This interview for the Columbus Jewish Historical Society Oral History Project with Myrtle Huhn is taking place October 23, 1996, at 516 Summit, Marion, Ohio. The Interviewer is Naomi Schottenstein.

Interviewer. What is your name?

Huhn. Myrtle Huhn.

Interviewer. The reason we’re interviewing Myrtle is because it is the 100 year anniversary of Temple Israel in Marion, Ohio. Myrtle, I’m going to ask you to give me a little bit of background of your own life - where and when you were born and a little about your family before you left illinois.

Huhn. I am 84 years old. I was born September 10, 1912 on Prairie Avenue on Chicago’s south side. I went to three grammar schools and the famous Hyde Park High School. I graduated and went to the University of Chicago for two years. That was in 1929. I don’t need to say anymore - that was during the Depression. Then I had to take a job and I worked for Continental Coffee Company for eleven years. Originally, I started as a biller then I became secretary to the credit manager. I left there to get married.

Interviewer. Can you tell me a little about your parents?

Huhn. My father was one of eight children who came from what is now Czechoslovakia. All his brothers and sisters immigrated to the United States and left just their parents behind. My mother was born in Lowell, Massachusetts and her parents were immigrants. Her father, Maurice Hirsch, came from Germany but her mother came from Czechoslovakia, the same small town that my father had been born in. They were what we called Landsmen. They made their home in Providence, Rhode Island for many years until they moved to Chicago. I don’t know why they did that. My mother and her brother grew up in Chicago.

Interviewer. Did you have sisters and brothers?

Huhn. I had two sisters. One died in 1980, I believe, at the age of 77. She was twelve years older than I. My other sister is eight years older than I and at 92, she still lives and is in Florida.

Interviewer. Can you tell me how you met your husband and when you got married?

Huhn. That was quite a story. I went to Tuscor, Montana, on my vacation because I had hay fever and I liked it so well that I kept going back every year until I finally met

my husband’s sister and mother who were staying at the same hotel. We became close friends, she visited me in Chicago and she invited me to visit her in Marion to meet her brother. And that’s how it all started.

Interviewer. That was your Marion connection. What was your husband doing at that time?

Huhn. He was a railroader which was very unusual for anyone of the Jewish religion. He was a clerk in the storekeeper’s office here in Marion until he was drafted during World War II. He would have had to serve in the infantry but he was very lucky. He knew shorthand and typing so they sent him to the Army War College in Washington D.C. instead of to a training camp in Arkansas or someplace like that.

Interviewer. Can you tell us how your husband came to Marion?

Huhn. He was three years old when the family moved from Greenville, Ohio to Marion and his father was going into business with a man by the name of Heff (I can’t think of his first name). They went into the clothing store business until, I guess, they found they couldn’t stand each others. They dissolved the business and my father-in-law went to work as an agent for New York Life Insurance. The family was very well known in Marion.

Interviewer. Do you remember how big the Jewish community was at that time? And the community at large?

Huhn. We always stayed around a level of about forty families but that was because there were so many returning veterans who came to Marion to set up businesses.

Interviewer. How did you adjust when you first came to Marion? You came from a bigger city - how did that work for you?

Huhn. Well, I had just lived for 2 ½ years in Washington and everyone said, "You won’t like it. It’s just too small." Well, I took to Marion like a duck takes to the water, as they say. I always felt right at home in Marion both with the Jewish people and the non Jewish people - the whole community. I always felt very welcome and was well-adjusted.

Interviewer. How soon after you were married and moved to Marion did you have your son?

Huhn. My son was born in Walter Reed Hospital in Washington D.C. He was ten months old when we moved to Marion in October 1945. I’ve been here fifty-one years.

Interviewer. Where does he live now?

Huhn. He lives in Highland Lakes, ten miles north of Westerville. He’s an attorney and his office is on Johnstown Road in Gahanna.

Interviewer. That’s where a lot of the population is moving now. Does you son have any children?

Huhn. He has one daughter. She’s twenty-five and is a graduate of Ohio State University. Her mother is also a graduate of Ohio State University and my son is a graduate of Ohio University and Ohio State University Law School. My son, after passing the Bar Exam, was admitted to the FBI and served with them for four and a half years on the west coast. His first assignment was in Portland and then he went to Los Angeles and that’s where my granddaughter was born.

Interviewer. He has an interesting background. Getting back to Marion - when you first came here, do you remember anything about the political picture? What was going on nationally?

Huhn. Of course, Truman was president. I think Marion was always a Republican stronghold, particularly because of Harding. I was shocked at how loyal and defensive they were about Harding when anyone said anything bad about him.

Interviewer. What was Harding’s connection to Marion?

Huhn. He was born in a little town called Iberia but he made his name as publisher of the Marion Star which is our newspaper to this day.

Interviewer. There was a negative attitude toward him?

Huhn. There were some scandals during his administration and public opinion labeled him as a very weak president. But since then, I think they are changing their minds a little - things weren’t as bad as people said. They talked about the Tea Pot Dome Scandal during his administration. No one said that he was crooked but that he was surrounded by some crooked people. I thought he made some wonderful choices and had some marvelous cabinet members.

Interviewer. Did you know any of his family from Marion?

Huhn. Actually he had a nephew who had a sanitarium in Columbus - The Harding Sanitarium was very famous. That was his great nephew.

Interviewer. Can you tell us anything about the effect of the Depression in Marion at the time you came?

Huhn. When I came to Marion, things were on the upswing. Businesses were booming and things were pretty good. We had the Depot where they made ammunition for the war. It employed a lot of people.

Interviewer. What about the effect of World War II on Marion?

Huhn. A lot of young men (and women) were drafted. The women joined the WACs or WAVEs. But the men in the Jewish community - we have a plaque in the library with the names of the men who served in World War II from the Marion community.

Interviewer. What about Marion’s economic development after World War II? How did Marion develop to where it is now?

Huhn. The population growth was slow compared to other places but it’s been steady and we have a lot of new homes and new sections opening up. They’re not all annexed to the city.

Interviewer. Can you give us an idea of what the population is now and what it was a number of years ago?

Huhn. I think it’s in the neighborhood of 40,000. I don’t know what it was then. Certainly the surrounding county has grown.

Interviewer. What county is this?

Huhn. Marion County.

Interviewer. When did you become involved in community work in Marion?

Huhn. The minute I stepped in. And there’s never been a dull moment since.

Interviewer. How did you start? What were the first activities?

Huhn. Well, my husband’s family was involved in with the Temple and the Council of Jewish Women which had been established 100 years ago, 1896. And I played Mah Jong so I fit right in with all the women. I was very much in demand for that.

Before I knew it, I was teaching Sunday School and from that point, I became superintendent. The next thing I knew, I was Temple secretary and then I was the first woman trustee on the Temple board. That was an interesting experience because the men really ignored me. They weren’t used to having a woman on the board and I was afraid to open my mouth...but it was a good experience.

Interviewer. You had to prove yourself first, didn’t you?

Huhn. Yes, and my name is on the plaque in the front hallway leading into the Temple. That was put there in 1953 when the Temple was built.

Interviewer. What about the rest of the community? Were you involved in other activities in Marion?

Huhn. I was on the board of about a dozen community projects. The building of the new hospital, the Marion County Federation of Women’s Clubs. We received the Club Home for a gift and then we built an addition to it. I’ve been involved in that - I’m a past president. Then I started working in the library after my husband passed away. I worked there full-time for fifteen years and part-time for ten years. Some of that time I worked at WMRN and did a radio show. The community pretty much knew what I sounded like from the radio. I’d talk to people and they’d say, "I’ve heard you someplace or met you somewhere," and then they’d say, "Hey, you’re the lady on the radio."

Interviewer. What was your radio show about?

Huhn. It was called "Music and Books" and it mostly plugged the different materials we had in the library. The radio station donated thirty minutes of time every Sunday to the library. I was the spokesperson - I wrote the script, selected the music - we played records. That was before we had tapes so I had to do it live until tapes were invented and then I could tape it ahead of time or if I went on vacation, I could tape 2-3 programs at once and then they could play them consecutively.

Interviewer. That was an interesting time for you. We’re going to get a little more into the heart of the Jewish community in Marion. With your background, you can probably fill us in about the synagogue. Is there more than one? When did it begin?

Huhn. We never had more than one and to my knowledge, it’s always been Reform. We have been connected to the UAHC - Union of American Hebrew Congregations. They met in each other’s homes until they finally found some club rooms here and there. They met in different places but never had formal services, to my knowledge, except on the High Holidays. It’s all outlined in the history of our congregation. One of our student rabbis did in 1992 and I made sure the Columbus Jewish Historical Society had a copy of that history. It tells all the different places they had to meet until they finally got a home on East Center Steet. It was a ______ of residence - I believe it had three stories and it was converted into our first real Temple.

Interviewer. What was it called?

Huhn. Either Marion Congregation of Israel or Temple Israel as it’s known now. We didn’t have a formal rabbi until 1948 when we got our first student rabbi from HUC - Rabbi Eugene Lippman. I believe he’s deceased but he became very famous. In fact, this is a commentary: my husband and I were married in the Congregation Temple of Washington D.C. The Rabbi who married us became famous - Rabbi Gerstenfeld - and when he retired, Rabbi Lippman took his place. Of course I knew him from Marion.

We have had student Rabbis every year since 1948 - I think all together about 35 or 36.

Interviewer. Where did the student rabbis come from?

Huhn. Cincinnati. They’d commute every other week. Sometimes there would be a difference in their schedules but they came bi-weekly.

Interviewer. So the Holidays were covered in tune of . . . .

Huhn. We had Rabbis come from Cincinnati since I belonged to the Congregation. But we also had a lay-person named Allen Tarshish, from Columbus, who would come for the High Holidays. He was very well liked. The whole service would be in English. There would be no Hebrew. We didn’t have an organ - we had a piano and a non-Jewish group from the community would do traditional music for the High Holidays which they didn’t do very well because they weren’t familiar with Hebrew when it came to singing but they did the best they could. When we moved into our new synagogue - which is our present synagogue - we had an organ.

Interviewer. Where is your present Temple Israel located?

Huhn. At the corner of Mt. Vernon and South Sefner Avenue. The exact address is 850 Mt. Vernon and it covers the entire Northeast corner.

Interviewer. Are there school rooms in the building? A social hall?

Huhn. We have school rooms and we have a lovely social hall. We could use more classrooms but we make do. We have to have a class on the stage and soemtimes we’ve had to have a class in the kitchen when we’ve been overflowing with children.

Interviewer. It sounds like you have an active participation.

Interviewer. The age groups vary so sometimes we’ll have a class with two children, sometimes with eight, so we have to adapt.

Interviewer. About how many families belong to Temple Israel at this time?

Huhn. I haven’t counted lately but I’d say 43 or 44.

Interviewer. Have you had many Jewish families move out of the community? Have some moved in?

Huhn. There’s always a little bit of what I call "traffic." New people coming in, older people going out. We’ve had some deaths - we had three last year and they were all good paying members so we’re trying to get a few more.

Interviewer. Do you feel all the Jewish people in the community belong to the Temple?

Huhn. I wish I could say they did but I’m sure there are Jewish families who do not affiliate with the Temple.

Interviewer. Is there any more you can tell us about the Temple? Can you tell us about the classes?

Huhn. Well, they have one class called history and one is called Holidays and then there is a kindergarten class as well as a first grade and a Confirmation class. I’m not really familiar since I’m not closely connected to the Sunday School.

Interviewer. Do you feel there’s probably a Confirmation class every year?

Huhn. We’ve had a lot of Bar/Bat Mitzvah which we didn’t have in the old days. But, of course, now Reform has embraced a lot of that. When I went to Sunday School in Chicago, I was confirmed. Girls didn’t have anything special and most boys weren’t Bar Mitzvah because it was not the custom in Reform Judaism and that’s where my family was affiliated.

Interviewer. So it’s a fairly recent custom - the Bar/Bat Mitzvah. Can you tell us a little bit how your Congregation celebrates Holidays as a small community?

Huhn. For example, we have a Chanukah Brunch every year that the Sisterhood runs. The Sunday School puts on a program and the Sisterhood prepares the traditional brunch with latkes and applesauce, herring and egg and tuna salad, etc. Families look forward to that, especially since their children are going to perform. There’s a lot of clicking of cameras, we all have a good time and it’s a fund raiser for the synagogue.

Then we have a community Sedar the second night of Passover. We may only have 30-40 people but they come from homes where there is not any kind of a Passover celebration and they enjoy getting together with members of the Congregation and one or two of the ladies are conscripted to prepare the traditional meal and we go from the beginning to the end with the traditional Sedar and all the symbols. One of our members conducts the Sedar beautifully. We said that after so many years, he finally got it right. And he’s got it down so it doesn’t take too long.

Interviewer. That’s encouraging, isn’t it? What about other holidays like Break the Fast after Yom Kippur?

Huhn. After Yom Kippur, we have a Break the Fast that is just super. Again, it’s a buffet that has to be set up in a hurry, after the closing services. Most everyone brings something. It’s like a potluck. Families stay - we have so many out-of-town families that belong but don’t live in Marion County. We have families from Canton, Tiffin, Crestline, Delaware, Galion - all the little towns around.

Interviewer. Do those people know how close they are to Columbus?

Huhn. Oh, yes. And some of them could go to Toledo but they said there’s something about Marion that keeps them here. The friendships, the warmth and concern. They must like the way we do things.

Interviewer. It’s a good, small community atmosphere. I think this fills us in pretty much on the religious aspect of Marion. Are there any Orthodox families in Marion?

Huhn. Oh, yes. They are absolutely on their own as far as kosher meat and so forth. But they seem to have adapted beautifully to the Temple. We’re the only "game" in town and they have to adjust. As far as I know, they seem to be very happy.

Interviewer. So they do their kosher shopping . . .

Huhn. Probably in Columbus, I’d imagine. We used to have a Greyhound Bus Service. They’d phone their orders into Martin’s - Martin would put it on the bus.

Interviewer. Let’s talk a little about Jewish organizations in Marion. Your affiliation with the Jewish Federation, Hadassah, etc.

Huhn. We’ve never had a Hadassah. We had a Council of Jewish Women which was organized in 1896 and they were the ones who more or less organized the Sunday School - as far as I know, from the history. We had a very active B’nai B’rith. We decided we’d be better off for the sake of the Sunday School and community if we dropped the Council and we became full-fledged Sisterhood and that’s what we’ve done. We are affiliated with the Women of Reformed Judaism - we have about 30 members. We support the Temple and are their right arm. Our fund raisers help. One is the Temple Israel New Year’s Journal. We raise about $1,000 a year on that and it pays a token reimbursement to the Sunday School teachers as an incentive to help. They’re all community people who are very much involved in work. Most women now-a-days work. It was easier in the past to get women to teach Sunday School because they didn’t have anything to do during the day.

Interviewer. How are Temple membership dues worked out?

Huhn. We have a minimum. No maximum, of course. There is a suggested schedule of payment for young couples, singles, etc.

Interviewer. Do you have any idea what that range is?

Huhn. Not really. It used to be $100 a year, then was raised to $125. The dues are very minimal compared to what they would be at a larger synagogue.

Interviewer. Can you tell us a little about Jewish education? Who teaches the children? Does a layperson work with them?

Huhn. I would say, over the years, Jerry, Betty’s husband, had been very instrumental teaching Bar/Bat Mitzvah. There are others in the community who know Hebrew and have helped the young people.

Interviewer. What is the minimum requirement for Bar/Bat Mitzvah?

Huhn. I’m not certain. They have to attend a certain amount of Friday night services, they have to faithfully attend Sunday School.

Interviewer. What about the social life in the community and how families inter-twine?

Huhn. Well, we’re all pretty sociable. We have our Sisterhood dinner meetings, our Chanukah brunch. We used to have more dinners as fund raisers but now it’s very hard to get people to work on weekends when they work all week long. But we found if we have a dinner before our Friday night services, we have a very good attendance. People seem to like that.

Interviewer. You mentioned Sisterhood - is there also a Brotherhood that is actively involved?

Huhn. Right now the "brothers" don’t have anything that I know of. B’nai B’rith went downhill.

Interviewer. So the men don’t have very much in the way of organized activities. Can you tell us a little about the cemetery in Marion and then about the Jewish cemetery?

Huhn. We didn’t have a Jewish cemetery for many years. Jews who lived and died here, were buried in the Marion Cemetery. My husband’s family were buried in Cincinnati.

Interviewer. Is the Marion Cemetery for all denominations?

Huhn. Yes. The Catholic cemetery is separate. But all the Protestants are in one cemetery. We finally got a plot of land and we call it Grand Prairie Cemetery. It’s about eight miles out of Marion. That is now the Marion Jewish Cemetery. We were very lucky - we had a windfall. Somebody wanted some land we owned and they bought it. With that money, we started the Cemetery Fund. Of course, we have sold plots. My husband is buried in the Jewish cemetery.

Interviewer. How much inter-action is there with Columbus and/or other communities?

Huhn. We have joined the Columbus Jewish Federation and support with donations. In that way, we’ve been able to use the Wexner Heritage House for several people in the community that needed a place to go that was Jewish oriented.

Interviewer. How is the solicitation done for the Columbus Jewish Federation here in Marion?

Huhn. We had people come and they told us about the Columbus Jewish Federation. We brought it up at a board meeting and the board thought it was a very good idea that we should belong. Then it was brought up at our annual meeting and the community as a whole endorsed it and that’s how we happen to belong.

Interviewer. When you say "annual meeting", is that an annual meeting of your membership?

Huhn. Yes. We meet every April.

Interviewer. What about other communities? You mentioned families from some small communities who come here.

Huhn. There’s no inter-action that I know of.

Interviewer. What are some of the other communities?

Huhn. Tiffin is an hour’s drive from here. It’s north. Crestline is north. Delaware is south.

Interviewer. Can you tell us a little about why Jews originally settled in Marion? This is before your personal history but there’s probably been talk about it.

Huhn. First of all, I think it was a place tht had business opportunities. It was a place for families to make a living and it was small.

Interviewer. What kinds of businesses did they go into?

Huhn. Clothing, jewelry, shoe stores - mostly merchants. Someone ran a deli, there was a grocery store run by Jewish people in the old days. My father-in-law was an insurance agent and he belonged to every non-Jewish group you can mention. He was a chartered member of the Rotary. Many of our Jewish merchants were very closely affiliated with the non-Jewish community.

Interviewer. Do you have any idea when Jews first came to Marion?

Huhn. It was early in the 1800s.

Interviewer. Have you seen a lot of changes in businesses in Marion?

Huhn. Oh, yes. After all, the coming of the malls caused a lot of businesses to close.

Interviewer. Are there large malls in Marion?

Huhn. We only have two malls and by Columbus standards, they’re very small. When my children come to visit, they like to go to the mall and they find things they don’t find in Columbus.

Interviewer. What kinds of stores are at your malls?

Huhn. The usual. A drug store, a department store, J.C. Penney’s, Sears, Walden Books, Hallmark, Radio Shack - that sort of thing.

SIDE B

Interviewer. We’re going to continue our interview with Myrtle Huhn. Just a couple more questions that I have in terms of Marion to other communtiies. What about things like shows? Theaters, concerts, etc.? Do you have those kinds of activities in Marion?

Huhn. We have a beautifully restored Palace Theater. It was one of those that was built in the 20's and it is very ornate. It is a beautiful building and it was restored and is a wonderful showplace. We have a lot of good concerts, travelogs, movies on weekends. Local groups put on shows at Christmas time and the local Dramatic Society uses it. In fact, the Mrs. Ohio Pageant will be at the Palace Theater this weekend.

Just to tell you a little about the Temple. We used to have performances put on and the skits were written by various members of the Congregation. One in particular, Joe Halberstein, wrote all kinds of reviews with Jewish themes but he’d use all kinds of music. We’d have a dinner in connection with this kind of entertainment. It eventually fell by the wayside. He didn’t feel like doing it anymore and ran out of themes. I did a couple but not to the extent Joe did.

Interviewer. I guess part of the reason I originally asked this question is because I’m originally from a small town north of here and I remember people from other small communities would go to Cleveland, Akron, Canton, Columbus for shows. Do the Jewish people in Marion have those connections as well? Would you come to Columbus for concerts, plays, etc.?

Huhn. Oh, yes. Very much so. I get a lot of material in the mail. I also get something from the Cincinnati Opera which I patronized in the past and they have my name on the mailing list. We get a lot of information about Columbus activities.

Interviewer. Do you people go to Toledo or Cleveland for activities? Or is that a little too far?

Huhn. I think that several of our Marion people are affiliated with the Delaware Orchestra and they play in that.

Interviewer. Can you tell us a little about the Succot you have at the Temple during the holidays?

Huhn. It always was a kind of rough type of thing. The parents of our Sunday School children put it up. It came down in pieces and was stored until the next year. The children made all kinds of things to hang in it along with the fruit and for the service, we would go out into the Succah and have a little ceremony. But this time, somebody got a plastic lattice and our custodian was wondering when we’d take it down but it looked so nice, we left it up. It kind of grew on us.

Simchat Torah is a big thing. All the children come and they wave the paper flags around. We get a hold of the Torah and those of us who can still dance - and we dance around in the social hall, passing the Torah around among the various congregants. We start with the end of the first Torah and start over again with the first Torah. We have two Torahs - we’re very fortunate.

Interviewer. It sounds like it’s quite meaningful.

Huhn. It’s very meaningful and is a very nice service. I had forgotten about that when you mentioned the holidays celebrations. On Purim, we have a carnival. We presently have thirteen members in our youth group and they usually plan and prepare the carnival for the younger children who participate in the games and food. Sisterhood members fix hotdogs, chips and drinks.

I forgot to mention "Chanukah Harry." We have a Judea Shop which is very successful. Two of our Sisterhood members run it and they get all kinds of merchandise that other Jewish people would not have access to. They have one Sunday where kids are allowed to pick out Chanukah presents for their parents. All the parents have to do is give them the money and then they’ll pick out what they think their parents would like and the gifts are even gift wrapped at this little shop. We call this "Chanukah Harry." I don’t know what the connection is with "Harry" . . .

Interviewer. It sounds like something Lazarus did years ago - shopping for the kids . . .

Huhn. That’s probably where they got the idea.