Carol Cole Kleinman, M.D., childhood follow-up interview

00:01 Hi, this is Ellie Kleinman It is Thursday, December 14, 2023. It's the last night of Hanukkah, and I'm interviewing for a second time my mother, Dr. Carol Kleinman This is a follow up interview to the first one we did last week about her childhood. And there were a few questions I wanted to follow up on. And so we're going to do that right now.

00:32 And this is Carol Kleinman being interviewed by my beautiful daughter, Ellie Kleinman And I think tonight, which is December 14, 2023, the last night of Hanukkah, here we're going to continue talking a little bit about growing up in Kansas City. As I mentioned earlier, when I was in ninth grade, my parents moved across the state line into Missouri. And I went to Southwest High School. But I maintained a close friendship with my friend Robbie Rose was her name at the time, and her family, they were very welcoming to both me and my family. Robby's uncle had a place on Lake Lodawana and they used to go there for holidays and they would invite us to go, too. And he had a boat. I remember that. And that was very fun. Robby and I went to Girl Scout camp together. Scouting was a very successful activity for young people in Kansas City. And I went all through being a Brownie and all the way to finishing my Menorah Award, which was the equivalent of Eagle Scout. And, you know, there were service requirements and you had to earn badges, etc. Robbie and I went together to Girl Scout camp in the Ozarks together when we were 11. And let's see, in terms of other friends I had, I had a group of friends who at Southwest, we were all kind of college oriented and many of us were very idealistic. John F. Kennedy was president. And interestingly enough, a number of my classmates and friends, we all came to Washington after we graduated from college to. We wanted to work for the government or contribute to our country in one way or the other. And I've maintained those relationships even to this day. Day.

03:09 Do you want to tell me about some of your favorite activities that you did as a child? You mentioned Girl Scouts. But besides that.

03:20 You know, my memory is that, you know, as a kid, when I was in early elementary school and stuff, we. I used to play games with friends. I remember one, you know, we used to have a lot of pretend play house. I remember going over to one friend's house. Our parents had some furniture and stuff in the garage and I don't know, we must have played house. Another friend had all kinds of things like a blackboard and whatever. And we would play school. My parents had a lot of friends with young children. And when we visited, you know, this was tv. Wasn't really much around then. There wasn't much.

04:06 When did that happen? How old were you when you got your first TV?

04:09 I think. I think I must have been about 7 or 8. But you know, like we watched Howdy Doody, we watched Superman, we watched Hopalong Cassidy and Cisco Kid and Golly, there was these quiz shows, what's My Line and Milton Burrow we used to watch. It was a family activity to watch tv. It was very different than it is now, where everybody has their own phone and kind of goes off. You know, you sit together and you.

04:46 Didn'T have remote controls then either, right?

04:48 No. And the reason my parents got a TV was that when they started to come out, apparently all the kids in the neighborhood would go over to this person's house whose family had a tv. And so they were trying to get us to come back and play closer to home again. In the evenings we would. This was when I was a kid, before I was in high school. We played in the neighborhood was very safe, we played outside. We had a very big yard when we lived in Johnson County. So I guess I was quite focused on getting into a good college. I was trying to get good grades so I would get a scholarship and I. You needed activities as well as grades. So I was very active in my youth group at Temple Binayahuda in Kansas City. Was very good friends with the rabbi at that time. Can you stop it? Okay. I also had part time job. I worked on Thursday night and Saturdays at a department stores selling women's clothes. And I like that. I mean, I liked selling clothes and I like clothes. It was a little bit hard for me because I had to. I couldn't spend any of my money that I earned. I had to save it. So that was frustrating. I remember, you know, growing up, the big thing was sweater and skirts that were dyed to match. And I don't recall that I had any of those because my mom made all my clothes and my sister's as well. So we really didn't have a choice. Either we wore the clothes that she made for us or, you know, we wouldn't get new clothes. So fortunately, I mean, she was a wonderful dress designer and she sewed beautifully. It just wasn't what everybody else was wearing. And at that time, that's what you want to do is you want to look like everybody else. So aside, let's see from working. And.

07:32 What was the name of the department store?

07:34 Oh, I worked for several. First one was Hartsville's, which was a. Doesn't exist anymore, but it was a very fine store in Kansas City. I worked downtown. And I used to like my breaks because I would go next door to. I think it was called Mule Box, and I would have these beautiful English muffins. Wolferman English muffins. Maybe it was called Wolferman's and it would have whipped butter on it. And actually they now make those independently, even though the store doesn't exist anymore. And LA gave me some last year for Hanukkah, which were very enjoyable. They didn't taste exactly like they did when I was a kid, but, you know, they must have had special ovens and stuff that made it so good. I had to do a lot of babysitting for my brother, younger brother and sister. My mother started leaving me in charge when I was 11 years old. And they had a lot of friends. My parents socialized a lot. And that was, I'm sure, built on the friendships and relationships that they had from Germany. And on the weekends, we always went out to visit my Aunt Irma and Uncle Carl. They had a farm out in Hickman Mills, Missouri. And the family would all go out there and we would, you know, play outside and gather eggs. And my aunt was a very good cook. We used to have coffee and chocolate chip cookies in the afternoon. It was a lot of fun. And I guess I don't know if I mentioned that When I was 16, I was selected because of my proficiency in Spanish.

09:41 You did. You talked about Spanish?

09:43 I talked about that. Yeah, I did that. Okay, so that was a junior in high school and.

09:49 But you didn't mention, I think. Didn't you see Bobby Kennedy when you were there?

09:53 Oh, no, I saw Teddy Kennedy.

09:55 You did tell us that story.

09:57 Oh, it was in Venezuela at that time. Venezuela had a lot of problems, political problems, and actually they had been visited by Richard Nixon on behalf of President Eisenhower, and apparently tomatoes had been thrown at him and Parade. So that we were staying with people from the Red Cross in like, my countries were Colombia, Venezuela and Mexico. And they put us up in a hotel in Venezuela rather than with a family. So I can't remember the. Maybe the hotel was called Hotel Tamanaco or something like that. And Teddy Kennedy was on a trip for his brother visiting Venezuela, and he apparently was staying in the same hotel. So I remember in the evening, maybe I was going down to dinner or something, and I ran into him in the hall. And so he asked me if I knew where certain band was playing. And I said, no, but could I have your autograph? And that's what I remember. Somewhere around here, I do have his autograph. I'll have to look for it when I go through a lot of my things. So I did look at quite a few different colleges. I was interested in going to one of the Eastern girls schools or to Brandeis University or Northwestern. I think that was, at that time, my safe school. And I did get into a number of schools, but I didn't get scholarships. The only school I got a good scholarship from was Northwestern. And so that's where I went. And it was a very fine school, was a beautiful campus. I got a very good education there. And I think in retrospect, I mean, I'm not sorry I went there. I think everything turned out well. But because of the kind of people that they attracted, very ambitious, talented people. I think that maybe if I'd gone to a smaller school, I would have formed more relation, you know, closer relationship. But that may just be in my mind. I find myself at this stage of my life reaching out to people that I haven't seen in a long time. And we build on the relationship that we had when we were younger and when we shared, you know, a certain time and a place.

13:03 Yeah, that makes sense. That makes sense. All right, well, let me move on. Okay, so I want to know, what did you used to do? So in the 1950s, you were born in 1945, so you would have been. We're talking now the. Like the late 50s, really, actually into the 60s. I. What, so late 50s, maybe early 60s. What did you used to do when you would go out on dates? And where did you go? And are there any special dates or boyfriends that you remember that you want to tell me about?

13:48 Well, when we went out on dates, I guess we went to parties. We went to dance every year. You know, there were things called, like the Matzah Ball. It was, you know, spring ball. I think it was mostly Jewish activities through the. Through the Jewish community there, but also through my high school, I guess I always went to the homecoming dance. And they used to have some dances on Friday afternoon at the YMCA across the street from my house. I can't say that I had any one special boyfriend. I did have crushes on a few people, but they weren't reciprocated. So I'd rather not embarrass myself by mentioning their names. But I enjoyed going out. You asked me what we did, what came to my mind was going out for pizza after the date. I think we must have eaten a lot of pizza.

15:03 You did.

15:05 And another place that was very popular was called Winstead's. And a lot of kids in high school would go there and hang out after school. But I was not permitted to do any of that hanging out. No, but the food was good. I like their hamburgers.

15:26 Yeah. You still do.

15:27 Yeah.

15:28 And they still exist. Did they have McDonald's?

15:30 McDonald's. I introduced my parents to McDonald's. My brother still remembers that. I. He was a little kid, and so I persuaded the family to go for to McDonald's. I remember French fries were 15 cents, you know, and a ham. I mean, you could feed a whole family five people for $5 when they first opened up.

15:57 It's kind of amazing, but it wasn't worth as much money.

16:00 $5? No. A package of chewing gum cost $0.05. And, you know, there was a lot of delicious penny candy. Remember that?

16:14 All right, well, thanks for answering that. And my last question right now. This is a little bit of a shorter interview than the last one is. Tell me a little more about your relationships with your siblings as well as about your trip to London with your sister Anne when you were 18.

16:35 Okay. My sister was three years younger than I was. And, you know, that's not so much. That's not such an age difference when you're older, but when you're young, it's quite an age difference, you know, like, for example, when I started high school in the ninth grade, my sister was in sixth grade. Let's see, how old are you when you start high school?

17:06 Like 14.

17:07 14. So my brother at that age would have been one. And actually, when I went off to college in 1962, I graduated from high school in 1962. My brother was four years old. One thing I did want, this does remind me of was that, you know, my parents had never been back to Europe since they left in 1938 when I was 17 years old, they went back to Germany to see what had happened to the homes they grew up in and property. My father family had quite a bit of property, and so I stayed with my brother and sister. And I remember My brother was 4, and they were very careful with letting me use the car. But while they were gone there, I remember I had to take him to whatever daycare while I was in school and so forth. We did have my Aunt Millie and some relatives I think checked up on us. We weren't completely alone, but that was A big responsibility, actually, when I think about it, because I had my sister to take care of, who was 14.

18:32 I'm sure she listened to everything you.

18:33 Told her to do. No, not at all. And then my little brother. So they went there, and it was a very difficult trip for them. My father, Germans keep very good records. He was able to go into the banks that his father dealt with. And he could see where his father would have to request money to buy food or to buy coal, and how it was refused at different times. And he found letters that had been written by my grandfather from a concentration camp. And it just was heartbreaking for my dad. The house that he loved and grew up in was a pile of rubble. And he had had to. He had had to sell that property because he couldn't afford to pay the taxes on it when he moved to the United States. But, you know, that was all gone. And they saw my mother went to the home that she had in Gyland Kirschen. And I remember her coming home and saying it was now an ice cream parlor. It's changed many times since then. Most recently when I was there, I've taken three of my five grandchildren there to see where their grandparents came from. But where the house was is now in the central part of downtown Gielenkirchen. And, you know, there's just no replica of the kind of countryish town, a small town, than it was when they first went back. And then you asked me to talk about my trip to England. My father had an uncle. It was his mother. Her name was Selma. She had. That would have been my grandmother. She had, I believe, three sisters and two brothers. And one of the brothers was a bachelor. His name was Daniel Meyer, and he lived in London. And he was a very successful businessman. And when.

21:01 So he went to London after the war, or during the war, rather.

21:04 Well, he was. I think he had already left. He was one of the people that encouraged my father to leave Germany. And he had done very well. I had heard that he invested. You know, he was thinking about the future. He invested in motorcycles during the war. And so after the war, there was a tremendous demand for motorcycles. But one thing that happened was my father's sister, who was 13. Younger, 13 years younger than he was.

21:40 Annalisa.

21:41 Annalisa could not get out of Germany. And Uncle Danny, who was in a position where he could have sponsored her in England, did not feel up to it because, as I said, he was a bachelor. And apparently my aunt was quite spoiled. And I think he. He was concerned that he couldn't handle it. And as a consequence, she died in one of the concentration camps. And we always thought that as a way of expressing his deep sadness and apologizing to my father, he invited my sister and I to spend a summer with him. And by that time he had married. And his wife, he married very late in life in London. And that was a wonderful experience. He had a beautiful house in a very well to do area near Hampstead Heath. And, you know, they really went out of their way to do nice things for us. They took us to concerts, Victoria and Albert hall, they took us to Wimbledon. You know, I didn't appreciate those at that time, what all these things were. But I remember they took us out to very nice restaurants for dinner. They gave us lots of spending money so we would not be without money. And they sent us to. It was very rainy there in England, and I do think it was hard for them, frankly, to have two teenage girls there. You know, people who were older at that time and not used to having children around. So they sent us to England, to Israel for several. I think it was a six week trip.

23:43 Wow.

23:43 Amazing. Yeah. So, I mean, in retrospect, that was really quite amazing because we got to go to Israel in 1968. So it was a brand new country, you know, then, and looked very different than it does now. We lived on a kibbutz. And I do remember I used to go and I had another aunt and uncle, Uncle Alfred and Aunt Rosa, who had. That was Uncle Danny's and my grandmother's, another brother. And they lived in Cleveland, Ohio, but they had moved temporarily in their old age to Haifa. So I used to take the bus with Ann on the weekend to visit them in Haifa. And then coming back, I do remember we hitchhiked with some Arabs, you know, it was really. Yeah, I mean, it was a very peaceful time there. It was very different than it is now. You know, they had. They took us close to where we had to go because we had. We took the bus and I don't know, it was just a different time.

24:56 It's amazing that you hitchhiked in that time.

24:58 I know. It's the only time in my life I wasn't by myself. I think I was with some other young people, but no, I never. I was raised to be very careful and not take risks like hitchhiking or things like that. And that's okay because I missed out on a lot of traumatic experiences which I didn't need.

25:24 That's true. Are there any other things about the trips that you Remember that? You want to share?

25:27 Well, they sent us to Italy.

25:29 Oh, my gosh, how many weeks was this for?

25:34 We were there the whole summer. I remember we went to Venice and we went to a beach resort called Jezelo, which was not too far from.

25:45 Were they with you?

25:47 No, no. They sent us with some English youth groups, so we went with some young English people. Oh, and I did have a crush on this guy when I went to Israel. His. I think his name. I don't want to mention his name, but in any event, I think I must have met him on the. We took a boat over from Marseilles. We took a train, probably, or a bus down to Marseille, France. And we took a boat, it was an Italian boat across the Mediterranean to Israel. And I just thought, this guy. I remember having a big crush on him and going for walks with him in England in the parks. They had beautiful parks. And then I think he must have been coming back on the same boat that we were on. So we got to dance and stuff, and, you know, that was all great fun.

26:59 That's nice. That's nice. How was your. Do you remember how your relationship with Ann was when you were on that trip? Did you all get along?

27:09 Well, My sister has always been very chatty and outgoing and she flirts with everyone. And so my. If we talk about it now, because she feels sorry for me, she remembers my mother telling me that I had to keep an eye out on her. That was a lot of responsibility. But again, three years was a big difference. I was at the time when we went, I was 18. I was already in college. She was 15. She was, what, a sophomore in high school? Junior in high school. So it was a very different thing. But it was a lovely experience. And I think I had the fantasy that I'd get to do a lot of traveling as an adult. I got to do some, but not as much as I would have liked to. I spent a lot of time going to graduate school and raising a family. Yeah.

28:13 Which we can hopefully talk about in a future interview. I guess just to wrap this up, since it's the last night of Hanukkah, I. Maybe you might try to think back if you have any special memories of Hanukkah from growing up or anything like that that you might want to share.

28:30 Well, that's a nice suggestion. My parents observed every Jewish holiday and even some of the non Jewish ones, because that's what the custom had been when they were growing up. For example, my mother would hide Easter eggs and chocolate outside at Easter. Not that we celebrated Easter, but that was just kind of part of celebrating the holiday. And we lit candles every night for eight nights. And we were all together. We got presents every night. Even if it was a little present, we always got something. And one of the nicest presents I remember was a. A doll that was the size of a baby. And there are some pictures that exist of me holding that doll. I must have liked it a lot. My mother built a dollhouse for me when I was younger. As I said, she was very handy and she tried to make us materially as comfortable as she could.

29:50 That sounds nice. Well, I think. Is there anything else you want to share about your childhood or anything else? Because then I think for our next interview, we're going to move on to some other topics. But.

30:05 I just remember, you know, things got more stable financially after my brother was born. My father was able. Actually, the same Uncle Danny who sponsored our trip to England, I think he gave my father at that time was a lot of money, $10,000. And he was able to buy a business and start his own floor covering business. And I think financially things improved a lot then. But, you know, so it was like. If you would talk to my brother now about what it was like growing up, he had a very different kind of life than my sister and I did because my parents were just trying to get their feet on the ground, you know, after the war and things like that.

31:06 All right, well, thank you so much. I love you.

31:09 Love you, too.

31:10 Look forward to the next interview.

31:12 Me too, honey. Thank you.

31:13 Oh, and by the way, I should have mentioned at the beginning, I am 53 years old and you are.

31:19 I'm still 78.

31:20 Okay, for a little while longer. All right, thank you.