Cerrill Meister, Eddie Jacobs, and Bernard Slater

00:03 My name is Sarah Meister. I'll be 70 in June this year. Today's date. Oh dear. Somebody help me is Wednesday, May 1920-21. We live in Baltimore City, Maryland. And are we going to be speaking with my husband Eddie Jacobs? And that's why I mean that's who we are.

00:26 My name is Eddie Jacobs Jr. I'm 82 years old. I live in Baltimore, Maryland with my wife, Sarah and not anymore. But the other person BJ is my stepson.

00:45 And those are the relations like my partners.

00:51 I'm at BJ's later or do and I M 36. Today's date is Wednesday, May 19th, 2021. I am in a lovely Durham North Carolina and I'm speaking with my mother Sarah meister and my stepfather Eddie Jacobs Jr.

01:15 And I say, I thought it'd be interesting if we would talk a little bit about how both of you ended up in Baltimore because he should have took very different routes, take him to the same place starting in and sort of similar places. Would you start out with? I guess we're about being dead are from and how you, how they ended up in Austria, where you were born?

01:53 So my parents are from Dublin Poland, they they were able to survive the world war because they were on the Russian side of Poland and when the war ended and there is no place that, you know, they're there was no home to go back to in Poland. They ended up in displaced persons camps in Austria, and I was born there.

02:18 June 6th 1951 and my brother was born right at the end of World War II. He was born in January of 1945 and he also he, he was one of the few children actually in the DP camps. There weren't very many children at the time, was right after the war and then December 31st. We got on a plane and came to Baltimore. When I was in, when I was one and a half. We had family here in Baltimore and they sponsored us. So, that's how we ended up in Baltimore. And then, you know, my parents along with a lot of the other Jewish families who came to Baltimore. It ended up purchasing a little grocery store in a black neighborhood and we lived upstairs from the grocery store.

03:06 On that we move to Baltimore County as as they, my parents got a little bit more financially comfortable, but that's how I ended up here.

03:16 And Eddie, so I end in terms of Eastern Europe. Your, your family's from Lithuania. Is that right? My

03:29 Mother's father.

03:32 It was from Lithuania and his wife was from Prussia, which is Eastern Germany. My father's father was from Poland and my father's wife. My grandfather's wife was from Russia.

03:51 You know, they came here before the long before the war end of the eighteenth Century grandparents came fairly directly to to Baltimore. Yes. That my grandfather was.

04:31 I spent three or four years in the Russian army. And in those days, she would conscripts forecast for 25 years in order to break.

04:48 Anyway, he managed to get a pass to come home to see his mother and it was prearranged. They put them in up.

04:59 Why can't the wagon? And then he came here to to borrow Uncle. Who is here? And that's how he came here. My other grandfather had a colorful. Okay, poor very poor. And the family had, the parents had an arrangement with their children that at the, is a male at the age of 13 would be sent to different relatives, in Europe to learn trades. And then once they learn the trade and got on their feet, they were to send money back to the parents and that was a parent form of Social Security.

05:54 So he went to England when he was 15 and it's 17. He went to South Africa with a cousin to open a general store in the diamond Fields. So, when would this have been a man? Because, 1890, 18. So, so this would have been right around the time that there was a golden and diamond Russian in South Africa, and they went there and they had their store and about four or five years later. He had seen his mother since he was a journalist or whatever would need.

06:54 So, kind of like,

06:57 Employed where where, you know, the the these two guys, one of them Jewish open the General Store in in in a mining town, but this isn't in South Africa in the late eighteen hundreds. And so, did he overlap at all with the Boer war? That that we've been in? Okay, what is laid in the Boer War and by the time that he was to report, it was over. So they just went went back to the store. But during that time. He hasn't seen his parents in quite a while and wanted to see them at had sufficient funds to be able to purchase a steamship ticket to New York.

07:57 Preside. So he went basically on vacation to see his mother and while he was there. He was the man that always

08:08 Like to play cards and he also liked the horses. He wasn't a gambler in the sense that that's all he wants to do. But like, a little time I think you were saying before that that he was very conservative but like every so often he had like a fun like a live, it up a bit reasonable about anything he did. And so anyway, you got into a game and saloon and those days saloons a lot of them were family places. They work. You know what, that what you would think they would be. And he got into a car game and he was winning and the pot got bigger and he was able to contribute his share. And the, at the end of the game, one of the competitors.

09:08 Accept a deed to my bar. And my grandfather said sure, why not. So he wanted to hand you catch this far and suddenly realize this is not New York. It's in Catlettsburg, Kentucky. So he telegraphed his cousin become a man of property and that he was going to see his bar. So he went to Catlettsburg and got there and then he sold the bar and went to visit the other business and he decided that he needed a wife. So so I guess the where is Catlettsburg, Kentucky and then it did, it sounds like a small town in the middle of nowhere, okay.

10:03 So he goes there and he needs a wife and he writes to people that arranged those things and there was a girl in Philadelphia, who was a recent immigrant. She was willing and then they got married, all three of these children were born in Catlettsburg, Kentucky.

10:31 Then he said your mother my mother. And my two uncles were born in Catlettsburg, Kentucky. Okay, so and halfway between Lexington and and not much else. Charleston West Virginia. And so, you know, really serve on the edge. They're somewhat small community. Probably not a lot of Jews there. I mean, that a lot of anything there as far as I understand, it was

11:06 A logging Town, basically producing a lot of those boys. And so, like did he do the same have the same business. Basically, instead of catering to minors catering, to loggers that he got a letter from Carson's in Montgomery West Virginia, which is 30 miles, north of Charleston. And they were having problems with your business and see if then.

11:47 Fairly successful, they asked him to come and straighten their business out. So he packed up his wife and children and went to Montgomery West Virginia live there. During his time there. He was a successful businessman member of the board of the local bank, and other other business interests and Society, chamber-commerce, whatever. She

12:20 Was again the only two in the town other than his help the business, I guess. I've two two big questions here. So so what what were they doing there? And, and does your did your mother remember, any of like leave the Townsend? And how did she did? She like

13:08 Casper. But she had a lot of memories.

13:14 Where they grew up. So I mean, so I guess Montgomery is a fairly major coal town.

13:26 Well, it's a yeah, it's in the coalfields. It's a it's a coal town.

13:32 It looks like that there was there was the cousins were in the well, this was so no alcohol. They were in the near beer business and they were in the ice cream that is probably Kentucky and pretzel Western Pennsylvania for the company. And, you know, he was but their Chief salesman and turn them around.

14:11 So the next time they were having the coalfields were again, having problems as an adult many years ago.

14:28 I saw a picture of this.

14:32 Very gentle, man.

14:36 I always do well dress, you do a three piece suit boat. I always, and it was very formal person that has jacket was open. I just got a pearl-handled revolver, highways things like that for his protection, about nothing about it. To me was a very gentle, man. So, anyway, so right. My mother was extremely bright and he asked her where she wanted to go to college and such as she wanted to go to Baltimore City.

15:33 So she went there and my father met her there, they married and she became a resident phone. So before we are. Yeah, that that's how you ended up here. But so what is your like? What did your mother tell you about her time in? And West Virginia? I'm at Montgomery West Virginia. I mean, because it's a tiny place and she was the oldest of the three switch. My uncles were not very happy since it was just a small school and a few good student good. And when he would travel, which was like Sunday night through Friday night to Friday.

16:29 She was in charge of the boys education if their results were good. It was on her to improve their self. So she served Joshua and Enzo.

17:02 Charleston West, Virginia, and there were two Catholic lead ladies that were unmarried just they were sisters and they had an electric car. So since there was no Catholic Church in Montgomery, and obviously, no, synagogue my mother and subsequently her brothers were driven into

17:32 Directions to Charleston dropped off at the synagogue church, and then they were finished. They came back, picked them up and took them back. That's really nice. Little

17:51 Community community in a 10-minute workout. Well, yes.

17:58 So, you know, after all of their, their schooling up until this point and then your grandfather did fairly well as a businessman, even though it sounds like he didn't have much formal training. As you know, is, who is sourav sent out, but he read all the major Works in English. Arab be one of the encyclopedias was he was, he was, he was self-educated.

18:38 And so I mean I guess it's I mean, I know a little bit more about, you know, your mother and and her two brothers. So, how'd you know, how did she choose shelter? I'm in and I know that you went to the tenants had means, go to all his children and say, where do you want to go to college? And in those days, you had money, you could go to college. So she she said I want to go to her. So she wants to go out you

19:25 He was an engineer and his younger brother went to MIT. It was also an inch.

19:34 And my mother graduated Phi Beta Kappa.

19:39 And So Cal sure was a women's college lady, lady turned out young ladies that were well-educated but also young ladies.

20:02 Many of the some of the women in her class. When was the real estate company, there were a couple of lawyers. That was a judge, you know, even in those days. He succeeded quite nicely.

20:32 So it's a very funny how your grandfather's have turned a winning a hand at at in poker at at some Lower East Side, Saloon into what, three well-educated children, you know, I'm not quite ivy league, but pain is, I'm not saying, you know, it's anything to turn your nose up. They don't happen to be in the same Sports conference so that they don't get that. But my grandfather was extremely big on education.

21:16 There's something he didn't get the opportunity to take advantage of myself or I was born.

21:36 It's a I guess, you know, this conversation. We are thinking about this conversation and you know that it is the quintessential American American story and American dream that people who came from virtually nothing and was able to not just do what you do, not just survive, but Thrive and and still extremely well.

22:03 So, you know, and also it is also very funny.

22:08 Like going west story, you know, the, you know, when a bar wander out, you know, set up a general store and

22:22 Yeah, just fascinating to me that he should have ended up and in three mining towns. I mean, he just sort of found I guess what really worked and so you know it down, wanted it in South Africa. It's like all right. I know how to do this. I'm going to ask you the same thing and in Kentucky and it's like, alright, well, you know something in West Virginia to do, you know, that's a young.

23:00 It's just practical idea and the others seem is through their lives. His parents receive money from all their children, so that they have to work.

23:16 Not at all. So I guess I'll okay. I'll keep that in mind. So I guess one of the things that I didn't know well before we're talking about it, now is a man. I guess I never imagined.

23:38 How ice cream was sold back then. I mean, I said that you didn't have ice cream trucks with you. Know. The little songs though at some method of keeping it refrigerated until I got to the store. That was. So, what's near beer.

24:07 That was legal during the

24:12 Like to drink a beer to get drunk.

24:21 So any other questions and your dad?

24:29 His father was a tailor and he had a business Ellis Island. In fact that they got married.

24:59 And she was.

25:03 He was a good athlete and

25:07 When he was growing up and lived across the street from a very nice public park with tennis courts, learn to play tennis and became extremely good at it as a junior and even as a senior at he got a scholarship to go to college University of Pittsburgh Italian. When he got out there was no pro circuit professional so he had to go to work for a living.

25:41 That's what he said. That my mother actually, my, his younger brother dated my mother and I guess he got interested. And he dated and married to. My uncle is younger brother, didn't seem to put out though.

26:01 And then he works for.

26:05 Heck's department store in the menswear and then he became a buyer. And then he decided he wanted to become merchandise manager and he was a war inside a World War II that he ended up in ya, two children that they drafted him anyway, and then three months after they drafted they were stop drafting then with children. So what state was in the ladies?

26:51 In those days.

26:53 People really didn't think much about.

26:57 You know.

26:59 That Emily was part of their life. So you got drafted. That's it. Come out to take care of your children. Do what you got to do.

27:13 When so it's your father is the one day that started the

27:22 Sewing and clothing, seems to be part of our family history because we trained as a seamstress when she was in, when she was in Poland. She

27:41 She was participating in the Orchard School, ort. And I forgive me. I don't remember what it stands for, but they trained young people for to learn trades. And they prepare young people to learn trades and it was a Jewish organization and Sushi became seamstress. And she, and her sister is not a fact, it's one of the great ways that she was able to survive during the war by supporting a family sewing for military wife.

28:19 And later, you know, just selling for the public.

28:23 And after the war,

28:27 When they were in, when my parents were in the DP camps, my mother, then started teaching other women, how to be a seamstress. So that people would have a trade when they came to the states, probably by the 767, but none the less, you know, people had the capacity to earn a living which was really critical. And then later of Bobby from a surrounded by a bunch of women that I think she had taught. So, you know, what was that? A tortie my mother. A Bubby it was

29:27 And the DP camps 4646 until we left it, which would have been in 52. So during that time. My mother would have taught women how to sew and that you know, they would have

29:49 And they're working, all, you know, she was recognized for her work in the community and there would be she was one of the older women in the camps and a lot of the women were single and I'm sure that their spouses during that time while they were in the DP camps and these were just all of her students.

30:10 You know, that you taught them this and and the people in the DP camps became their family because they didn't have any other family.

30:22 So when we came to Baltimore in a lot of our friends, a lot of the friends that they had made during the camps, were also in Baltimore at, this was our extended family and they would get together regularly 2015-20 couples. This was their social group and there were people that that they knew from from the DP camps.

30:47 So, when she came to the states, and really seeing a big seamstress was not a, just not something that you that she's able to earn a living. They aren't the living in the grocery store, but she's sold for all of us, all of her children, and all of her children. She sewed for certainly soap for me and herself. And maybe a few things for her, husband or son. But as time went on sold for her daughter-in-law, and all of her grandchildren and

31:20 Did a little bit of work for specific customers that you would do alterations, but primarily she sewed for us and she sewed for me until she was Sky, Wednesday in the Welter 80s, and then till she really just didn't have the capacity to do that anymore. So, if so,

31:43 Precious commodity and also like something that is really sort of interesting and funny it in a mirroring of the stories that they opened a donut shop and rosette shop in Oceanside small business, you know, the right spot and zerah, father my grandfather and end your, your father liked to play cards until one of the things that I remember when I was young is like, he'd come back with his winnings and, and they, they wouldn't play poker is slightly different, but I assume with all the other, these, the family that they had, like, you know, Thursday nights or something, he'd he'd go and play cards and, you know, maybe at least what I was aware of. It was like, you know, 5 10 bucks or so.

32:43 He also has he would go to Atlantic City.

32:56 No, no abuse of your, No gambling, but really would like to play cards. He wasn't into horses so much, but I really enjoyed playing cards.

33:06 So he needs to be a family trait.

33:14 Part of being that social, you know, relationship among people.

33:25 Social contact and not risking your family's money.

33:35 Their maintenance. And also, I think it was

33:44 Exorcist put on the fact that you had to learn a trade so that you could survive that whether or not you go to school. You know, like it was a it was a given. It wasn't, you know, did you, you know, do you want to go to college? Do you not want to go to college know, you're going to college? It's like, we're going to go. It wasn't, you know, you at the heat, you know, that's how they did it. And there weren't a lot of Trades that were open. So they have to do the things that they could, you know, that were portable that they could take with them.

34:44 Case, they have to leave.

34:50 Hey, it's not something I hadn't appreciated before was while there's just such a different stories. Like the the similarities between them are are fascinating to me that, you know, it's it's

35:04 First families.

35:06 You came in very different ways but is stablished their nose basically. Small businesses and different trades, but, you know, having that that Common Thread and I'll save it just, I don't know why it's so funny to me. But having, you know, the two men that like to play cards every so often, you know, not not to accept but you know every so often you get, get that little bit of gambling in Bluff, little steam.

35:37 Thank you, Joe. You did a good job. Thank you for sharing the story than me. And I know I've gotten bits and pieces over the years, but it's nice stuff to really have like that.

35:50 Hope the gunships filled out. Hold the whole story from, you know, start to finish.

35:56 One of us, really is one of our favorite family stories. You don't getting you know that.

36:11 My grandfather not as much because he had, you know, a business in South Africa, but everybody else that came here.

36:22 Yep, basically, came here with nothing.

36:27 Yep, survivalist just survivors.

36:35 Good job. Thank you, dear.

36:40 Thank you so much. Thank you, baby cakes. I'm glad I'm glad we had an opportunity to do this. So thank you very much. Thanks storycorps.

36:51 Yes.