Saturday, April 4, 2015

Growing Up in St. Johnsbury, Vermont, in the 1920s through World War II: Irene Dolgin Goldstein - Third Interview: Getting Married


[Mrs. Irene Dolgin Goldstein, interview 3, March 17, 2015, by phone - Beth Kanell]

Railyard would be on far side of river, left part of photo.
Mrs. Irene Dolgin Goldstein – “Irene” – made a correction to one date in interview 2, mentioned that her father had a siding and scrap yard near the railroad tracks, and said that her father’s arrival date in St. Johnsbury should instead be “after 1910 and before 1916.” [No archived materials address this; we only have the 1920 Census showing Irene’s parents, Harry and Frances Dolgin, living in St. Johnsbury with their son “Aron” (that is the Census record, although Irene says her brother’s name was always Arnold) at age 1 year, 11 months. I will keep searching.]

 Irene’s family home was at 113 Portland Street, St. Johnsbury, Vermont. Across the road was 80 Portland Street, which included a filling station. There, her father built an office, and a platform scale that could weigh up to one hundred thousand pounds, so it could weigh a big tractor or trailer, says Irene. She added that her father installed in later years steam heat for the scale, so it would work in the winter. “The police used to come by with some driver with his truck loaded and it would be [shown on the scale to be] overloaded, and they were so happy with that!” Also pleased with the scale was the Cary Sugar Company (now Maple Grove) further east on Portland Street. “Trucks bringing maple syrup [to the maple sugar company] would weigh before and after unloading. It was convenient, just down the road.”
Cary Maple Sugar Co., photo from about 1960; would become Maple Grove.


Irene learned to drive on a 1920 Oakland. “Everything had standard shift.” It belonged to “the girl who worked in the office” (her father’s office), and Irene’s mother arranged for this office worker to teach Irene in that car. The first car that she owned was a 1939 Ford convertible, “the last year they made the rumble seat.” Then a cousin of hers had an accident in a convertible, and Irene’s father took her convertible away, replacing it with a 1941 Pontiac.
1920 Oakland automobile

The driving test was in St. Johnsbury, although no particular office location came to mind. Helen, the office worker, took Irene in that 1920 Oakland. There was a written test first, and then they “drove around, not too long.”  As a new driver, she especially noticed how challenging it was to handle a standard-shift car going uphill: “Going up Eastern Avenue in the winter could really be something.” One time, she noticed a line of cars at the bottom of that hill, so without thinking much about it, she detoured to the shorter (and steeper, but less traveled) Sand Hill, made it all the way up just fine, then realized afterward that it could have been a bad choice!

As a girl, Irene wanted to be a nurse. “However, in those days, nurses did the dirty work,” and her dad said, “No daughter of mine is going to lug bedpans, period.” So instead she “did secretarial training.” She didn’t go to college because of the war (World War II). As she reflects on her career today, she says she had a lot of fun in all her jobs. For example, she worked for her father, and when he bought a restaurant, she’d sometimes help in there. “I learned how to carry a tray when they were shorthanded.” She also learned from her father’s business about scrap iron and metal: what they were, how they were treated. “And everything to me was learning. You can learn so much from different jobs.”

As another example from her career, later, when she lived in Montreal, she got an “entirely different job for a small firm importing textiles from around the world. I worked with letters of credit, and foreign exchange, and it was so great!” She worked four hours per day at that time, so she could be home for her kids after school. She took her work seriously, even though she enjoyed it, and one time the bank said her business had overdrawn one of its letters of credit. Her boss said to go home and not worry about it, but she went through all the numbers and worried all weekend – and on Monday showed that the bank had made the error, not her! [Later, she would work in Malden, Mass., for a building supply company, including bricks, and enjoyed learning that, too.]

Filene's on Boston, where Irene's mother bought the wedding dress.
Irene married at age 20, in Boston on February 22, 1943, a few weeks before her birthday. Her fiancé was in the Royal Canadian Air Force, and he suddenly got word of his leave being approved. It was okay’d on February 1, and Irene went to her mother and said “I’m getting married on February 22.” That put everyone into a rush to prepare – especially her mother. Three weeks! Her mother said, “Pick up the phone and call your aunt” [in Boston], who was a whirlwind at getting things done. Irene’s aunt said, “Tell your mother to get down her tomorrow and we’ll get started figuring things out.” Together, Irene’s mom and aunt rented a Boston-area hall for the wedding and printed up invitations. “Then they went to Filene’s Basement [famous dress shop in Boston, with a “basement” of wedding gowns] and my mother found a girl about my size and had the girl try on a gown” that seemed right. It fit, and Irene’s mother bought it. Then her mother came home, and the next task was to address all the invitations to Irene’s family members. Next, they went to Montreal to give invitations to Irene’s fiancé’s family to send out. Irene’s recollection is that her family had to provide checks for the Canadians to travel to the wartime wedding, so the Canadians could prove they were “not taking money out of the country.”

The dress was ready and right, but Irene had to go to Boston herself and, with her aunt, go purchase her headpiece and veil. About 250 people would be coming to her wedding. And now she had another challenge: Her older brother was in the service and stationed at Camp Gruber in Oklahoma, close to being shipped overseas to the war. All leaves had been canceled. But Irene was determined to have him be her best man. She sent a letter to Lieutenant Colonel Carver, who was head of his group, Rainbow Division. She said it was important to her to have her brother take part in the wedding, especially since he was being shipped out and she “might never see him again.” Her brother was given two weeks of leave, even though nobody else was getting any!

It was a big favor she’d been given, so she went to Cary Maple Sugar Company and got a case of maple syrup and sent it to the Lieutenant Colonel – her brother had told her that they didn’t have maple syrup in Oklahoma. Soon Irene “got a lovely letter back, the Lieutenant Colonel’s children had fun, they had only ever had molasses before.”

At the wedding, “the fellows were all in uniform.” Irene and her new husband stayed in Boston for a couple of days of sightseeing, then took the train to Montreal to see her new father-in-law, who had been sick and couldn’t come to the wedding. [Irene notes that this marriage, which took her to Montreal to live, lasted about 16 years; her other marriage was to Sam, also an airman, and lasted 34 years: “Every day was special.”]

At this point in the interview Irene took time to talk about the family years in St. Johnsbury again. She recalled other Jewish families in the area with the names Prolman and Brody, who were in-laws of each other. She also mentioned the Zabarskys, who “used to live in Barton. Daniel, the older one, was a junk dealer and would go with the two boys with horse and wagon to peddle” and would stay at the Dolgin home in St. Johnsbury. But Irene’s mother decided there really was not enough room for three extras, so she told Harry, Irene’s dad, to give the Zabarskys money for a hotel room, although they continued to come share meals.

Irene has in her papers a receipt written by her mother, accepting a cow as payment for a car at the family business – the cow was worth more!

Hilda Handy's family members, at their St Johnsbury ice house.
The family home at 113 Portland Street had a garage and office on the first level. The home, upstairs, had its own separate entrance, on the right of the building. The kitchen was 18 by 18 feet, and it was a lovely home. Irene’s dad would try to be home for supper each day, so they all ate together. Lunch was a family meal as well. When Irene was a teen, attending St. Johnsbury Academy on the other side of town, she would run home a mile and a quarter in fifteen minutes. Going back was an uphill trip, so sometimes she’d go over to her friend Hilda Handy and get a ride with Hilda on the Handy family ice truck back to school.

-- BK

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