What is your Hebrew name? Rachel

I don’t know. Mother never told me. That’s interesting.

How far back can you trace your family? Only to my grandparents.

Benjamin Newman, Celia Newman, Harrison Rosenschield, Sarah Rosenschield

None that I can think of. Maybe as we go along I can think of something.

What is your mother’s full name? Clara Rosenschield Newman

What is your father’s full name? Milton Herman Newman

What was your mother’s maiden name? Rosenschield

In what country was your mother born? USA

In what country was your father born? USA

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Yes, I remember that when she was in high school she used her father’s work address so that she could go to the high school of her choice which was in New York City and was an all girls school, in Manhattan.

I probably can’t remember them now. I know he started losing his hair when he was 17, 18 years old so I never knew him with hair.

What are the names of your mother’s siblings? Helen, Louis, Pauline

What are the names of your father’s siblings? Only one, was Sidell

Benjamin Newman, Celia Newman, Harrison Rosenshield, Sarah Rosenshield

Yes, they met at the Social Security Office in Baltimore, Maryland. My dad was a chemist but couldn’t find a job doing that. They were both from New York but they went to the Social Security Office which had just opened in that year, I don’t remember the year. They met there because they were both working there.

What year were they married? Let’s see I have to look that up, 1937.

They actually had two weddings. They had one in Baltimore which I think was a civil ceremony then they went back to New York to have the religious ceremony, but I don’t know the date of that one, or the place, would have been Manhattan, I think, or Bronx,

New York. You mean like a synagogue. I think it would have been really small so I don’t know. I didn’t know to ask these questions.

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She was a secretary most of her working career. She also taught Sunday School in the little congregation in Baltimore, Maryland and she really enjoyed that.

If I think hard maybe I can remember. It’s been so long since I’ve been there, over 40 years.

Was it an Orthodox,,,,No, it was Reform, only had 40 families and it was in Essex, Maryland, not in the Jewish section of Baltimore at all. It was very small. In fact we had to learn in classrooms in regular school rooms because it was so small we didn’t have enough classes in this little house.

Oh no, they would have been more Orthodox, definitely.

He was a chemist and worked in a chemical plant in Baltimore, Maryland. It was called Crown Cork and Seal and he did some inventing, some of the coating that’s inside of cans that’s white that prevents tomato sauce making the can turn colors, or whatever that process is. That was one of his inventions. That’s interesting.

Do you have siblings? I have one sister.

What is her name? Sandra Gordon.

She lives in Daly City, California, right outside of San Francisco.

Mostly in the Baltimore, MD area, outside the city, Dundock, Middle River, that area.

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Oh, well my earliest memory, for some reason I still can remember this.

My mother told me, I must have been about four and my sister would have been about twoish. I was told not to give her a bead because she would swallow it but I wanted to see what would happen so I gave her a bead. That’s my earliest memory and I still can remember that. I do remember our puppies being born. The dog had three liters and each liter was born under three different beds. Even though we had a box prepared, the dog chose not to use that. One was under my bed, one was under Sandra’s bed and one was under my parents’ bed. That’s great.

Oh, I think very much into Rock & Roll and the music of that time and looked forward to dances that they had weekly at the schools.

Yes, and I had Sunday School. We didn’t have Hebrew School so I learned whatever Hebrew that I know from the Sunday School experience. I didn’t want a Bat Mitzvah but my best friend, who was Christian, had a, I can’t remember what they call it, a Confirmation, Confirmation. I thought well if she can do that, I sure can so then I studied really hard and had a Bat Mitzvah. Wonderful, wonderful.

You know I don’t think it is. I think the families just couldn’t keep it going.

It would have been Essex, Maryland, outside of Baltimore.

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I didn’t really work in Baltimore at all. My first job would have been in Columbus.

I think I earned .90 cents, no .75 cents an hour. I worked at, I can’t think of the name of the store. It burnt down in Columbus. What type of a store? It was a womens’ clothing store. it was before they had regular credit cards and you would have to go in and you had a piece of paper that you showed your name to the clerk but they would have to call down to the credit office downstairs and we had to okay every purchase. Everyone had a limit of how much they could go over and if they were going over then we had to ask our Supervisor if it was okay, if they were a good credit risk. Lerners (name of store). That was great. I really enjoyed doing that. It was .75 cents an hour when I started.

I attended High School thru the 11^th grade in Baltimore and then my father had to get a new job because the Crown Cork and Seal job ended and we went to Chicago, Illinois.

He actually worked outside of Chicago but because we were dating age he wanted us to be where there were other Jewish People. Certainly in Chicago there were plenty whereas where we grew up in Baltimore it was very limited because of where we lived.

We lived in Lincolnwood, IL which was right across the street from Skokie, IL which was

Kind of a home for a lot of Jewish people. I wasn’t used to that. It was very unusual to have school closed on the Jewish holidays. It was unusual for me.

Yes, It was Temple Beth El which was Reform. It was kind of large. Yes, we went frequently.

That was in Chicago, but I don’t remember the name of the community area. It was on Touhy Ave. I think. 5

Yes, I think we did go. My sister got more benefit out of it because she was younger.

By the time I went to it I was a senior in High School and off to college the next year.

I went two years to National College of Education. It was the oldest school for kindergarten, elementary school teachers in the U.S. I believe at that time. Now it has a different name and it’s a university. It was in Evanston, IL.

No, I stayed on campus. The dormitory was in Wilmette and the school was in Evanston.

Very few, some of my high school friends were Jewish but very few went on to college like I did.

Oh, well I do remember a little bit from World War II. Because we were living on the East coast in Baltimore we were supposed to keep our lights out. I remember the warden knocking on our door telling us to turn our lights out. That’s about all I remember. I do remember making margarine. Margarine came out. It was white on one side and it had this little yellow, I don’t know what it was, but you had to mix the two things together. Do you remember doing that? It was in a plastic bag and you just kept scrunching and scrunching (I remember hearing about that.) to make it yellow.

I remember having only one phone. I remember that.

Shoveling coal from furnaces, that was my dad’s job. Hanging laundry outside, didn’t have a dryer. 6

Wringer washers, I remember. My mom had a victory garden where she grew tomatoes and green beans. My dad would eat the things but he never would help with the work, gardening. He took care of the coal. Right.

In your adult family life what is the name of your husband? William Warren Gilbert.

We met on New Years Eve in Chicago. He was supposed to go with someone else and I was going out with someone else. Neither one could meet so my friend from high school had a cousin who knew someone, which turned out to be Bill, and got us together that night. We just started going out right away.

Well, let’s see. Bill was coming to Columbus, OH because he was going to do his Masters here and he asked me if I would go along. Of course I knew my mother wouldn’t let me unless I was married. In fact she even said I should wait a year because we hadn’t known each other very long, only about six months. She said if I would wait a year she would give me a very nice wedding. That’s what she did.

What was the date of your wedding? September 4, 1960.

We came straight to Columbus the next day so I consider this my honeymoon.

At Bill’s shul in Chicago which was in Albany Park. He would remember the name (B’nai Shalom according to Bill). That was very Orthodox. In fact, the Rabbi told us that if we didn’t marry in his congregation we wouldn’t be considered married. It was that Orthodox.

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Oh, okay, well the Rabbi was late. He had to do a funeral. He called Bill so Bill knew and said don’t worry I’ll only be about an hour late. It turned out to be two hours late.

I can’t remember, it was some holiday coming up and you had to do the burial before this holiday started so that’s why we had to wait until the Rabbi came.

Yes, we drove all the way from Chicago to here and we stopped at the ABC Motel which was across from Graceland Shopping Center where Pier 1 is now.

Well, I think just the anticipation of coming to a city that I didn’t know very well and everything that you looked at and heard about was buckeye. I really didn’t know what a buckeye was.

We lived on Chittenden Avenue which was right near OSU across the street from the Law School We lived there two years until our son was born and then we thought we needed a real bedroom for him and we moved to the West Side of Columbus. We stayed there about two years.

It was cheap living. That’s why we moved there. It was Westgate Manor. We wouldn’t want to live there now.

I think we were quite happy. Bill got paid once a month. He worked for the prison system and they only got paid once a month.

We would go with that check and buy the baby food and we ate on whatever was left.

We wanted to make sure the baby was taken care of.

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In fact it took several years to pay for the obstetritian and pediatrition. We didn’t have much money.

I was looking for a pre-school and there was none on the West Side. One of the members of the congregation who lived in Worthington told me about an apartment that was available.

Yes we did. We joined Beth Tikvah when Bennett was born to have a Pinyan a Ben which I didn’t know anything about, but my mother did. She made phone calls and found out about this organization that was called NSJCA (Northside Jewish Community Assocation) that was meeting at Hillel. It was the early people that wanted to be Beth Tikvah. They came to my house and brought a coffee pot, pastries, and the money for the Pinyan a Ben to make the exchange. I’ll never forget that. It was very exciting.

Wonderful. That was our first introduction to Beth Tikvah. It may have been Beth Tikvah at that time. I have to stop and think. It would have been 1962.

Definitely, yes, had there not been Beth Tikvah I think we would have ended up on the East Side to be near the other congregations, very definitely, even though we worked in the so called North Side. Bill was working downtown in the prison there and I stayed home. I think we definitely would have ended up on the East Side.

I don’t think so. My next door neighbor was one. There were a few in Worthington, very, very few. 9

Big change later on where there were more in the community.

Yes, I didn’t think I knew any other than the ones from Beth Tikvah.

Sometimes difficult because they would plan things that would be over the High Holidays, especially Rosh Hashanah. They would have an ice cream social on that day.

It would be difficult because we couldn’t participate in the ice cream social. It would be the first get-together of the year for the school sessions and so that caused some problems.

Let’s see, for the most part, Worthington Estates, then they went on to middle school,

Worthingway, then they went on to high school. Roberta went four years to the alternative school and then Bennett went his last year to the alternative school.

Otherwise he went to Worthington High School.

Where they were born? Bennett Mark Gilbert born in Columbus, OH and Roberta Sue Gilbert deLalla born in Columbus, OH.

Bennett lives in Sacramento, California and Roberta lives in Charlton, New York, near Albany.

Roberta is married to David deLalla and she has a son Wyatt Vincent deLalla.

Can you describe something special about each of your children as they were growing up? 10

Yes, Bennett was a child that you didn’t tell you were going to be doing something or leaving to go somewhere until you were actually walking out the door. Roberta was one you had to give a lot of time to get ready to be prepared for something. They were very different that way.

Oh, I would say our first trip out West. It was in a car that didn’t have air conditioning so we would leave at 3 or 4 in the morning to get a head start on hot days and we would stop at least 3 or 4 in the afternoon so they could all go swimming in the hotels that had swimming pools.

Yes we did. We made a few of those trips but I think this first trip we were going out because one of Bill’s relative’s sons was having a Bar Mitzvah so that was how we could get there, was to drive that far. Where was that? It was in Las Crusas, New Mexico.

Wyatt is 20 months old and he is learning to talk and is very interested in lots of things.

I always enjoy playing and he loves reading so I like to go thru books with him and let him tell me the stories back which he is starting to do.

Well I did a little bit in Hadassah and their work and in Sisterhood of Beth Tikvah and also I was a Cub Scout leader for a couple of years with a Worthington troop and a Bluebird leader for one year with Roberta’s troop.

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Occupational Therapy Assistant, graduated in 1977 from a nine month program. Now

It’s a two year Associate Degree program.

I work in a hospital, although there are other places that you can use Occupational Therapy, but it’s to help people to start to learn how to take care of themselves again, start getting their strength and endurance back and bathing, dressing, feeding themselves, very, very basic things on to more higher level things.

My first job was at Heritage House. I was there for 13 years. Then I did Arthritis Foundation for one year which involved going to peoples’ homes and delivering equipment that would help make their everyday life a little easier with that disease.

I worked five years at the Psychiatric Hospital at OSU, five years at the Rehab Hospital at OSU and now I’m currently working in a cute Rehab Hospital called Select Specialty.

Where is that? They just bought the old Doctors North Hospital on Dennison and Third

(Avenues) and they’re rehabbing the building. It’s quite nice. Great, Great.

Well, I always joked about you had to be careful what you said because you’d never know if the person was related to someone in the community or was a relative because at that time it was such a closed knit group of people who lived at the home. I enjoyed hearing their stories about how they came to Columbus and survived.

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Well, very much. I think that’s one reason that I stayed was that I had this feeling that I was bringing life to these people that might have thought because they were coming to a nursing home, although at that time it was more like a retirement home rather than a nursing home. Most people walked rather than were in wheel chairs. I always had this feeling that I was carrying things from like L’dor v’dor, generation to generation. I always had that strong feeling that I was doing that work and so it brought me a lot of gratification and I hope that I did as well for the people that I served.

Certainly they are aware of the Jewish Holidays so there was no problem about getting off of work to observe them yourself even though you might go to a different temple rather than having services at Heritage House. I do remember one year the High Holidays were all in the middle of the week and all in the month of October pretty much so we weren’t working at that time. Activity staff and secretaries were not allowed to work but no one got work done for almost a whole month so next year they said, if that happens again, we’re allowed to work behind closed doors, and so we did. They also said that nurses and nursing aides couldn’t take off like we did. It wasn’t quite fair so we had to work. Although if you were observant and you were doing the holidays, they wouldn’t require that you work but you have to take it off as vacation just like everyone else, even though it was a Jewish agency. It was different because I did help the nursing home with the observance of all the holidays, having Rabbis come in at appropriate times, or other speakers, once I was doing the activity parts.

Well you know I really don’t have hobbies.

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I think my job was to have other people do the work and I just provide them with the supplies.

Very much, I’ve enjoyed my travels across the U.S. and I’ve enjoyed traveling outside the country as well.

Israel, China, Italy twice, Germany – which I wouldn’t go back to. I didn’t feel comfortable there. That’s about all for now.

I still belong to Hadassah. I’m a life member of Hadassah and a life member of National Council of Jewish Women and still belong to Beth Tikvah and its Sisterhood.

Oh, I was President of Beth Tikvah a couple of times, of Beth Tikvah, of Beth Tikvah years ago, Sisterhood, not the President, and helped run the kitchen there for a few years. When we moved to our current location helped get the kitchen up and running with the equipment. I had someone come in who knew how to wire everything and get that started. Wonderful.

I think…..When did you join? It would have been the Spring of 1962. They were just getting ready to move into the High Street building. I think Beth Tikvah people were still meeting at Hillel at OSU. That was really early on. Oh yes, I remember taking Bennett down in his little baby seat and doing the windows at Beth Tikvah on High
Street. Remarkable, you certainly did a lot for our congregation.

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Lets see, well this is sort of a funny one. The Sisterhood was in charge of doing social events and so we had to do one after a wedding and this cake came in. It was a beautiful cake but it had no decoration on top so Kathryn Lessler and I walked around the temple trying to find something. We found some fake flowers, artificial flowers I’d say plastic. We stuck them in the cake so that it would look complete. It just didn’t look complete with just this bare top. In came the people that were in the wedding, took out the flowers and put this frog on top. Apparently it had some meaning to the bride and groom. We never did find out. Here we are at the back of the social hall, the frog is on this cake. I could see the Rabbi up front leading the service with the bride and groom. I know he could look back and see this frog on the cake but he never cracked a smile. Who was the Rabbi then? Bennett Hermann. Okay, I’ve heard of him. Was he your first Rabbi? He was our first Rabbi. We did have student Rabbi’s from Cincinnati but Bennett Hermann was our first Rabbi.

I was always involved with Hadassah and served as President of that group for a couple of times too. I just enjoyed doing their things and their fund raising and just working with the people. You led a North Side group. Yes, Hadassah used to have groups in different areas and then it got too hard to get people to do the leadership of them anymore so it became one large Columbus area group.

Was it going on on the North Side when you first came? No.

Did you help organize it? It just started, yes. They were one of the first organizations that was based East Side that came North.

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I guess my favorite holiday would be Passover, a lot of cooking, but we all helped to put the dishes together. The kids liked chopping the nuts and apples for the Charosis and making the matzo balls. They participated in that, and of course setting the table with as many dishes as you had to have, of course, new dishes. You had to have special dishes and special silverware, polished and shined.

It would vary. We would have our parents come as much as we could. Sometimes another congregant would join.

I think it does, not as much as it used to when I had kids but we still are very observant of the High Holidays and respect them and attend services and do whatever I can for those holidays. I don’t light Shabbos candles like I used too. When my children were home I certainly did all that and made sure that they had religion in the home and made sure that they got to and from Hebrew School and Sunday School which was quite a chore back then because it was double sessions.

Sometimes the carpooling children lived much further away than our right next door neighbors.

Yes, I did but we lived in Worthington and I had to go clear to the Northland area to get a family because they worked and they couldn’t bring their children so I was able to do that. Well that’s wonderful. Then they shared the Sunday School driving. It made up for it. Do you remember their names? Kornguth (Jay and Pat).

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Roberta has been twice. I’ve never gotten Bennett to do that. I need to work on that.

Roberta very much was. I think Bennett to a lesser degree. I don’t think it was as organized as it got to be by the time Roberta came along. Roberta also went to the camp in Zionsville which was very important to her but I couldn’t get Bennett to go.

The Reform Camp? Right.

Oh from Beth Tikvah, yes. In fact she’s going to meet one coming up the next two weeks. They’re celebrating the year that they are going to turn 40 so they’re celebrating their birthdays together. That’s why I’m going to babysit. I think you went to a wedding, a Beth Tikvah wedding. Yes, that’s the same girl. Actually she does, she has several friends and whenever she can she sees them, that are from Beth Tikvah.

It was a very tight group, a half dozen or so of them.

Yes, a few. They tended to be a little older than she. They weren’t exactly in her grade but Emily Borus for one. She’s still very close to Emily today. It’s a small group of people in Worthington schools.

Not too much. Beth Tikvah really supplied our needs and because of the Youth Group being so strong, at least for Roberta, we didn’t feel like we had to join the East Side congregations or the Jewish Center as much.

Yes, very much. We talk at least once a week, if not more.

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Always being kind to one another. That’s important. Right.

I think my mother. She always made me think of how others felt and how I would want to be treated that’s how she would want us to treat others.

Tough times, you know I don’t think I had too many tough times. I would say a loving husband now that I think about it. He’s always been there to support me whenever I’ve run into problems and my children as well.