Julien Bloom and Bruce Bloom

00:03 I'm dr. Bruce Bloom. I'm 57 years old. Today's date is October 15th, 2013. We're at the Chicago Cultural Center and I'm interviewing my father and my name is Julian F Bloom the F stands for Fells. I'm age 82 today's date is October 15th. 2013. A location is the Chicago Cultural Center and relationship to my interviewer is he's my son.

00:37 Hi Dad. Well, I'm glad to be here with you. So let's start at the beginning. Where were you born? When will your blowers born on September 12th? 1931 at St. Francis Hospital in Evanston, Illinois, which close to slight problem for your great-grandfather for your grandfather since he went to get my birth certificate at the Cook County or at the city hall when he got there. They didn't have any record of my birth.

01:07 We came back to home and figured out that I wasn't born in the city of Chicago. I was born in Cook County. So you got to come back downtown to the county building which is attached to the city building to get my birth certificate. We originally lived at the time. I was born at the somewhere near Howard Street and Western in Chicago. And where's the closest hospital to st. Francis in Evanston and that's when I was born.

01:41 What are the three most remarkable differences in the world today from when you were born? Where are the most remarkable things man landed on the moon? Probably the biggest second of all television and third of all the thing that you are holding in your hand right now, which is a mobile phone and which none of us seem to be able to live without these days when you were growing up who had a mobile phone like this on his wrist watch Dick Tracy and that's come to us and Samsung is now selling them and anybody can have one except the problem is you have to have a cell phone in order to use the watch phone.

02:28 So tell me what your parents were like Grandma and Grandpa. Well, my mother had a peculiar name for Jewish lady and she was Maria Theresa.

02:40 Fells bloom after she married my dad's she was Fells somewhere along the line. The Fells are related to Philadelphia family call sells who invented and sold the Fels-Naptha soap. They also donated the planetarium in the Franklin Institute in Philadelphia, and they're very active in the Jewish community in Philadelphia is where my mother and my dad in the Jewish Community here in the city of Chicago.

03:18 We go back as far as the civil war with my mother's grandfather and we move all the way to today. Where are your doctor? And we have two you have two sisters one is a retired lieutenant commander in the Navy. I hope I've answered that question. So what do you remember about your parents when you were small what was life like for you as a sort of a 5 to 10 year old. Well, my dad was a Salesman.

03:55 And I do remember we moved from Howard Street to Farwell and Ashland and there I had almost all of the major diseases whooping cough scarlet fever chicken pox. You Name It We then moved to Touhy and ridge your grandmother had a hysterectomy and present by your grandfather bought her a house on Touhy Avenue to story your grandmother had terrible arthritis and was not happy having to walk up and down stairs.

04:33 Your great-grandmother came to live with us. And of course, I was an only child. So Grandma would not let me.

04:43 Go anywhere unless she went with me and was until after she passed away that I began to breathe like a human being what are the things we find that was very funny. If I got a soldier with a gun or a pocket knife or a cap pistol, they would all disappear and I always thought my boyfriend's who came over to the house took them.

05:09 And nobody ever told me different than when she died. Will you open the bottom of her dresser? And there was everything that disappeared she was making sure that I wouldn't get hurt with any of the things that were pointed but you asked me about my mother. She was a very large woman size 36 dress and because we were in the bride and groom in lingerie business, she was a 56 D which normally was the way women were in the 20s and 30s very large bust.

05:48 She was gray-haired from the time. I ever remember seeing her. I think she said she was Gray from the age 36 dad was a college graduate and he sold lingerie and eventually was working with my uncle who owned the factory here in the city of Chicago later on in life. I went to work for that factory, but he during before the second world war so bras and girdles and even after the second world war so bras and girdles. So we were is my father would put it the and he did on one of the shows with Groucho Marx. They asked him what he did for a living when he was in New York and they would go visit the the radio shows at the timer television shows when they were there.

06:48 The Corson show and they asked what he did for a living and of course in those days. It wasn't the you couldn't mention Hosiery or larger a reverse lips or nightgowns. And so they asked him what he did for a living and he said he was a holdup man and that got him on the show and they are going to ask him when he was on television what he did for a living and he said hold up man and they all laughed and he said what do you mean if he sells I sell bras and girdles. So my mother being the size if you want to remember those people or my age do Kate Smith. She look like Keith Smith. They have a woman so she was afraid of her size or didn't like her size or was embarrassed by it. And so she got up on the stage with a Persian lamb coat on.

07:48 With the hot lights from the television and she was sweating and Bert parks with keeps a mrs. Bloom. Would you like to take off your coat and Shiseido Mister Parts? I'm fine. And so it went on and on like that. Anyway, they did win $250 the last question which would have given them the grand prize was who was in gioconda smile. This was a show that was on Broadway.

08:19 He answered his questions were all about smiles and he couldn't answer it if my father had a photographic mind much like your son.

08:34 We later found out the Gia kind of smiles was on Broadway exactly 24 hours. It opened then closed the same day. Nobody had ever heard of it, except a chiller television stations. So that's where it ended. I hope I've given you go by the way. The other thing that was interesting when we lived on Touhy and ridge. It was very Catholic neighborhood. I played with the a degradee boys, and my mother was going to send me the Saint Margaret Mary's because all of my friends were catholic

09:13 But when we went out for a walk, if a priest walk past you would tip has had to my mother cuz she look more Irish than she look Jewish man, especially with the name like Maria Teresa well, but you always went over to Teresa Teresa. Marie is what you wanted and how old was she when you were when you were born that's hard to say. I don't remember but she probably she was probably 3433. It wasn't until I was twenty-five that I found out. I was not an only child that she had had a miscarriage.

09:58 And so I was the second child, but the first child's never made it and so

10:06 I was heaped upon with all kinds of things. I could have been very spoiled my aunt and uncle on my father's side. My uncle on my father's side had no children and my aunt on my mother's side had no children. So I was the only child in the family, which is not really good because you can either to be the best son or the West person where the best grandson or the worst Grand nephew in a matter of split-seconds. There's nobody to blame for anything get in trouble as kid.

10:45 Yeah, once I left the house with my boyfriend's we went down to Touhy and McCormick where there was a brick yard, and I forgot to tell my mother I was going.

10:58 And of course she got panicky that I was lost or stolen or whatever and I can remember the only time I ever got hit by anything but your grandfather, but my mother had made him such a nervous wreck when you finally found me.

11:15 By the creek underneath the bridge at Touhy and McCormick took out a piece of twig across the back side Richton. Let me sit down for about 2 days, but that's the only thing I remember that ever happening except when I was older and was it Roosevelt College when I didn't come home.

11:41 Play three days. We were having a play at the theater and I was part of radio workshop and did not call and tell him I would not be home that night. So my father was a nervous wreck because she had driven him but I do remember the dining room table. He chased me around and my father was very formidable. And my mother was screaming standstill. You're going to give your father a heart attack in a statement said not on your life if he gets me through text.

12:21 So I remember watching a movie that you filmed when you were a kid tell me about that. Well when I was a kid, I work for the lunch at old drug store. I was a soda jerk. I got a savings account because my father bet me I couldn't open Win by myself and although I was making $0.25 an hour at the time.

12:47 I went in the saved enough money to open a savings account at the North Shore Bank on Howard Street.

12:57 And then I saw at 8 mm camera with Kodak kid made you turn the handle and wounded up and it had a spool it look like typewriter ribbon with film on it and it went all the way through and then you turned it around and put it back in again in the dark and ran the other side and we took this out to gillson park some very close friends of mine, which I see one of all the time at the Veterans Administration. We both volunteer their hairy I closer into so I took the camera in a fellow by the name of Eddie Gordon took the pictures and we did a runaway cop chase and Harry threw a punch and I roll down the stairs at the auditorium it and then Harry died and I

13:57 Did something over his body and the movie ended it was just I was wearing my send jacket at the time and I sent him a copy and he cracked up when he saw it send High School. Do you have a favorite memory from sin? Probably the dances. We used to have at lunch time. We always had enough time to

14:20 The dance eat and dance and we would go sit in the auditorium and we have music on the stage. We dance.

14:31 That's about that. Well that in the trips to Washington. I took two trips to Washington once as a student in the second time, even though I was a student, I went more like an advisor and I got to run around Washington by myself a lot of times where the class was going somewhere else.

14:51 Your family have any funny stories they tell about you from growing up or when you're an adult never really. I don't think anything that I remember. Well, I dunno as far as my name my aunt and uncle lived in a small town called Farmer City.

15:11 And it's just outside of Bloomington just used to Bloomington.

15:16 And my cousin delwyn Schneider he actually is in the cousin but he live with my aunt and uncle cuz his mother his father had tuberculosis. He couldn't live with anyway, he was called dhoni.

15:33 And my nickname was doo doo. So it was doo doo in donie. And that's all I remember about that. But when I used to go to school with Nolan, who is Tony the kids used to call me doodoo. It's

15:52 And I drove a tractor when I was probably eight or nine and and

15:59 Went out and jumped off the hey miles at 8 or 9 and we shot baskets and play baseball that's down in Farmer City. Got a pharmacy degree place. But Uncle Eddie do Uncle Larry owned.

16:14 Shoe store in the smallest town in the state of Illinois. And when you were down there with your brother Jerry, you would come back from playing golf at the cow pasture Golf Course right where you could stand in one place and see all nine holes and people leave. It had golf carts that it wasn't that big but that was prestigious for the farmers. They have a

16:47 Jerry it decided to go back and play another round your brother and he had curly hair and your uncle guy at upset. He couldn't find you and he couldn't find your brother and he finally found you and he was telling the guy that work for him to Jerry seem to be lost and at that time he was fitting a pair of shoes on a little girl.

17:11 And she said is that the stranger with curly hair in a golf bag and my uncle your uncle said yes and keeps his whole he's playing football with my brother. They had a birthday party. They needed one more guy to play football. So he stopped but that's the way it is in small towns.

17:31 Every Saturday that used to write the name of everybody that bought a pair of shoes in a big book like a Bible.

17:39 And my uncle's father started that if somebody came in they didn't know they just wrote on the name of the Box stranger. And so your aunt would read the names off the bottom of the boxes and she come to somebody that just came into town stranger size so-and-so and so-and-so Florsheim shoe number. I remember being there once in a guy walked in with a pair of Florsheim Shoes beat up farmer because he only wore them on Sunday. These were his Sunday shoes and he carried him in and he said Edward. He said I need another pair of shoes just like this and that he said what when did you buy miso pop 20-25 years ago. And so Eddie went back in this Bible. Can you find the exact shoe number?

18:39 The things it was even funnier there was a chair. They had folding chairs like in a movie House Seats and one of them was broken.

18:48 Yeah, they had two ladders. It went back and forth along the wall. And those shoes were in big tall Stacks, you know shelves and I never knew why the chair never got fixed it eventually and he said well, my father was up on the ladder one day and he felt that she kept them from breaking anything. So I never had it fixed. Now that had to be at that time when he told me the story had to be 60 65 years that he never repaired this shit, but they had an Old Crow burning stove in the back and he had a shoe shoe man that repaired Shoes by the name of Henry and Henry always had a bunch of Nails in his mouth and chewing tobacco and got he could fix anyting.

19:42 He was there for like 68 years before he retired.

19:47 Those were good days Farmer City. How much time did you spend down there? I went on there mostly in the summertime and we went down every year for Christmas. And of course we'll make time for Christmas. If we take rosen's rye and corned beef and and salami and then everybody would come all the friends would come and have salami and corned beef sandwiches and cuz they didn't get it there. But during the second world war the farmers used to kill their own cattle. So meet was scared and you had to have stamps to buy it.

20:28 And I remember somebody put in a freezer.

20:31 In the area and

20:35 The people would

20:39 Freeze the meat and so every once in a while when we went down to Farmer City like it when it Christmas time and Marion would give Mother hamburger and steaks and things like that. You couldn't buy during the second World War.

20:58 What would you say are some of the most important life lessons that you've learned?

21:03 Well to be kind to people.

21:07 To give back. That's why I do what I do with the VA. I'm a greeter.

21:14 I'm 82 and I look at people and I see soldiers that are in terrible shape that are much younger than I I see guys that fought in the second world war that he just as good as I am so bummer in their 90's but you try and make their day a little bit better. The same thing is true always of things that I've done grandfather. Did your grandmother belong the infant's Aid they started the neonatal care in Mount Sinai and also at Michael Reese

21:54 The originally were making layouts for the immigrants that came over that didn't have anything that would make up all kinds of stuff and diapers and things like that cuz we didn't have Pampers then.

22:10 But it's always been a year. I can remember we used to go to the dinner dances and mother and grandmother your grandmother would sit in a chair and we'd all be draped around her people would come up and pay homage to the old ladies. There were four five chairs at the sit and walk at the the Ambassador West Sara suten what it was like the Queen's we're just sitting there and and in the ladies-in-waiting would come and pay homage. They said you would get introduced. I remember grandmother would always call and say Julian misses someone so they didn't say who and she said, oh you are about to and I say you respect me, but that's the way and went in it.

23:09 Our family is always given back the blooms were very charitable people my uncle and Aunt who won the laundry Factory here. We had 400 sewing machine operators and treated everybody is if they were equals. Nobody felt that they were an employee they have something to say the door was always open.

23:33 That's where you work with people and that's the way you want people to work with you.

23:42 I noticed that you can talk to anybody at anytime about anything was that always the case for you if you have sometimes I make up but I find it interesting to talk to people in general if you see somebody sitting there and they're not happy or something. You want to know why that can I go to a play nice. It makes them my wife and there's somebody sitting next to me and they carry on a conversation with both of them. It's just the way I am.

24:17 You were traveling salesman when I was growing up. Was that like on Monday through?

24:25 Friday I was home, usually on the weekends. I can recycle and Saturday and Sunday.

24:32 My dad was a traveling salesman. So it didn't bother me. It took a lot of way from some of the things I would have done with you guys. But then we have your tree has your two sisters who was like having two families. You guys didn't want to do what your sisters wanted to do and your sisters and want to do what you wanted to do. So it always made a difficult find something that would satisfy everybody.

25:01 But all in all it worked out the only one that

25:06 The only one that was a little disappointing was your sister that join the Navy and she called me up and wanted to know she has something to tell me when she was at the University of Kansas and I thought for sure she was coming home and I said to my wife your stepmother I said she's on her way home. All right, and I said well we'll find out and I said what is it Paul and she wouldn't bother you if I join the Navy and I said what I said, your great-great-grandfather was in the Civil War.

25:45 I said and your grandfather was in the Second World War.

25:51 And I said, I was in Korea just cuz we're all army that doesn't mean anything. So your great-great-grandfather's turning over in his grave joining the Navy as she was she did this. Well, she did. So what are your memories of the Korean War?

26:12 Well, it was cold, but it was kind of a damp cold. I remember our Mickey Mouse boots the week at they were rubber boots that if you wore them 3 days in a row without taking them off the socks disintegrated inside the boots and when you took them off if it was cold steam would come out of the

26:36 The boots

26:38 But I do remember the worst thing I ever did was I had remember the saying don't volunteer for anything.

26:46 And we need is 36 points to rotate home.

26:51 And I had 34 points.

26:55 So I've decided I wasn't going to get shot at get killed. I was so close to coming home and they asked if anybody could type but I raise my hand they needed a battalion clerk cuz of the clerk was going home. So I volunteered guess what happened 24 hours later. The war was over and I had paperwork coming out of my ears and I could only type with two fingers and in those days we didn't have computers. There was no errors Allowed no mistakes if you made a mistake and took the paper out and started all over again and I can remember the captain coming in and he looked at all this wadded-up paper on the floor of our 10th and he says, what is that bloom mistakes? I must have cost the government.

27:50 How long were you there? I was there 13 months all of it on the line except when we were on R&R Bernard when we were back and reserved, but even if that we were getting two and three points for being in combat zone.

28:10 What you do your basic training in Fort Riley, Kansas, and the funny thing was when we came back we will usually got the hand-me-downs the guys up at the front lines the good stuff stayed in the rear.

28:25 And when I got my orders to come home, I had to go to the company Clerk and he gave me your brand-new wish you were close and I never put them on and went back to division rear and they had a stump all the clothes out and they gave us another new wish you were close. And then we went to keputusan to get on the boat and we dumped out the clothes again. None of these clothes were never one, but we dump them out and they gave us a brand new issue and we got on the boat and I think I wear the underwear for 3 Days in the 150 uniform.

29:05 And the boots and

29:07 I got off in Washington DC and we dumped it all out again. Got a whole brand new issue except for the boots and took him back to Fort Riley Kansas where we dump them out again.

29:19 And then we got another brand new wish you and took him home for 30 days in the end of 30 days went back to Fort Riley and dump them out again and got another freaking it keep forever. And the only thing I have the left to the boots that I think that your Stacy has them and plays his props.

29:46 But the leather still there after 60 years.

29:53 Were you married when you went to after War know I got married after I came back and you were born. I came back in 53. We were married in 54 and you were born in 55, I think.

30:08 So what's your what's your sort of one memory if if you lost your your memory, but you could only hold onto one would be my wife in Chicago. I think it's been wonderful. I love this city. And I love I love the way it's growing. It's remarkable. We used to play football in Grant Park when I belong to the Aza when I was in high school and we would come all the way down town from the Northside of Chicago and play football again some other bunch of guys. It was tight. She wasn't a cup with such football.

30:49 But it was it was sprayed. The city of Chicago has been good to me. And I just love it here. So used to take Jerry and I to the Bears game. Yes, we have 50-yard line tickets. Absolutely and tell us how you got both of us in cuz you only had two tickets, but the three of us used to go. How did that happen? I don't even remember how we remember we always snuck one of you in one of your sat on a lap. I don't remember how it was. Well, I thought you had a note from George Halas. No, no. No, I didn't know George but we had plenty of tickets. So maybe it was either bird your East tickets or a Little Anthony's tickets. They weren't using curious to sit on a little wooden seat that you made that went between my seat in your seat. He used to sit on this little thing that we would carry and it was a little piece of plywood with two legs on it down there to keep him so he didn't have to sit in the seat.

31:49 Sit on your lap while when we used to go when it when it was fine was it when it was Wrigley Field? I can remember that guy up above I think we scored a touchdown and he grabbed your birth of your brother by his shirt or jacket and he hung them up over the face that famous Gale Sayers game when he got all those touchdowns you and I went to that game was fun. Cuz we knew all the people. We were sitting around women came and dresses most of the sidemen war suit coats and hats and ties.

32:29 And then they went out to dinner afterwards having it was it was a big big event. And then we moved to Wrigley Pizza Soldiers Field and the booze and the end of drinking it. I took Tyler your son.

32:46 And the verbage around the he was only about eight at the time. I mean, he got a language lesson that I wouldn't have ever wanted him to get and we finally decided it wasn't for us you took the tickets and then they wanted to seat franchises and they wanted $4,000 a seat and we told them they could take the seats and keeping

33:15 So when you were growing up, what did you think you were going to do with your life and how it's going to turn out and how is it turned out what's been any the same and different from what you thought would have owned Phil maid lingerie. That was what I had been told but those things never come to pass my uncle got sick. He sold the business and that was the end of that but my life as far as I'm concerned it's turned out. Well, I have great children.

33:49 I leave it will lead a wonderful life. My wife is just absolutely wonderful.

33:57 And we spend a lot of time in the theater were very active in a group called the Saints which ushers for theater all over the city except for downtown's.

34:11 And

34:14 We volunteer a lot.

34:17 Barbara

34:21 Helps people that are basically in need one of the neighbors we had in Wilmette she goes over and does her book work and things like that for so we're we're happy to be to be volunteers and give back a little bit but the city has been wonderful for us. We made a nice living here. Nice condo here and there we enjoy life what kind of advice or wisdom would you share with Ali and Tyler and their children and their grandchildren what you pass on to be kind to people and to give it back?

35:02 Whatever you have is yours, but you can always share a little bit if not money share yourself.

35:14 Be kind.

35:16 Helpful to people sometimes all people need is just a little niceness and they can make a long way out of nothing. That's the way it goes. I think we've done fairly well, our family is increased in

35:37 From being an only child. I think I've done fairly well in populating the country.

35:45 You've been very prolific. So is there anything that's happened in your life that you've never told me or told anyone else that you want any story that you've been? No, I've had one broken shoulder and that's about it. I did that happen my dad and my uncle had me out and they were out for one summer at some cottage somewhere. I don't remember where it was. I was too young and they were all in a row boat and they all got out to bring the row the boat ashore and I was told to stay where I was until the boat was landed.

36:27 They were all in bathing suits and I stood up I was in the front of the boat. I stood up and I flew backwards.

36:35 And I didn't break anything that they thought and then your grandmother asked me to get her an orange squeezer made out of glass off the shelf and I reached up and broke the orange squeezer. The arm was busted and the Doctor Who became one of the head of Orthopedics for Saint Francis Hospital was an intern at the time and he sent my shoulder and that's the only break that we've had.

37:04 So I'm all in one piece just a little over. Goodnight. Last question. I asked you is you call yourself a super Ager. What's that all about? Well, I figure anybody that reaches the age of 80 and still feels like he's 20 can be a super Ager and that's basically we've gone past the 65 stage and now all the youngsters who are 60 or 65 think they're forty so at 8 a.m. Probably just 65. So I've become a suit super Ager instead of a golden your age or whatever they call our golden years and I hope to be super Ager 100 as I am and with you when we play Words With Friends, but I have a picture with 100 of turtles in time called super Ager one last interviewing you for this.

38:04 Enjoyed every minute of it. Thank you, son.