

SJ:The arts club is composed of a group of people. They are about 400 members who are interested in the various arts. If you feel that you have an a trend towards writing or painting, photography, now they have accepted photography, sculpture, anything of that sort, by all means, come down, be a guest at some of our meetings, and then if you're further in interested, you may apply for membership.

BB:You know Howard Fitch?

SJ:Yes, he had, he showed some films.

BB:So yeah, he's-

SJ:He's excellent. I did not attend the meeting, but-

BB:Wait a second.