Interview with Lewis Cole, September 19, 1977

Clarence Judah:

I am Clarence Judah, director of the endowment fund of the Jewish Community Federation. On behalf of the federation I am, and the oral history project of the University of Louisville, I am interviewing Lewis, L-E-W-I-S, D. Cole, C-O-L-E, at my home, 2544 Woodcreek Road, on Monday evening, September 19, 1977. Lewis, would you please state your full name, your residence and your date of birth?

Lewis Cole:

Okay. I'm Lewis Dreifus, D-R-E-I-F-U-S, Cole, C-O-L-E, and I've lived in Louisville all my life, and presently and for the last 40 years have lived at 564 Garden Drive, here in Louisville. Interestingly enough, this is the day before my 64th birthday. I was born on September 20th, 1913.

C.J.:

Let me be the first to congratulate you.

L.C.:

All right. Well I already have a telephone call from somebody in the family who didn't realize today wasn't the 20th.

C.J.:

Therefor you were born 1900 and...

L.C.:

13.

C.J.:

1913.

L.C.:

oh, I thought I said that.

C.J.:

Lewis, I know that yours is an old family in Louisville's Jewish community. Will you tell us a little bit about the original members of the family who came to this city?

L.C.:

Okay Clarence. Yes it is an old family, and according to the records in town, and unfortunately that's all many, many people have, on my mother's side of the family, my great-great-grandmother who was born January 1st, 1800, is buried at the present Adath Israel cemetery.

C.J.:

Where was she born?

L.C.:

Well nobody seems to know. Some place in what's now West Germany, but the actual place of birth really isn't known. As far as we know, she came to Louisville as a widow with a small child some time in the late 1820s or early 1830s, with the small child, who of course later became my great-grandmother. Shall I go on?

C.J.:

Yeah, please.

L.C.:

The small child, when she was grown, married a man by the name of Rosenbaum, and interestingly enough, all of the families in those days on my mother's side of the family had very few children. There were never more than one or two children on either side of my mother's family, but they were all quite long lived. The lady that was born in 1800, and her name incidentally was Dinkelspiel, which was a rather large family and probably why she came to Louisville as a widow, 4:00because there were two Dinkelspiel brothers who apparently were either her husband's brothers or cousins who were with her, charter members of Adath Israel, which was established some time around 1840 or '41.

L.C.:

But as I said, her child married a man by the name of Rosenbaum, and Mr and Mrs. Rosenbaum had two daughters. One of them was my grandmother, who married a man by the name of Louis Dreifus. Her sister married a man by the name of Adler, and 5:00her daughter was of course Mrs. Henry Ruble, whose name also you would hear from time to time in the old family records.

C.J.:

What was your grandmother's first name?

L.C.:

My grandmother's first name was a name... Her name was Francis, but she never liked to be called Francis for some reason or other, and she was always called FranC, F-R-A-N-C. As a matter of fact, I think she even used to sign checks Franc Dreifus. D-R-E-I-F-U-S.

L.C.:

The Dreifuses, my grandparents only had the one child, my mother. Interestingly enough, in all that line, Mr and Mrs. Rosenbaum had two children, Mr and Mrs. Dreifus had one child, and Mrs Adler, who was my grandmother's sister, herself only had one child, so that until they got into the Ruble half of the family, there were very few children because I too was an only child of my parents. I 6:00don't know if that brings us up to date.

L.C.:

On the Dreifus side, my great-grandparents on the Dreifus side both came to America as young people. To be perfectly honest, my mother nor I, neither one of us know for sure whether they came as a married couple or whether they married after they got here. I rather suspect they were married when they came because both of them came with no family whatsoever. Mr Dreifus died within a relatively short time, as a very young man, and he and his wife had two brothers. Two sons. Simon and louis. My grandfather was Louis Dreifus. We do know that they were Alsatians, although again, the actual place of residence was not known.

C.J.:

Have you any idea why the Dreifuses came to Louisville?

L.C.:

Why? None at all Clarence. There's every indication that it was a large family, and there are quite a few Dreifus families scattered throughout the south, representing, as I'm sure you know, some of these early immigrations into New Orleans and southern Mississippi, and the people that came up through [inaudible 00:07:28]. But apparently, when the Dreifus family broke up in Alsace, there was no relationships maintained among any of the brothers, or sisters if there were any, when they came to America.

C.J.:

Was Barney Dreyfus a member of this family?

L.C.:

Yeah, but that was on a different side of the family. That was on father's side of the family. Part of the Bernheim family. There was no connection as far as we could ever see, between the Dreifuses on my mother's family and the Barney Dreyfus who was a cousin of my grandmother on father's side.

C.J.:

The name was spelt different wasn't it?

L.C.:

That's funny, I was just as-

C.J.:

D-R-E-Y?

L.C.:

I think it was, but I wasn't going to say that until you asked me. I think it was, yeah.

C.J.:

All right, now what about your father's family?

L.C.:

Well, father's family are relatively early arrivals.

C.J.:

Recent arrivals you mean?

L.C.:

Oh, excuse me. Yeah, relatively recent arrivals. The first of father's family to come to America was his uncle, I.W. Bernheim. Mr. Bernheim came to America just 9:00immediately following the Civil War. Some time in the mid to late 1860s. He had some obscure relatives in Paducah, Kentucky, and ultimately worked his way to Paducah with a pack on his back, selling notions across the mountains. Ended up in Paducah, and relatively soon established the distillery business, which apparently had been somewhat begun by these relatives, but without any success at all, so that any of the future was dependent on I.W.

L.C.:

Shortly after I.W came, his brother Bernard came, and when the two of them were able to raise enough money, they then brought over their half sister and half 10:00brother, the children of their mother, but by a second husband who had also since died, and the two of them, my grandmother Sarah, [Wile 00:10:05] was her last name, and her brother Samuel were brought to America in the, I guess, mid 1870s.

L.C.:

Interestingly enough, all the foolish kind of things, Samuel Wile became the grandfather of...

C.J.:

Turn it off a second.

L.C.:

I'm sorry, I stalled on that name. The name I was thinking of was Warren Rosenthal, who has been so successful with the Jerry's operations in Lexington.

C.J.:

Well I started to interrupt you a minute ago, Dwayne Cox of the oral history 11:00department at the university recently interviewed Robert Paul to get the story as complete as possible on I.W. Bernheim, and I assume he got Bernard and a good deal about that part of the family.

L.C.:

Oh yeah. Well that's fine Clarence. It would take a whole evening to get into that part of it, and take us away. I would only say this though, among the living survivors of Mr. I.W. Bernheim here in Louisville, there are, at this point of our generation, three of us. Certainly your wife Louise, who of course is a first cousin of mine, and Tom Bear and myself. The rest of the Bernheim 12:00family is scattered all over the country.

C.J.:

Well Lewis, that gets you into the Louisville scene. Now you said you've lived all your life in Louisville, so I assume you attended the schools here. What schools did you attend?

L.C.:

That's right Clarence. Well, because my age is no secret on this tape, I'm approaching my 50th year of graduation from dear old Louisville Male High School. I then somewhat disappointed the local aspects of my community or my educational opportunities by going east to college, and spent four years at Dartmouth, from which I graduated in 1935.

C.J.:

I assume that you grew up as a member of one or another congregation. Would you spell those out?

L.C.:

Yes I would Clarence, because I don't know, since all of the changes that have come about in Jewish community and Jewish observances and Jewish religious connotations these days, I think it might be interesting to spend just a minute, because I grew up what was the, I suppose you might call the classic age of reform Judaism. I was in Sunday school in the early to mid 20s, and those were 14:00days when the feeling of confidence of American Jews was almost directly attributable to the degree to which they could identify physically, psychologically, religiously and every other way with the general majority of Christian observance.

L.C.:

While of course, reform Jewish synagogues, and believe me, they didn't call them synagogues in those day, but while reform Jewish houses of worship didn't have crosses in them or anything like that, nevertheless, they made such an effort to become Americanized that they really almost lost, in my opinion, which of course has been formed not in those days, but since then, all identification with any kind of historic Judaism. I purposely don't use the word traditional because I don't want to confuse it with orthodoxy.

L.C.:

Of course Clarence, the temple I was referring to, or the congregation I was 15:00referring to was Adath Israel, and it was a good experience. It was a meaningful one. Dr. [Rouke 00:15:08] was a true community leader, and while in later years I had reason to disagree rather strenuously with him on individual, on specific positions, one of the things in which he was most committed, certainly was a very influential factor in my life, and that was the opportunity to serve the whole community.

L.C.:

Certainly Dr. Rouke, how ever much I would have disagreed with him in certain aspects of his religious philosophy, never, never questioned his identification totally as a Jew, and he served the community as a Jew. Both the Jewish community, and to his great credit, the general community as well. I think 16:00perhaps Dr. Rouke, certainly not the only one for many years, but was certainly the first person whom I really knew on any kind of good basis, who was able to perform services on a balanced basis in both the Jewish and the non-Jewish community. In other words, serving the Jewish community, but serving the total community as a citizen of America just like anybody else.

C.J.:

Well, since I happen to know a few things about you, I can ask some leading questions. Did you at one point also join another congregation?

L.C.:

Well, yes I did Clarence, but as a matter of fact, it wasn't so much a matter of a disagreement with any of the positions that were taken at Adath Israel, but rather one of our children, and I haven't mentioned my own family life yet.

C.J.:

No, I'm coning to that later.

L.C.:

But you'll get to that in a minute, but one of our children had some difficulty in adjusting to the social pattern of her contemporaries at Adath Israel. In an effort to, albeit not so successful as we'll eventually get to, but in an effort to provide her with a little better and more sympathetic understanding of her Jewish heritage, we joined Brith Sholom temporarily. Not by resigning from Adath Israel, but to see if she could be helped by the leadership of Rabbi Martin 18:00Pearly and his wife, both of whom had gotten to be very close friends of ours in the years involved.

C.J.:

Well, so long as you've said, you grew up as a member of a reform congregation, a reform Jewish family, how about your friends in your younger days? Were they primarily from the same group, or were they more of a total [inaudible 00:18:21]?

L.C.:

No, as a matter of fact Clarence, and this is one of the things that I was disturbed about in those days, most of my friends represented the same social and in part economic background that I was from. My friends were Hershes and Levys and Josephs for the most part, and while I spent a certain amount of time at the YMHA, which of course, has since become the Jewish Community Center, I 19:00really wasn't as much identified, or didn't become as much identified with problems over there as you might have expected.

L.C.:

As a matter of fact, even our clubs were built around, that is our teenage clubs, were for the most part, in my generation, and I'm speaking of generations because if there's five or six years difference in your age and mine, as I remember your club, it was a little bit more total Jewish community, whereas mine, my group, my social group was a little bit more identified, if you'll excuse it please, with a standard club rather than with the Jewish Community Center's predecessor, the YMHA.

C.J.:

You're making me think about my club.

L.C.:

You remember yours was optimist and mine was [inaudible 00:19:56].

C.J.:

Yeah, mine was Optimist.

L.C.:

Optimy, that's right.

C.J.:

Optimy, and also [inaudible 00:20:01].

L.C.:

I had forgotten about that.

C.J.:

Which had the Stars and the Victors, and a lot of those people. I don't know. I 20:00rather felt that I also was circumscribed in my early associations to some extent.

L.C.:

As a matter of fact Clarence, I really think that was the pattern in those days.

C.J.:

Yeah, it was.

L.C.:

It wasn't a question certainly of us, or with all fairness, of our parents. Really both our parents had a total feeling of, as much feeling as there was in those days, of integration toward the more observant portion of the Jewish community. But there was a considerably greater amount of difference, and of course that's one of the things that's been good about, if you will, the last 50 years in Louisville, that we've broadened our friendships and our associations, 21:00and those kind of more or less, well certainly unimportant differences are no longer any substantial factor in relationships in the community today.

C.J.:

Well would you agree with me while we're on that subject, that a good part of that softening of differences and wiping out of lions between sections of the community, between ideologies of you will, was a result of external pressure? Persecutions overseas, the need to gather together to raise funds for common causes and things of that kind, as much as anything else.

L.C.:

Well I think that was certainly a good deal part of it. Certainly, that that was a great deal, and it's to our everlasting credit that all of us realize that whatever else, whatever our backgrounds, it didn't any difference whether we were from the most sophisticated and integrated sections of Western Europe or we 22:00were from the steps of Russia, the fact remains that we were still Jews and we had much in common, and in the process of this hardship, just as you say. We found that we were all pretty much the same anyway.

C.J.:

Hitler didn't differentiate between orthodox and reform.

L.C.:

No, that's right. I think of course there were other aspects too. I think the American situation helped a lot. As we became Americanized, this is perhaps a little more recent, but as we became Americanized we began to realize that we just didn't have to be like everybody else in order to be a good American. But that's something else.

C.J.:

Well yeah. Let's follow you through a little further then. Let's say in your 23:00more recent adult life, has your mode of operating and your social and community associations changed, modified from this more or less all reformed boyhood?

L.C.:

Oh yeah, absolutely Clarence. As a matter of fact, while I suppose our best friends are still people with whom we have the same sort of general background, I think the people that I really feel the closest to are from other backgrounds. I think yes, that's totally changed. We feel comfortable and part of a total 24:00community. Absolutely, yeah.

L.C.:

You want to keep talking about... I don't really know whether this should be a recitation of what I've become, because after all, we're talking history, not personal accomplishments as I understand it.

C.J.:

Well, we've got plenty of time to get into that. I'm trying to get the background and the basis for your development. I'm trying to pull out from you somewhere, if I can, and I'm not too adroit, the reasons that have made you into the type of adult that you are. I don't want to say senior adult.

L.C.:

No, [crosstalk 00:24:43]. I'm only 63.

C.J.:

At least until tomorrow, yeah.

L.C.:

Okay, I think I know what you're trying to say Clarence, and I'll try to 25:00describe it. I want to be forthright about it, this isn't a question of being modest or immodest, because I think what you're trying to say is that here's a guy who really came from a good, solid, German establishment Jewish background, who all of a sudden has gotten on his soapbox and done a lot of things, and total identification with a great bog, broadside American Jewish community.

L.C.:

Well of course, certainly I got encouragement, and there was, in my family, both my father and mother, although obviously a generation before, and with some of the, if you will, prejudices of earlier generations, had some reservations, but nevertheless, my mother was an early kindergartner and has great affection and warmth for the children she taught in kindergarten, who incidentally were the children of first generation east European Jewish immigrants. [inaudible 26:0000:26:09] taught kindergarten at what was then known as the Leave the Temple Free Kindergarten, and it was a forerunner of, I guess you might even say our present headstart program, because they were in it for the opportunity to give some of these kids a little additional integration.

L.C.:

Not that they were first genera... They were first generation American-born. Most all of them were the children of parents who had been in America anywhere from, I suppose 10 to 25 years, who came to America either as children or young teenagers, and so that their adjustment to a total America society was rather substantial so that [inaudible 00:26:50] had at least a modest part in this as a 27:00younger woman herself.

L.C.:

I don't know Clarence, I think having an opportunity, this has always been a hangup of mine for years, having the opportunity of going to a liberal arts college, my grades certainly were probably the poorest of any official four year graduate of Dartmouth. You've heard me tell many times how I almost got kicked out, but the fact that I was able to graduate certainly gives me a certain sense of satisfaction. But certainly a liberal arts experience is the most stimulating thing for the opportunity of an individual to, given the proper exposure, make some decisions about how he'd like to live his own life.

L.C.:

I must say this, and I'm not trying to be nice to you or Al, but the fact that 28:00I, soon after I came out of college, you were a struggling, and I guess I've got to underscore struggling, young lawyer who was beginning to have his roots in community service, both Jewish and nonsectarian, and that we developed an intimacy far beyond the fact that you sometime later became my cousin, and you and our great, good friend Al Erwin, I think more than any two people really stimulated me to, not so much to go out and kill dragons, that's ridiculous, but the sense of satisfaction in doing community service, and in effect, it became my golf game. That doesn't mean that just that I have to be a good guy because 29:00another guy likes to play golf. You've managed to get both of them in, but this has become my joy, and it's my fun really. If I get a certain degree of additional satisfaction out of it, that's fine.

C.J.:

Well don't forget our relationship long before you graduated, so [crosstalk 00:29:13] Camp Strongheart.

L.C.:

I'll never forget Camp Strongheart. As a matter of fact I, because it has nothing to do with this recorded to with this interview, if you'll remind me after the machine's turned off, Camp Strongheart was mentioned just last weekend when I saw Ray Epstein. As it frequently is.

C.J.:

Well I think it's to Camp Strongheart's that simultaneously, you as head of the National and Jewish Community Relations Advisory Council, and Ray as president of the Council of Jewish Federations and Welfare Funds were both graduates of Camp Strongheart. You mentioned-

L.C.:

Ah-

C.J.:

Excuse me.

L.C.:

No, no, that's right. I was just agreeing with you.

C.J.:

You mentioned before that Dr. Rouke had substantial influence on your life and on your development, were there any other teachers that you had, either in public or Sunday school that you feel are...

L.C.:

No, not really Clarence.

C.J.:

... [crosstalk 00:30:12] to you.

L.C.:

As a matter of fact it was one of the disappointments because I'd heard so much about the old Louisville Male High School and the excellence of its faculty, but apparently I got to Male High School just at the wrong time, as it was beginning to slip.

Speaker 3:

Are you off tape?

C.J.:

Lewis, as a person who has lived here all your life again, what part of the city 31:00were you born in?

L.C.:

Well I was born in the part of the city that most all of the established German Jewish population was living in in that time. I was born in the old... That's interesting Clarence because it's not there any longer, and I always laugh about it because I say the plaque that used to be on our door wasn't returned to many. Well, you know the kind of plaque they had? But I was born at the Aragon Apartments. As a matter of fact, I guess I was among the last of the home-born. [crosstalk 00:31:27] was confined right in our own home by the old Dr. Sydney Myers, who has still got family here living in Louisville.

L.C.:

Then we, shortly after that, moved over to the Reeser apartments, Reeser Place, which was at 4th and Gaulbert, right alongside the old railroad tracks. It was 4th and A in those days. We were among the earlier people who moved to the 32:00Highlands Clarence, although you were up in the Highlands long before we were, and then moved back.

C.J.:

I was born in the Highlands.

L.C.:

But we went to the Highlands, we moved from 4th and Gaulbert, or 4th and A as it was known in those days, to Baringer Avenue in about, give or take, 1921 or '22. No, it was before '22, I guess it had to be 1920 or '21. Yeah, because I was in the second grade. What would that make me, eight?

C.J.:

About.

L.C.:

Anyway, we moved because we moved from an apartment, father bought a house. It was the first house, certainly that I'd ever lived in. As a matter of fact, as nearly as I can remember, it was the first house that mother had lived in for many, many years because her family had frequently lived in apartments.

L.C.:

The move was a combination. The neighborhood was till very good in those days, in those early 20s, but there was a general movement of middle class people, and after all, we were very middle class, to homes with a little bit more room and a little bit more comfort, and perhaps a degree more of a little bit more open air. In those days, Baringer Avenue, which of course is just one block on the Downtown side of Eastern Parkway, that was pretty far out in 1920 and '21.

C.J.:

Would you say that there was a general movement of the Jewish population from the Downtown area to the so called Highlands?

L.C.:

In the years that followed, yeah. As near as I can remember, and I can only gauge this by my own friends, in the years that followed, all of my friends 34:00moved out, and interestingly enough, we all lived within an area of six or eight blocks of each other. We almost all of us went to Longfellow School and the old Eastern Departmental School, which has since been destroyed, but unfortunately much later than it should have been. It was among the last schools in the city I think, for which kids still had to go outside the building to go to the Johnny. It was up on Rubel Avenue, just off between Broadway and Baxter.

C.J.:

Well, did this move of what Jews had described as the established German family to the East End occur about the same time as, may I say, the movement of the more newly arrived Eastern European Jews from the Downtown Central area to the 35:00south? Where you had been living, the 2nd Street, 1st Street area.

L.C.:

I suppose so Clarence, although to be perfectly honest, remembering that I was just a kid on those days, I wasn't so conscious of the movement of the people in the so called Downtown area. But certainly you're right, it preceded by anywhere maybe 10 or 15 years. It wasn't until beginning into the 30s that the larger percentage of the Jewish community began to feel prosperous enough to make their move to the area of the so called East End. We called it the Highlands and it's still known as the Highlands.

C.J.:

Yeah. Well in those days we didn't have the suburbs.

L.C.:

No, I should say not. Bardstown Road was, in those days, even Bardstown Road at Eastern Parkway was a two lane, non-curbing country lane. It did have street cars.

C.J.:

Oh yeah. I remember them well. Well now, having gotten you through college and let's take a brief moment or two on your service in World War II. Or no, I guess, no, no, first let me go back. Let's get you married first.

L.C.:

That's exactly what I was going to suggest. I was waiting for you to make the break.

C.J.:

Yeah. Well now tell us something about, I won't say about your courtship, but about who you married and why.

L.C.:

Yeah, of course. That's right, it's reasonable, and my marriage was a direct result of my having been east to college, because Thanksgiving of my junior year 37:00in college, I was spending the weekend with a very good friend of mine who lived in Albany, and he had a date for the Thanksgiving Eve dance at their local country club, with a distant cousin of his from Gloversville, New York, by the name of Jean Rothschild. Very shortly after that, Jean and I had our own little romance, and did I say it was the Thanksgiving of my junior? I was wrong, it was the Thanksgiving of my senior year. But it was Jean's junior year, so that by the time Christmas came around, Jean and I were pretty well committed to each other and I spent almost every weekend of the rest of my balance of my senior year either at her campus, which was Connecticut College, or with her up at Hanover a few times.

L.C.:

Fortunately she had another year of college, so that we had a pretty good understanding from that point. We spent a good deal of time together the following summer in California, and we got a pretty good understanding that about the time she graduated from Connecticut would be a suitable time for us to 38:00get married. That's exactly what we did. She graduated from Connecticut on a Monday in 1936, and we were married the following Thursday in Gloversville, New York, which of course was her home.

C.J.:

Jean was probably from the same type of family background that you were.

L.C.:

Interestingly enough, identical. She's also got multi-generation roots. Her great-grandfather, as a matter of interest, his picture hangs on the wall in our den, was a captain in the Union Army. I don't think he accomplished much after that, but he was a captain in the Union Army, and we see him in uniform every time we look up at him.

C.J.:

Well I know that you, after you married, you made your home in Louisville.

L.C.:

That's right.

C.J.:

Shortly after that, moved over on North Drive where you are now.

L.C.:

That's right. We were married in June of '36, and fortunately enough, through a set of circumstances, were able to purchase the house we now live in, in early spring of 1937, and we moved in, in, I don't know, March or April, and except for the time out that I was gone during the war and the year before the war, we've lived there ever since and we're still there. It's now been over 40 years.

C.J.:

Okay. Now not counting dogs, of which there have been numerous, how many children have you had?

L.C.:

Yeah, well Jean and I had two kids. Our son David was born in September of 1937, and our daughter Judy was born in August of 1939. As any fool can see, that makes David having just passed his 40th birthday, and Judy, of course, is 38. 40:00They now have their own home. They've both married. Judy has three children. Interestingly enough, although they are now living on a farm outside of Newcastle, Kentucky, if we accept Henry County as being at least part of a metropolitan rural area, you can say that Judy's children are the seventh generation on one side of our family, who have either been born or at least lived in the immediate Louisville area.

L.C.:

On the other hand, I must be perfectly honest and say that Judy married a very, very nice guy by the name of Bill Wilder, who happens not to be Jewish and Judy, 41:00at this point, has no Jewish connection, so that very forthrightly, in terms of any further Jewish identification, I'm afraid Judy's children, unless they change considerably in the next few years, will have, at best, minimum identification.

C.J.:

What about David and his family?

L.C.:

David's situation is somewhat different. Incidentally, Judy chose not to go to college. She literally refused to. We wanted her just to have at least the experience of being away from home, but she decided not to, and shortly after that, matter of fact, after graduation from college, I mean from high school, got married.

L.C.:

David was much more conventional in that respect. He went of to college at Swarthmore and followed that by Columbia Law School. Interestingly he married 42:00one of his classmates at Columbia Law, and the two of them, he did this, they married in the middle of their second year in law school, by the time they were ready to graduate, Susan was pregnant with her first child. They took the New York Bars together, but then David spent in the Justice Department at Washington where they had their second kid, and after five years in the Justice Department, about, oh, almost 10 years ago, David and Susan and the two kids moved to Los Angeles, where he's now living. He and his wife are both practicing law. Their two kids are now, both girls, are now 11 and almost 15 years old.

L.C.:

They identify, Susan is a Jewish girl from Jewish parents who are perfectly wonderful people, who live in The Bronx with many of those fascinating characteristics of New Yorkers. Cultured, lovely, thoughtful, decent people, so they're about as provincial in their relationship to other areas of the country as any people I ever saw in my life. But we love them, and David's children will certainly grow up with the knowledge of being Jewish. Their Jewish background and some of the more cultural aspects of Judaism, they have not yet been exposed to, but I have a feeling that while they're not attending any conventional 44:00Sunday school or getting any Jewish education, they're both bright kids and they have a natural curiosity, which I'm inclined to think might lead them into some investigation of their Jewish background and what it means.

C.J.:

Well Lewis, don't you think that perhaps the experience of your family and your son and daughter illustrate to a large extent, what has happened and is happening in Jewish religious and cultural life in America? Your daughter, married to a non-Jew, your son married, out of the establishment, in the Jewish faith, and actually, if I'm correct, to the daughter of an orthodox Jewish family, or as I understand the Schwartzes were.

L.C.:

Well certainly, absolutely, and Sydney was buried in an orthodox, or at least certainly a very traditional funeral with all of the natural characteristics of an orthodox burial.

C.J.:

Well isn't this what we're seeing a great deal of, or have seen? Now maybe we're going back and getting away from it again.

L.C.:

Well, no I think you're Clarence.

C.J.:

Your reaction [crosstalk 00:45:22].

L.C.:

But the only thing that concerns me really, it's the things we say all the time as parents, whether we should have forced some more. Of course, when we were our children's present ages, we weren't as committed to a certain type of Judaism as we now are, but the degree to which-

C.J.:

Well I'm not seeking to find blame, I'm seeking to find identification or explanation.

L.C.:

Exactly, and the continuity, because here's a family that's been totally 46:00identified with a community as Jewish in, to a certain extent, a most positive sort of way, and as you've mentioned, one child is married to a non-Jew and the others, although they identify totally as Jews, don't really lead a Jewish life in any sense. It's the kind of thing that I think a lot of us are worried about, the kind of thing that you've heard people say it.

C.J.:

Well no, you get around a great deal, do you see more or less of that... Well what's the word? I want to say nonalignment or anti-alignment.

L.C.:

Well not so much anti, but no, nonalignment is good, and maybe even defection. It's a drifting away. Yeah, I think it concerns a lot of people.

C.J.:

Do you see it here in Louisville in the Jewish community, as much as it was, or 47:00is it more or less?

L.C.:

No, I think it exists. I'm thinking about friends of ours. I don't know if you want me to mention names, but...

C.J.:

Well, unless there's something that really needs to be off the record, I think this ought [crosstalk 00:47:02] factual.

L.C.:

No. A specific example I'll give you, this is somebody I've thought about, a guy like Lewis Hopper. Married Goldie Levy, whose family were from a much more traditional family than he, not that they made any difference, they've had a very happy married life. They had two daughters, both of them married non-Jews, and as far as I know, are not identified in any way with the Jewish community.

L.C.:

Lewis Hershey's children are drifting away from the family. I'm mean, from traditional... Oh, well I guess they've got some identification, I shouldn't use them. It's a 50/50 deal, but more of them are drifting away than are staying, and this was what concerns me. You see a gradual drift. But that doesn't get us 48:00into any kind of historic content.

C.J.:

No. But I think in this thing, we can hopefully read the future by studying the present and the past a little bit.

L.C.:

That's right Clarence, and I think one of the things that maybe concerns you, because you and I, both of us, we're not talking specifically about me at this point, but certainly both of us, our parents were interested in the community and we had a natural movement into community affairs. Maybe not for the same extent or maybe in a little different direction, but a sense of involvement. We didn't lead isolated lives and we identified as Jews, both in Jewish and non-Jewish affairs.

L.C.:

Well now, to a certain extent, my kids are not following that and some of the 49:00kids of my contemporaries are not following that. Others are, but there's been a gradual drifting off. But there's going to be no continuity, for instance, an example, among all those pictures at the Jewish Community Center, you know, starting at president number one and going all the way back, well president number one of the Jewish Community Center was I.W. Bernheim, a great-uncle of mine on my father's side of the family. President number three or four, I'm not sure which, and it's not important, maybe it's five, was a man by the name of Simon Dreifus. Well [inaudible 00:49:34] if he wasn't a great-uncle on my mother's side of the family.

L.C.:

Okay, so then we go on down the line, and eventually bump up against my picture, but you'll never see my son or my nephews, or whoever they might be. Because I'm an only child I have no nephews here, but certainly my grandchildren or my son 50:00will never be the president of the Jewish Community Center in Louisville, Kentucky.

C.J.:

Your son might fool you. He might come back to Louisville some day and be the president of the center.

L.C.:

No, he might, but I think there's a greater possibility, maybe, of his doing it in Los Angeles. He's so busy being a... They lead a kooky life out there. He works like a dog five days a week, and when the weekend comes, he's just not interested in anything but being with his family and doing family things. I can't really fault it.

C.J.:

Well now we've stumbled into my next question, and that was tell us something about the organizations in which you, and I think since we're just interviewing you for the family, which also your Jean has been active. You just mentioned the center, so let's start somewhere with your activity and organizational life in Louisville.

L.C.:

Well I guess since I was the son of a father and a mother, both of whom were actively identified with community organizations, in the tradition of our generation Clarence, of frequently following a parent's guidance and a parent's career, and the fact that in 1936 when I got out of college and jobs weren't as easy to find as they have been in subsequent years, it was a great feeling... Did I say '35?

C.J.:

'36.

L.C.:

Yeah, well I meant '35. '36 was when I got married. It was a great comfort to be perfectly honest, to realize that there was a job waiting for me in my father's business, and it wasn't a made job, it was a job that needed to be done. Nothing would be more natural, since I was in a business that gave me an opportunity to 52:00spend at least a certain amount of time working in other activities, that I should drift into, with encouragement both from my father and his business associate in terms of time, to beginning to do community service, and started with, on the one hand, the old YHMA, and to perfectly honest, on the other hand, the community chest as a solicitor. Working as a team and well, you can remember the teams that you and I both used to work on.

C.J.:

Okay.

L.C.:

You see Clarence, one of the interesting things about my coming back to Louisville and not having been at college in Louisville, and your experience for instance, on having been both at college and law school here, it was the fact 53:00that my acquaintance at the time when it would most logically broaden its base among the non-Jewish community, as yours did, I suspect, more in college and law school than in your years in high school, those four years for me were spent totally away from home.

L.C.:

As a result, when I got home from college and prepared to settle here, practically all of the acquaintances and friends I had were in the Jewish community. There were a few acquaintances of course, left over from high school days, but those didn't have nearly the significance because by that time, there were social barriers, and so that an opportunity to meet other people than the traditional Jewish friends you had, really had to come about almost with conscious effort in such work experiences as things like United Way and the Junior Board of Trade, which as you remember, I had an opportunity to become a 54:00member of.

L.C.:

To find that as a Jew, I was, if not socially accepted then I never had any particular social ambitions, but at least if I were accepted as an acquaintance by men who were presumably going to be with me, citizens of the same community and we had the same interests, it was a very natural conclusion that we work together in areas of particular interest on the one hand, as citizens of the community, and on the other hand, parallel to it, continuing my activity without sacrificing identification in the Jewish community.

L.C.:

So that in those days, as time allowed, and of course it was on a much more limited basis than it was in later years, as time allowed, I managed to become interested in both Jewish and nonsectarian things, and as I became more active 55:00on the Jewish Community Center, on programs, on program committees, it wasn't Jewish Community Center then, it was the old YMHA, and then as I identified with activities around the YMHA and then went on the board, I was asked to become interested in some of the planning activities for the whole community. Since by that time I had acquired a certain lay knowledge at least, not profession, but lay knowledge of the recreational activities in the Jewish community, so that I became interested and part of the recreation area of planning in the old Health and Welfare Council of the community chest.

C.J.:

Well now, all that was a good deal later wasn't it?

L.C.:

Not really Clarence. Actually, it's hard to remember these days, but it seems to me I came back to Louisville in 1935 and Jean and I got married in '36, and I stayed in Louisville right up until Pearl Harbor. As a matter of fact, just at the time of Pearl Harbor. I had, after discussion with family and business associates, just at the time of Pearl Harbor I had committed to go to Washington as a distribution specialist on the staff of what later became the Office of Price Administration.

L.C.:

In those days, by that time, of course that was obviously late in 1941, Jean and I had had both our children, and it was in the time of the beginning, the 57:00enlargement, even before Pearl Harbor, the beginning of the draft period. At that time, of course, because of my two children, our two children, I was ineligible for the draft, so that my going to Washington and uprooting our family was to be at least in part my sacrifice for the war effort, so called.

L.C.:

Actually Clarence, as I say, it's hard to distinguish, but I had six to six and a half years here in Louisville, in this initial exposure, before I left for Washington and then later went into the army.

C.J.:

Well now, somewhere in that period you became interested in what was then called the Conference of Jewish Organizations.

L.C.:

That's right.

C.J.:

Of which your father had been one of the founders and vice president of it for a long time. Can you date that somewhere?

L.C.:

That's really very hard, and I guess just exactly like in community chest solicitation teams, I suppose I really first became interested in the Conference of Jewish Organizations, perhaps toward the late 30s. I just don't remember when I first was elected to The Conference, which was the larger governing of the groups at that time.

C.J.:

Well I must admit, my old memory apparently was faulty. According to my history of The Conference, your first service on the executive committee, the board of directors, was 1952.

L.C.:

Yeah, well that's interesting. That, I think was a little longer. Now I'm sure that's true as far as the so called executive committee, but you remember earlier Clarence, that executive committee in those days was very small. It was really almost, as you and I probably have discussed many times, almost too small. It was a very select group. If we remember Charlie Morris with all his glorious works, but with some of his hangups.

L.C.:

It seems to me I went on the so called, The Conference, just about the time I was due to go to Washington, and really didn't become actively involved until 1944 when I came home. But then I began to get much more actively involved and there were committees.

C.J.:

Well now you've branched out. I know that you were president of the center. Can 60:00you date that approximately?

L.C.:

Yeah. That was definitely after I got back. As nearly as I can remember Clarence, it's hard to believe, but it's been over 25 years. About 30 years. It seems to me I was president of the center in the very early 50s, which would make it between 25 and 30 years. I was president of the center when we bought 61:00the property out on Dutchman's Lane.

C.J.:

Dutchman's Lane.

L.C.:

It seems to me, was that in '48 Clarence?

C.J.:

That should have been because it was some time after that before we built [crosstalk 01:00:51].

L.C.:

Yes, that's right.

C.J.:

We opened the center in 1955.

L.C.:

Exactly, and I had already served my-

C.J.:

Okay.

L.C.:

All right Clarence, let's move on a little bit. I'm not sure really that we ought to get into too specific a date pattern on this thing. I've had such an 62:00interesting kind of a mixed up career in the community, but I do think it's important just to stress that maybe right now, that there was of course, a typical World War II hiatus. I spent a year with Jean and the kids in Washington, with OPA, and golly, that was both a frustrating and an interesting learning experience. But by the time the spring of 1943 came, having been there since February of 1942, when that spring of 1943 came, I was absolutely going out of my cotton picking mind. Every time I got on a bus with all the uniforms, I wanted to out a placard on my chest telling people I had a couple of kids.

L.C.:

Well, to make a long story short, I did go in the army, and surprisingly, because of course, in those days everything was in favor of it, I surprisingly 63:00had a very satisfying experience. You're not interested, this history isn't interested with an army career, but I did spend about 25 months overseas. I had the experience of being a GI and going through an unbelievably rigorous basic training. Which incidentally, I hated every minute of, but I wouldn't have missed the experience for anything in the world as I look back on it.

L.C.:

Of course, that memory has mellowed, but it was a hell of an experience, and I will say for the army, they managed to really make men out of boys. Of course, because I was physically considerably older, I was almost 30 in those days, they made, to make it reverse, they made a boy out of me. I came back physically healthier and skinnier and stronger than I'd ever been in my life, or have been since.

L.C.:

When I did come back from the army, it was pretty easy to fit into a pattern of community service at that point. Our family business had been sold nobody a relatively few months after I got back from the service, I had an opportunity to buy into the photo finishing business, which became part of my life from 1946 to 1971. 25 years almost to the day. It became a very satisfying experience.

L.C.:

I was associated with people who also had a sense of community involvement, albeit different than mine, but a respect for it. While I never apologized to them or to myself for the number of hours that I put in our photo finishing 65:00plant, I did have the opportunity of a certain amount of time during the day that I could devote to the community activities. So that in the period between roughly my return in late 1944, very late 1944, so then the period from the middle of 1945 up to the present, I have had a greater opportunity than many people in business, to give more of my time to the things that interested and the things that I felt were productive in the community.

L.C.:

So that over this period of years, I've had the opportunity of identifying myself locally with many, many Jewish activities. I certainly don't want this to 66:00be an ego trip on the hand, or to sound immodest, but I must say I've had the opportunity and the flattering experience of having been president of the Jewish Community Center, the Jewish Social Service Agency and the Jewish Hospital, and of course the opportunity to serve the community as a whole by having been chairman of the predecessor of our Jewish community federation that was called, as we've mentioned earlier, the Conference of Jewish Organizations.

L.C.:

I've been campaign chairman of our annual fundraising drive on two different occasions, but one of the things that I must say has not dominated, but has certainly been a major consideration in my activities in the Jewish community, 67:00has been the fact that as a citizen of a general community, I certainly owe some time to the nonsectarian services, so that through my activities in the community chest, which are now referred to as the United Way because that's what it became, and its planning structure, I ultimately, in the last few years, became president of the United Way.

L.C.:

Now, as a matter of fact, chairman of the board of directors of a nonsectarian voluntary, but privately sponsored and privately financed, institute of physical medicine and rehabilitation, which is a very exciting experience. Of course, for the last six years, since our photo finishing establishment was sold, it's given 68:00me the opportunity at the age of 58, to do this kind of community service if you will, full-time. Once I got over the hump because I had an opportunity to perhaps to sleep an hour or so later in the morning, but more important, because I didn't have the responsibility of managing a business or being at a desk at a certain time, or answering a telephone or checking my mail at a specific time, once I got over this feeling of not really being a lazy so-and-so, I must say it's been an extremely stimulating experience. The opportunity to continue this service both locally and nationally, in both Jewish and nonsectarian affairs, 69:00has been a source of great satisfaction.

L.C.:

This had become a monologue and I suppose we all [inaudible 01:08:48] if we think here's this material being made part of the immortal archives of the Jewish community or the University of Louisville, and I certainly must say that you've got every single solitary opportunity and my total permission to erase whatever part of this you feel is unnecessary.

C.J.:

Well I don't think we want to erase any of it. You've mentioned the local services of which you have had a very definite place and a leadership role. I think we might add also, as part of the ego trip, the fact that you have received a recognition for service through such things as the Ottenheimer Award, 70:00the B'nai B'rith man of year, the NCCJ Brotherhood recognition. What do you call that?

L.C.:

[inaudible 01:09:57]. That's a award.

C.J.:

One of the honorees for the annual service award.

L.C.:

Brotherhood award.

C.J.:

Yeah. I think one thing that you haven't mentioned, I believe you were the first non-professional social worker to receive an award from the Kentucky Association of Social Workers. Was that [crosstalk 01:10:25]?

L.C.:

Oh yeah. Well the Kentucky branch of the National Association of Social Workers. NASW. Yeah, that was really very lovely, and it was one of the early awards I was given. It was one that made me feel really prouder because it was an award 71:00from a group of professional people to, in effect, a layperson for an understanding of a joint service.

C.J.:

Well I don't want to have left out any of your local awards.

L.C.:

I think I there's one thing, I think Clarence, that perhaps over and above, the satisfaction of serving in the community, and even doing the same thing on a national scale, which becomes almost a natural progression. Again, if you have time and if you have the opportunity, and the funds to do a little of it, and I don't mean that I have to be a big giver, but the opportunity and the money to make an occasional trip is to serve at the national level as well. Of course, I've had that opportunity.

L.C.:

But there's been one other additional benefit by that. This is not the time to 72:00place and it doesn't fit into this pattern to go into the kind of kooky traveling that Jean and I have done over the last, well, 15 years or so, or 20 years I guess almost, but specifically related to traveling, one of the things that this service in the community, and of course this applies primarily at this point to the Jewish community, has given me is the opportunity of having been to Israel upwards of 12 or 15 times. I feel as if Jean and I both, that we've really gotten to know the country, and in current years, if anything has strengthened our commitment to a universality of Judaism, it's been the 73:00experience of spending time in Israel as visitors.

L.C.:

For the record if you will, we never dreamt, even as younger people, of going there for anything other than visiting. We have every commitment that every American citizen has for his own country and no question about it. But on the other hand, the opportunity to see what's been done over there and to get to know the people, and to have friends and to feel the freedom of moving around that little country is an experience that I just don't think either one of us could have matched under any other circumstances.

C.J.:

Well now, I'm going to get to Jean and her activities, and that would be a good lead-in, but first I wanted you to mention the national organizations with which 74:00you have been affiliated and the positions you've held with them, just briefly, so that we have a complete picture. You were president of the National Jewish Community Relations Advisory Council.

L.C.:

Well, that is correct Clarence, and it was a matter of tremendous pride and satisfaction.

C.J.:

Probably I would say, I have to say it from my own experience with the community, that was the highest position nationally, that a local person, local Jewish person has occupied. We've had a few vice presidents on occasion, or vice chairman, but I don't think we've had the president before.

C.J.:

You also, I think, have had a high position with the Council of Jewish Federation Welfare Funds, although not the presidency.

L.C.:

That's correct. I was vice president of Council of Jewish Federations, just up until last November. But certainly I would have neither the ambition nor the opportunity the become president.

C.J.:

Oh [crosstalk 01:14:56].

L.C.:

No, at this point it's for a younger man aside from anything else.

C.J.:

There's still time. I think it's interesting, the position that I believe you still hold or have you finished?

L.C.:

Yeah.

C.J.:

With the National Health.

L.C.:

Health and Welfare Retirement Association, yeah. This has been a very interesting experience for me because it's a nonsectarian service at really the top level. I've had the opportunity to be on the board for the last almost 10 years now, and to be its chairman for the last two years. Of the board of trustees of the National Health and Welfare Retirement Association, which is for the University of Louisville people who might hear this, the equivalent in the 76:00field of social work and health, the equivalent of the TIAA pension fund in the educational field.

L.C.:

National Health and Welfare was founded originally in the very early years of social security, when interestingly enough, social security was not a protection, was not available for practitioners in the field of health and welfare. Obviously, of course, social security son became available to those people, and like TIAA, it became then a plan to supplement the pensions, the social security payments made available to practitioners in that field.

L.C.:

Interestingly enough, we've not grown to a structure with almost three quarters of a billion dollars in assets, so that this, in these days of fiscal 77:00responsibility is quite a sizable sum. But I must say, and I'm saying it in the presence of one of our clients, Clarence, who's of course retired under one of the plans, which unfortunately wasn't as good in his days of professional direct activity as they are now, but this is a good, solid fund now, based on well financed, well managed, trained professional people in the field. It's been a fascinating experience for me because I've been made to think that those of us who are nonprofessionals, that is nonprofessionals in the pension field or in the insurance field who are on the board, have a contribution to make in terms of the day-to-day advice on policy matters, which we able to contribute through 78:00a membership in the board.

C.J.:

It's not in danger of going bankrupt like the social security?

L.C.:

I certainly is not Clarence, and if whatever else, whatever else, that I can assure you of.

C.J.:

We did overlook one thing, you were at one point, Jewish co-chairman of the National Conference of Christians and Jews.

L.C.:

Oh yes.

C.J.:

Louisville chapter. Well if we've overlooked anything of your activities, there is one award we might as well tape while we're talking about awards, which you've just received this past year. Well you tell me about it, from the [inaudible 01:18:25].

L.C.:

Well, I must say Clarence, it was an award which pleased me tremendously. Not that neither you or I are so naïve to think that awards are not given also with 79:00an idea of attracting enough crowd to support a substantially successful effort to provide a certain amount of funds, but one of the aspects of the understanding of the overseas, particularly the mid east Israel situation, has been to interest non-Jewish groups in their identification and in their understanding of what's going on over there.

L.C.:

One of the efforts that's been made, particularly since at least up until last May, the government [inaudible 01:19:13] of Israel has been basically a Labor government. Now one of the efforts that's been a very conscious effort, a very forthright effort with no secret and nother underhand about it, has been to interest the organized Labor movement in America to the essential similarities and the essential affinity that they have with the Labor movement in Israel, 80:00which is structured by an agency known as Histadrut, the General Labor Federation of Israel, which of course has an American affiliate to support it. Not to support it inside of Israel, but to provide support for it in America.

L.C.:

Well, there has been a development through the States of, I think at this point, well over 30 of our states now have statewide trade union councils of Histadrut. These are made not of Jews, unless the Jew happens to be in the trade union movement, but of members of the trade union movement who support the activities and the philosophies of the trade union movement in Israel. As part of a show of support, a banquet, a dinner was structured for last spring, at which, and I say 81:00this with all honesty and all awareness, at which in order to further encourage attendance, awards were made to two individuals. One of the awardees was the executive director, the secretary treasurer I believe is his official title, he's full-time on the payroll, of the Kentucky State AFLCIL. A very decent guy by the name of Scotty Smith. I had the honor of being the other awardee.

L.C.:

It was exciting because in just a few more [inaudible 01:21:26], to sit in that room and to hear perhaps 300 non-Jewish Labor leaders from one end of the state 82:00of Kentucky to the other, almost cheering a report referring to their brothers in Labor in Israel was as exciting an experience as I can remember having in the community in a long, long time.

C.J.:

Well, as one of those who was present, I thought it was very exciting too, and I thought it was an honor well deserved.

C.J.:

Now that brings me to the other member of your family, your wife Jean, because among her activities, it seems to me that she had some particular interest in scouting. The girl scouts. Some way or other that got her to Israel, and I don't know whether I'm correct or not, but that might have been among the first, if not the first visit to Israel by a member of the Cole family.

L.C.:

No, it wasn't the first Clarence, but it was the second, and since she was alone, she was there for the second time before I had gotten there the second time. No, you're absolutely right, and I think it's suitable that we talk about Jean for a second, because it's been a very conscious thing on both our parts that each one of us has to do our own thing. While Jean's interests perhaps haven't had the diversity of mine, she too has a commitment of service, both in the Jewish community and in the general community. Without going into any detail-

C.J.:

Go ahead.

L.C.:

Well Clarence, it seems as if we had a little breakdown of our communications material here for a second, so I'm going to have to try and repeat what I said. 84:00I don't think I can do quite the same kind of job on it. But we were talking about Jean and her interests, and coming from a town like Gloversville, New York, she didn't have the background in Jewish community organization that I'd had from my parents, so that it was a sense of adjustment. So that Jean's primary interest was at the time we go married, and has continued really right straight through our married life, has been the girl scout.

L.C.:

Interestingly enough, she was a scout in Gloversville as a kid, so she actually has a history, if not continuous, of over 50 years exposure to girl scout. I think in addition to having been a scout, she has had practically every job a volunteer could have in scouting, from being a girl scout leader of a troupe that Judy was a member of, up to being president of the local council.

L.C.:

When you mentioned the Israeli trip, this came about primarily as a result of our having been in Israel, Jean and me together, Jean and I together, in 1959, and just by coincidence, when we returned home from that trip, Jean happened to pick up an article in the Girl Scouts National Volunteer magazine, indicating that there was an opportunity for an adult scout exchange with Israel, based on two Americans spending several months visiting in Israel with a reciprocal return of two Israelis coming to Louisville.

L.C.:

We, laughingly, decided that Jean should apply for one of the positions, one of the opportunities, and sure enough she was accepted. That two and a half months 86:00that she spent living in Israeli homes in 1960 was an opportunity that couldn't be equaled under any circumstances, and gave Jean and understanding and an empathy and a feeling of warmth toward the Israelis that she could have never gotten under any other circumstances, and I think has influenced much of her feeling as well as mine toward the country ever since then, in the frequent times that we've been back there.

L.C.:

Incidentally, as a result of that visit, the person, of course, Israel being the small country that it is, Jean, while she didn't stay in this home all the time, one particular home was her so called headquarters for mail and all that sort of thing. The woman of that home, who happened to be a leader in the Israeli girl scout movement and the Israeli scout movement, because Israel scouts and neither 87:00girl or boy, they're no sex segregation, was a visitor in our home in the state for several weeks, on her participation as the opposite number to Jean in the exchange program.

L.C.:

Jean also has been very active as a board member for some years of local section of the National Council of Jewish Women. She's been active in the League of Women Voters, she's been a board member of the Visiting Nurse Association. She did an extremely interest job, she became a nurse's aid and almost did train nurse service as a volunteer during World War II, and then continued it during the immediate postwar shortage of nurses as a volunteer with the Visiting Nurse 88:00Association, and later went on their board. She was on the board of the Traveler's Aid Society, all of them, of course, nonsectarian agencies. At the same time, she was very interested, as I said-