INTERVIEW WITH SAUL BARNETT
This interview for the Columbus Jewish Historical Society Oral History Project with Saul Barnett took place on Tuesday, November 2, 1983 at Heritage House, Columbus, Ohio. The interviewer is Lottie Lieberman. Mr. Barnett, born in 1892 resided in Columbus since 1916 and was interviewed at age 91. He spoke about early Columbus and his employment with Schiff’s and Lazarus.
Interviewer: This is an interview with Saul Barnett for the Federation Oral History Project by Lottie Lieberman at the Heritage House. The date is Tuesday, November 2, 1983.
Interviewer: What is your name?
Barnett: Shaul Barnett.
Interviewer: Where were you born?
Barnett: London, England.
Interviewer: When?
Barnett: September the fourth, 1892.
Interviewer: How long have you been in central Ohio, Columbus?
Barnett: Since 1916
Interviewer: How did you get here?
Barnett: On a train. Ha, ha, ha.
Interviewer: Ship?
Barnett: Ship!
Interviewer: Say it again.
Barnett: On a ship to New York. See, from London, we went to New York and I arrived in New York in 1896. 1896. I was four years old when I came here. In New York City until 1916. Things were bad in New York at that time and I had a sister here in Columbus, so I came here to visit here. Just supposed to visit here for about a month or so, but I liked it so well that I decided to stay here. Just to visit a sister of mine that live here. And she lived up north. And I was very much impressed with the views. When I came into Columbus, it seemed something altogether different than what I’d seen when I lived in New York. So different. When I took a cab from the railroad station to my sister’s home I got there in the evening. So the next day, it happened to be on a Saturday - my brother-in-law was a salesman and he happened to be in town. So they took me around Columbus. Down on High Street. And I was very much impressed with the lights in Columbus on High Street. They had these - I don’t know, what do they call it again, right across the street - the signs - the arch shape right across High Street. Of course, it was pretty hard for me to decide. I had to think about it.
Interviewer: You’re doing fine. Where did you shop when you were there?
Barnett: Where I shopped? It was on Sunday. We just went for a ride down High Street for the views. So when we came back home my sister asked me, "Well, how did you like Columbus?" I said, "Well, I’m very much impressed, I like it!" "Well, do you think you’d like to stay here?" I said, "I don’t know, I’ll have to think about it." So she said, "Well, all right." Stay at home, where I had a little niece, she was six years old at that time. We took little walks. We walked around. A couple of days after I was there, I said to my sister, "Sis, I’m goin’ to take a walk. I understand the Ohio State University is up around here. She said, "Yes, It’s only about four blocks from here. Why don't you go ahead?" I says, "I will." So I decided, I did. I walked down and after I’d been walking about a few minutes, I began to hear music. I looked around to see what it was, and I couldn’t - It sounded like a band. I said, "Well, what’s the celebration here, this time of the year, with a big, with a military band. So I kept going and finally I found myself up at the university.
And in the distance I saw uniformed men. Young men. Young fellows. And I found out it was the ROTC band and drill corps, and they were marching on the field and it was marvelous. Those uniforms that they wore, those blue uniforms were really out of this world at that time. Of course, it’s the same way today, but then it looked different, and the students around watching them looked so different. Not to what I had been accustomed to and to what you have today.
There the students wore suits and clothing. The girls wore skirts and blouses and saddle shoes. Not this hippy stuff that they wear today.
Interviewer: Now, can you give me a little bit of your family background. What congregation you belonged to.
Barnett: The what?
Interviewer: Your family background. One of ‘em says like they were one of the earliest Jewish families in Columbus. It says that when you came here, you’re from London. What did your father do?
Barnett: We came here and we lived in the ghetto in New York, and we lived in one part of the city, and we went from the ghetto moved a little further uptown, and finally we lived in sections that were a little more pleasant. On Delancey Street and those streets that you find in the ghetto in New York City. Interviewer. Do you belong or did you belong to any congregation in Columbus?
Barnett: I do belong presently. I did - when I came back from Service, I joined Tifereth Israel Congregation and belonged to that quite a while and I still belong. A member doesn’t pay any more dues, because being up as I am, what they would call an honorable member, because we at Heritage House have been told that we are honorary members and do not have to pay dues any more.
Interviewer: You don’t have to, believe me, you are a fine member of our congregation, Tifereth Israel. Do you belong to any charitable or social groups?
Barnett: I belong to the Jewish Federation, I belong to the Jewish Federation. That is not as a regular member, but I do pay every year - I subscribe to the Jewish Federation for the - what do you call it again?
Interviewer: Columbus Jewish Federation?
Barnett: Yeah. See, I’m not a member there, but I do every year for the oh, what do you call it?
Interviewer: For the organization?
Barnett: Yeah.
Interviewer: So, what was your military service. I mean, what rank did you have. Did you go overseas?
Barnett: Oh yes. I was drafted in nineteen hundred and eighteen, saw service as a Private.
Interviewer: As a Private?
Barnett: Yeah. In Camp Sherman. And went overseas in July in 1918. Saw action in two engagements. And then in the third engagement I was wounded and I came back to Columbus.
Interviewer: All right, and so your career, your job. What jobs did you have. How did you get along with your co-workers, did you have any promotions?
Barnett: Well, when I was in Columbus...
Interviewer: In other words, where did you work?
Barnett: I’m trying to think. When I was in Columbus about two weeks my sister brought up the same question, "Well, do you like Columbus, and do you want to stay here?"
I says, "I think I do, I think I’m going to try and find a job." I had been selling shoes, so I went looking in the Sunday Dispatch and I saw an ad there, "Shoe salesman wanted," and the address was at the Boston Store on High Street, and so I decided I was going to go there and apply. So I went there and at that time the shoe department- it was the Boston Store, but the shoe department was a rented department belonging to Robert Schiff, so he and I seemed to get along pretty well. He asked me questions and finally he decided to hire me.
So he hired me as a shoe salesman and there was another young man there and a young lady was cashier in that department. I worked there until I was called into the service. When I come back, I come down, I said to Mr. Schiff, "Robert, do I have a job, and he says, "You sure have. Take your hat and coat off and go to work!"
So then it was just a chain that had two stores at that time. One was the department in the Boston Store, and the other one was in Marion, Ohio. Then we finally decided they were going to spread out, so they leased a department in Piqua, Ohio, and I was sent down there as manager of that store. I was there for two years, and I was sent to Evansville, Indiana. I was there for a couple of years and I didn’t like it down there and I came back. The Schiff Company then was spreading out pretty well, so I came back to Columbus and I said to Robert, "I don’t like it down there, what can you do for me?" He said, "Well, I haven’t got a manager (there) but I can send you to one of the stores as an assistant manager, under my nephew, Bill Schiff. But I didn’t like that.
Interviewer: From there, where did you go?
Barnett: Well, that severed my connection with the Schiff Company at that time. So then I worked at Lazarus in the furnishings department and that, and they kind of liked me down there, and I wound up in the men’s clothing department and later on in the ladies’ shoe department at Lazarus. I was there for quite a while, and then the Wise Shoe Company from New York opened a store here - that was in nineteen hundred and twenty-eight. Yeah, in 1928.
Interviewer: What were you making at that time, do you remember?
Barnett: What do you mean?
Interviewer: Money.
Barnett: Money? Money was no object then. In those days, what you made, you made. When I went to work at the Schiff Company at the beginning, I worked for fifteen dollars a week. Then when I was made manager I made twenty-five and thirty, and I got thirty and thirty-five dollars a week. And when I worked at Lazarus we were on commission and we did pretty well. We used to average from thirty-five to fifty dollars a week.
Interviewer: That was pretty good then.
Barnett: Yes, that was pretty good - that was in that town.
Interviewer: When did you go to Gilbert’s?
Barnett: I went to Gilbert’s after I got married in 1929.
Interviewer: And you stayed there until you retired?
Barnett: No, in 1929 I went back to the Schiff Company, and from there I was sent to Tonawanda, New York, which is up around Buffalo, and then to St. Louis. I came back to Columbus and I joined Gilbert’s in 1935 and I worked at Gilbert’s from 1935 to 1971.
Interviewer: Well, you did very well. You were never out of a job.
Barnett: I wasn’t out of a job very long.
Interviewer: Tell me, how did you meet your wife?
Barnett: Well that was a question. One day, a young lady that I had known quite a while called me up, and said, "Saul, how would you like to go to a dance? Now not with me, because I’ve got my date. It’s a choice for two girls but there’s a visitor here and then another one, I think you have met her, Sayd Cohen. Yes, I remember her.
She has a date but there’s a visitor here and she seems to want to have a date with Sayd’s boyfriend. Would you like to come in and take Sayd so she can switch with this other girl. I said, it’s all right, a dance is a dance, so I can always have a good time. So I did. And that was how I met her and - oh, it’s so hard to remember.
Interviewer: Did you have a large wedding?
Barnett: Well, no. We had planned a wedding, but my sister became awfully ill, but she said, "I want to see you married." I says, "Okay." And the date was set.
Interviewer: How many children did you have?
Barnett: One son. I’ve got four grandchildren and two great-grandchildren
Interviewer: Are they living here?
Barnett: No. My son is in "heaven" - he’s in California. One of my grandchildren, a granddaughter is up in Maryland, and she has two children. Those are my great-grandchildren.
Interviewer: Do they come to visit you?
Barnett: Occasionally. They do come occasionally. Then I have a grandson who has just enlisted in the Marines.
Interviewer: Well, bless his heart. I wish him good luck.
Barnett: He’s down in South Carolina.
Interviewer: Saul, you have had religious upbringing.
Barnett: My parents were Orthodox, but when you get away from home, you have to sort of get away from that - to get away from kosher foods. When you’re working and when you’re out you have to go into restaurants and it’s awfully hard to get to keep up with kosher foods.
Interviewer: You were more Conservative?
Barnett: More Conservative. Yes.
Interviewer: Do you have any vacation periods that you’ve enjoyed? What are some favorite things you like to eat? First tell me, have you had many vacations in your life?
Barnett: Well, my wife and I first we went to Florida. Spent a vacation in Florida. We were supposed to be there two weeks, but we were only there one week. She took ill and we had to come back to Columbus. From then on that illness kept on for practically twenty years.
Interviewer: When did she pass away?
Barnett: She passed away June 12, 1976. I came here to the Heritage House in the middle of August, 1976.
Interviewer: Do you have any pleasant events, happy memories in your lifetime that you’d like to talk about?
Barnett: Not too much. As a person that has a nose to the grindstone all the time, that has to make a living, they don’t have too much of that.
Interviewer: I meant to ask you, "How much schooling did you have?"
Barnett: That’s it. My dad passed away. He was only 42 years old then, and I was just getting ready for Bar Mitzvah - I was just 12 years old. I had to quit school when I was 12 years old and had to go to work as a newsboy in New York City selling newspapers. I had a pile of newspapers on the one arm and had a shoeshine kit on my shoulder.
Interviewer: You had a hard way getting up there, but you did do very well.
Barnett: I did pretty well. I put my nose to the grindstone. I went to night school and got my...
Interviewer: High school?
Barnett: No, I didn’t go to high school. No, I got just my...
Interviewer: Degree?
Barnett: No, I didn’t get my degree. Just the primary degree. I got through the eighth grade and that was all. I quit when I was in the fifth grade in school and worked for three years and worked as a newsboy and so on, went to night school for three years that way, to get my primary education.
Interviewer: I’m going to ask you, being 91, what is your philosophy of life? What has been the outstanding importance - your family, job, politics, religion, friends?
Barnett: My family was the most important that I had.
Interviewer: How about your religion?
Barnett: Religion had become secondary, because when you have to work, or take a streetcar or a bus from where you live to go to Temple, why, you do not do too much ever, that’s all.
Interviewer: If your grandchildren were here, what advice would you give to them, in a few words?
Barnett: Well, I’ll tell you - I couldn’t tell them. This one grandson or mine - he’s twenty-one years old.
Interviewer: Would you say, "Be good Americans, be good Jews, that sort of thing?"
Barnett: Absolutely! Well, that is something - about being a good Jew. My granddaughter married a Gentile boy, and God bless him, he’s a wonderful boy. He’s a wonderful boy. If my son had married and been as happy with his Jewish wives, as my granddaughter is with her Gentile husband, I think Sayd and I would never have had the illnesses and troubles that we did have, because she had well, it’s a hard story to tell.
Interviewer: Well Saul, I know you, I knew your son when he lived here, and I know you did everything in the world to raise him right. What happened, they’re of age to do what they want, but it’s wonderful to know that your grandchildren are getting along well...
Barnett: My grandson is doing well, he’s in the - I wanted him to be, when he graduated high school, they lived in Parkersburg then, I asked him, "What are you going to do, Scott," he said, "Find a job." I said, "Want my advice? The best thing today for a young fellow, the way things are, enter the service, you’re with the army, the navy, the marines, take what you want." He says, "Oh, no, I don’t want any of that stuff." I said, "All right." The last year, he decided that he was going to join the Marines, and so he just went down there to camp, he just left last week. I haven’t heard from him yet, but I think he’ll be very happy and become - because he’s going to do what he can and go there mostly for his education- get four years of education down there.
Interviewer: Saul, I’m going to ask you a couple things. Who gave the decisions to your family budget, who disciplined your child, or your son, were there any grandparents involved, and you can answer that...
Barnett: No. I had no grandparents. You mean, to discipline my children, or my child, Evan, well we disciplined ourselves. We didn’t let the grandchildren, the grandparents - and of course, I didn’t have any grandparents. That is, I come here - I never knew my grandparents.
Interviewer: All right. Were anyone in your family created as a black sheep, you know, quote unquote- black sheep?
Barnett: Was there what?
Interviewer: Anyone in your family ever thought that either you or Sadie or Evan, your son, were there any black sheep the rest of the family didn’t care for?
Barnett: No. Okay. We came from a decent family, and we led a decent life.
Interviewer: Thank you.
Barnett: About my experience here at the Heritage House, I’ll tell you. I came here as I say, in 1976, it’s been a wonderful experience, it’s a wonderful place, and I’ve done all that I could and I’ve been very, very busy, I took a lot of interest in occupational therapy, I like that, and today, I’m what they call a glorified disk jockey. I get up in the morning at nine o’clock I’m on the intercom telling the residents, giving them the date, the weather, and telling them what the activities are for the day. Also I’m president of the Resident Council, and am Grandfather of the Year.
Interviewer: That sounds wonderful to me. I think we’ve concluded everything, Saul. I want to thank you very much.
Barnett: I only wish that could have had more of an idea of what you wanted, then I could have - possibly could have caught something up a little more interesting, but going - in order to do things right, to do things for you that I would like to have done, is made up a sort of resume of what I wanted to tell you, and we could have gone on from there. When you jump from one subject to another, it is awfully, awfully hard.
Interviewer: Well, maybe we can do that some day.
Barnett: When my mind isn’t like it used to be fifty years ago.
Interviewer: Maybe someday you can write a resume of what you’d like to- I’ll come down, we’ll go over it again.
Barnett: I’ll write it up for you. Now can I get you...
Interviewer: At home. Saul, I want to thank you for sharing your story with me.
Interviewer:This ends the interview of Sol Barnett by Lottie Lieberman for the Columbus Jewish Historical Society Oral History Project.
