My name is Ida Israel. I was born in Concord, Massachusetts on July 15, 1903. My parents were Samuel and Celia Jacobs. My mother was Celia Bogg. My mother came from Vilna [Lithuania] and I think my father came from some city nearby. I believe they came over around 1893. I don't know if they both came together at the same time, but my mother came with an uncle of hers that settled in Plymouth and there was an uncle of hers that was already in Boston and she came to live with them. She worked as a seamstress in Boston, and my father was a tailor. He went to drafting school and he did custom-made suits for men and women.
At first, when they were married, they lived in South Framingham. I don't know if my father had a shop or if he worked for someone else at the time. I've since heard that Mr. McWalter, who had a shoe store on Main Street, was the one that suggested to my father to come to Concord because he thought there was a need for a tailor.
...How was it that he met your father, do you have any idea? Was that in South Framingham or Boston or...?
I don't know whether he met him in Framingham. It isn't very far; just fourteen miles.
..And so, approximately when did he come to Concord?
Well, I think he must have come to Concord around 1900.
...And did he set up shop immediately in town?
Yes. That's what he came to do. That's what he came to Concord for, to set up his own shop on Main Street.\
...Whereabouts on Main was that?
Well, it was right in the center. Right across the street was a bakery. And down underneath him was a hardware store [Vanderhoofs] and a dress shop, I think, at the time. I don't remember what it was at first, but it's changed hands many times. Down the street there was Anderson's Grocery Store. There was one bank I believe at that time, Middlesex Bank. And there were two drug stores on the corners, Richardson's and Snow's [John C. Friend's]; that was the hang-out for all the young people. Therewas a fruit store, I remember, a flower shop.
...And you were the first-born? Is that right?
No. I had a brother who was born before me
....Also in Concord?
Yes. He was born on Bedford Street. They first lived on Bedford Street in the Kelly home.
...And then where did you move from Bedford Street?
Then they moved to Walden Street, where I was born, two and a half years later. Meanwhile this house was being built on Thoreau Street for them and a cousin of my mother's, Fritz, was a contractor in Boston, and he was the builder of the house. I remember she always said that he said, "You'll never have water in this cellar. There's good drainage there."
...And then how long did you live in that?
Well, my mother lived in that house right until she died which was 1963.
...So your family was in Concord for as much as sixty-five years.
And after that, my sister Dorothy, who was living in Wakefield at the time - her husband was in the Navy at the Naval Hospital - he was an optometrist. They lived in Wakefield while he was at the Naval hospital. And then when my mother died, they took over the house in Concord and he went in on the train to Boston. He worked at the Massachusetts General Hospital in the Eye & Ear.
...And what's their name?
Platt. Dorothy Platt. She now lives in Danville, Virginia.
...And do you know how long they were in Concord?
Probably ten years.
...And tell me a little more about the shop on Main Street that your father had - the kinds of things that he specialized in doing and how big the shop was, if you remember.
Well, it was on the second floor, and as you entered there was a long table with a big book of woolen samples and I used to love to look through the samples. They were beautiful material, you know. And my father always had a tape measure hung over his shoulders, I remember. And the people would come in there and pick out their material that they wanted. Then they'd tell him the style that they wanted, and he'd draft a pattern. He'd measure them. He had a little dressing room next to the first room. It had a window in it and a big long mirror. And he'd take their measurement for the suit. Then there was this big window going into the next room, and there was a long table there where he used to do his cutting. I remember this from childhood, and I remember I used to sit in the window and loved to watch him sew and the things that he did. I'd go home - I was a little girl - to make doll clothes.
And there was always a presser, a man that did the pressing and always a woman that did the fine finish work. At that time all the linings were put in by hand, fine stitching that didn't show. And my father would start the suits. I remember he'd start with big basting. He'd do the cutting after he'd made the pattern. And I remember he'd do big basting stitches. I guess it was padding or something that went into the suit, buckram or whatever. And I remember he used to make the buttonholes by hand.
...And what about your family? There were how many children?
Five. There was my oldest brother, Hyman, who finished high school and went to commerical art school. He had a talent for drawing. And then came me. And I went to Fitchburg Teachers College and from there I taught school in East Douglas. Then there was my sister, Sadie. My father died in 1922 so my mother was left with all the children. She had to get them all off to school. I was just finishing, and she had to get the others off to school. Harry was in high school and Sadie was in junior high and Dorothy was in the grade school.
...And then what happened to the family business?
Well, the family business was sold to Mr. Arkin.
... Max? Right?
I think it was Max. And then my mother, to complement her earnings, had to do a little something more to keep things going and she always had a vegetable garden - raspberry bushes, corn, potatoes, tomatoes, beets, carrots, lettuce - and she had this little stand built on the side - you saw the picture with the stand - and people used to come from Boston and all around to get fresh vegetables. She'd even take them into the garden and pull out the fresh vegetables for them.
...I'd love to know a little more about growing up in Concord because, as you said to me, particularly in your early years, it was pretty clear that you were the only Jewish family in the whole town until the Arkins and Silvermans ...
We were the only Jewish children in the school. I was always the only Jewish girl. Even when I went to teacher's college, I was the only Jewish girl there.
...And how conscious of that fact were you?
I wasn't conscious of it at all.
...And was that true, do you think, of your brothers and sisters as well?
Yes. Yes. I know my brother Harry, when he went to high school, he was small and slight, and he wanted to be on the football team and he used to stay after to practice football and he used to come home and crawl up into bed. My mother knew that he'd been banged up. But he was too small, he wasn't heavy enough for football. Sadie was into everything.
...So you were very much involved and felt part of the community?
Oh, yes. My mother ran to PTA meetings. She was a great friend of all the teachers. She inspired us. My mother was something. She was some lady. She was some lady.
...Tell me more about her. What kinds of things did she do in the community?
In the community, she took part in the Parent-Teachers always. She always went to the meetings. And she was very gregarious and loved company and she would have coffee klatches and have all the neighbors in and she made a nice cake. She loved to do things like that. And all the relatives that lived in Boston used to come out to Tantie Celia's every Sunday. It was like a hotel. The cars would be lined up along the house.
I remember when an uncle that lived in Everett had a horse and a surrey with a little fringe on the top, and they used to come out on Sundays, ride out from Everett. All the relatives used to love to come out to my mother, and in summer all the little cousins would come to Tantie Celia's. She just loved children. Nobody could do bad. They were all good, no matter how mischievous. They all loved to come, and they all still remember Tantie Celia. She was the best tantie ever.
...What kind of effort, if any, did your family make to preserve Jewish customs and how orthodox was your family?
On the holidays, they would go to Boston to relatives and go to the synagogue there, and my brothers would go in on weekends to my grandfather who lived in East Boston. He was a Hebrew teacher and an elder in the synagogue, and they used to go in to learn Hebrew and prepare for their Bar Mitzvahs.
...And where would they have made their Bar Mitzvahs?
In Boston.
... In Boston. In that synagogue?
Yes.
...And what about the girls?
I remember a Jewish rabbi, itinerant rabbi, coming around to teach us Hebrew, and I think there was somebody in Waltham who used to travel. I don't remember how often he'd come, but he used to come to teach us Hebrew, and I don't remember how long he did it, but I have a memory of this.
...So your parents obviously made this effort then to ...
Oh yes. My mother was very, very orthodox. She was such a strict believer. She talked with God.
...Did she?
Yes, she did.
...Did she observe Jewish customs?
Yes, she did. She did.
...Would that have meant the traditional things of walking and not using the transportation on certain days?
Oh, that's right. Yes. At first, she did that. As time went on, we kind of changed things a little bit. So she rode on the Sabbath. First they didn't ride on the Sabbath. But as time went on, she rode on the Sabbath.
...What about dietary rules?
She kept a strict Jewish home. And so when I was first married, I kept a Jewish home.
...Was that relatively difficult for her to do in Concord as far as food and so on, or not?
Oh yes. She'd go to Boston on the train every week to get her supplies.
...What about politics. Now I suspect that this is something you might not remember very much about because you left home at such a young age, but I've wondered, not so much whether your parents were involved in politics, but what they did in terms of voting when they were in Concord. Would they have gone to town meetings or anything like that?
Oh, yes. They would. They were Republicans. Like the rest of Concord.
... Sam Arkin told me that in his heart he was through and through a Democrat, but he registered as a Republican because he said, after all, he was in Concord and he said he thought he ought to do what the Concordians did.
He was a different kind of a man than my father.
...So your father was not only a registered Republican, but philosophically was more in tune with Concord politics.
That's right.
..I've often wondered what it would be like being the tailor in the town and filling the needs of those families and whether, particulary with the old, wealthy townspeople, how accepted he felt himself.
Listen, he dressed them. He dressed all the people in Concord.
...I guess what I wondered is whether he felt that they always treated him with respect as opposed to just expecting him to do things for them?
Yes.
...I think you told me that.
He was very well thought of. He was honest. He was very well thought of.
...And I think you said the same about your mother after he was gone.
Oh, my mother! She was a wonderful woman. She brought up the rest of the children. She was just forty-eight when my father died. He was fifty-one.
...Did he die very suddenly, Mrs. Israel?
He had an operation. He had pneumonia afterward. I think his heart was probably weak, couldn't take it. But my mother carried on. She never remarried. She carried on for the family. Saw that everybody went to school.
...What kind of a social life do you remember having when you were in high school, that is, were you involved in groups of kids and that kind of thing? Clubs?
I had my friends. No, we didn't have any clubs.
...There weren't clubs in the high school, such as math clubs, or drama or singing.
We had a singing chorus. A Mr. Hudspeth used to teach us. He thought so much of my voice that he had me singing tenor and he had me singing at the high school graduation.
...As a solo?
Yes.
..In your own graduating class? Wonderful!
I remember he used to have me come mornings to practice the trill, trill, trill up and down. I thought it was a joke. I didn't think I sang well.
...Do you remember what it was that you sang? The piece?
No. I don't remember. He lived up the street on the corner of Hubbard and Thoreau up there in one of the houses. Across the street from him was one of the Filenes of Filene's store. He used to go into Boston every day.
I remember they used to have the dances in the Town Hall and the mothers used to come and sit upstairs and watch us downstairs, dancing.
....And you used to go to those dances, then. And was that in high school, or in grade school?
High school. In grade school, they didn't do that in those days.
...And would everybody go singly, or would you go as dates?
Singly. I remember I'd walk over with a neighbor, Howard Japes but it wasn't a date, you know.
And I remember when the war ended in 1918, they were celebrating, you know, the end of the war, and they were going to have a dance at midnight, and so I had one of my girl friends come to sleep over with me and we went to bed early so we could go to the midnight dance. We got up in time to go to the dance. My mother had gone to bed. I called my mother. I wanted to be sure she wanted me to go. She made believe she didn't hear me. We couldn't go to the dance that night. I guess I was just a sophomore or just starting my junior year. We didn't get to the dance.
...Jewish people who lived in Boston must have been much more a part of a Jewish community. Would they have wondered what it was like out in Concord? That is, would they have thought it was strange for you to have almost all of your associations with non-Jewish people, do you think?
Well, I don't know whether they did or not.
...You never talked about it with them?
No. We were always used to mixing and I remember there was a Jewish Girl Scout troop in Harvard, the Harvard Scout Camp when I was there, one of the girls I became very friendly with used to come to visit. She saw a firefly outside. I forget what she thought it was. She hadn't seen anything like that before.
...Your sister, Sadie, married a gentile, didn't she?
Yes. But he changed.
... Oh, he did! I wondered if that had been difficult for your mother.
Oh! That was difficult. That was very difficult.
...Because that was true in my own generation of people.
My mother took sick. Oh, that was very hard. So after they ran off and got married, he went through the ceremony, baptised, and they gave him a name - Abraham. If I tell anybody that, they wouldn't believe it. But that actually happened.
...And did that reconcile your mother to a greater degree?
Yes, because they were the ones that were nearest my mother when the rest of us went off. They were the ones that lived nearest and they were always there. My mother was happy to them all, and their children grew up with my mother. I have all those pictures of my mother. They were there every year. So that reconciled them.