Dolores Delin, June 16, 2014

Dolores Delin, June 16, 2014

SUSAN CLEMENS-BRUDER: Okay, so this is an interview with the Delins, and it is June 16, 2014, and this is tape number 4.

GAIL EISENBERG: So, we remember, Dolores, last time you had told us about your grandmother and some of the sweet memories that you had and if you wanted to share with us about that she always wanted you to be independent.

DOLORES DELIN: Right, right. As I said, my grandmother and I were very close, and we were, and when I got married, she pulled me aside and she said 'look, Dolores, every woman should have her own knipple.' And by that she meant every woman should have her own money. And so with that, she gave me a one hundred dollar bill. And she said 'put it away, Arnold doesn't have to know about it, and if you want anything--' Now if we think back, I'm married 65 years, $100 was a lot of money. So I put it away, and didn't say anything to Arnold about it, 00:01:00and we went on our honeymoon, and we went to Niagara Falls, we were traveling around. And at the Falls, Arnold loses all of our money, all of our Travelers Checks and everything was in Travelers Checks, and he doesn't have anything. And he found out when he went to pay the bill, and he wanted to stay at this fancy hotel. And he goes to pay the bill, and he doesn't have any money, and no credit cards. In those days, we used Travelers Checks, that was it. He didn't know what to do and he was stressing, and I said, 'don't worry about it,' and I turned around and I pulled out this hundred dollar bill. And ever since then he's been looking for the knipple. And there is one, and I tell my son to have one and I tell my daughter to have one. My daughter's not married, but in any young woman, I always say it is very important, for every person, man or woman, to have a little independence, to have a little money put aside so that you don't have to 00:02:00don't have to account to anybody for it. And that was my grandmother's philosophy.

SC: So maybe we should talk a little bit about your children, and then go on to more business?

GE: You know what? I don't think because, yeah, I don't think there is really anything else with the business per say. Well, you know what? Maybe--

SC: You go ahead.

GE: One thing that I was just thinking about is as the wife, tell us a little bit about what it was like having first the business and then also with the apparel, with the trade association. So what was your role as the wife?

DD: Well, my role as a wife was the, well how can I put it? The first thing in Arnold's life was the synagogue. He was very dedicated to the synagogue, and 00:03:00then he was very dedicated to his job, and then he was very dedicated to his family. There was no room for all of this at one time, so the synagogue, his business, and his family. So as a wife I was in charge of the house. And I was always supportive of Arnold and whatever he did, and all of the organizations that he was involved with, I was always there working behind him, writing his speeches, like everyone. You know, you don't stand up for the bows but you're there to be the showcase to be there. And that's just the way it was. I mean he was with the Association, I did whatever I had to do to make all of his members 00:04:00happy. And we gave, we never got the best rooms when we traveled, the president of the Association got the best rooms. We took whatever was leftover because that's the way he felt. He didn't feel it was his place to have the best, and so I just went along with it.

GE: And how about in the factory?

DD: In the factory, he ran the factory, and then one day, I wasn't working, this was before my working days, I thought that it would be nice to help him out, right? So I said to him, " I'll come down and I'll work in the factory." I had two small children at home. So what could I do? I didn't know how to sew, so he put me in the folding department to fold the blouses and box them up. So while I'm working, I'm folding and I'm thinking 'what are we going to have for dinner, what are the kids doing, and I had a housekeeper in, is she doing this, is she 00:05:00cleaning the bathroom, is she doing what she has to do while I'm here at work.' I happen to go inside to call and make sure that she takes something out of the freezer for dinner. So I walk into the office and I call her up to take something, and he walks in and he says 'if you think you are going to stay on the telephone all day long and work, I don't need you here.' I said, 'you know something, you're absolutely right, you don't need me here.' And that was the last thing I had to do with the factory.

GE: Did you do anything while you were at home, write books or anything.?

DD: No, no.

GE: So it was really that your involvement began later with the Association.

DD: My involvement really with the Association was minimal. Arnold was up front. He did everything with the Association, he was negotiating, he did everything. Mine was just social. I had absolutely nothing to do with the Association. I had 00:06:00my own thing at the time. I was busy with my own business, doing my own thing, and the children and their organizations and I was very busy.

GE: Right, right, so by the time he really was the Executive Director of the Association,

DD: In the 70s.

GE: Okay, so by that time, you already were in business.

DD: I was working. Right. I was in business and I was working and I was just going along for the ride.

GE: Right, okay. I think, do you have anything?

SC: Yeah, I think I'll ask--

DD: Two children.

SC: Two children, yes.

DD: Robin used to work for, she's a licensed, she does licensing for Madame Alexandra Dolls, they're collectibles. I don't know if you are familiar with them. And my son, Scott, who is the Vice President of Sales with Superior Linen. Three grandchildren, Ariana, who is in public relations in Florida. She is an 00:07:00equestrian, and she writes for an equestrian magazine.

GE: Oh, isn't that something.

DD: Yeah, and my grandson, the middle one, Noah, he just graduated from Ithaca, and he's doing freelance work for Walt Disney.

GE: Wow, as a freelance writing? Graphics?

DD: He's also in public relations. He took an internship with them in the summertime and it led to this freelance job because they are not hiring right now. He's looking for a position. And Benjamin is the baby, and he is still in high school. He's a sweetheart.

SC: He's supposed to be a baby. Benjamin's the baby.

DD: He's the baby.

SC: In the Bible.

GE: That's right.

SC: And what was the grandson that was in Ithaca?

DD: Noah. I'll tell you a funny story about Noah. For my grandchildren, when I heard that my daughter-in-law was pregnant, I love to work with my hands, I do a lot of needlepoint and quilting and all that kind of stuff, so I made a quilt for Ariana. And then when they told me that Beth was pregnant again, I didn't know what it was going to be. And I said to Arnold, I went into the store and I saw this print of Noah's Ark, and I said to him, "Gee this is pretty, blow it up for me, I'm going to transfer that onto a quilt with Noah's Ark and all of the animals, and so on and so forth." And then I told the kids, "I'm making you a quilt," but I didn't say what it was yet, "I'm making another one, I'm busy making another quilt. While you're cooking, I'm sewing." And so, Beth called me 00:09:00up one day, "Well Mom, we decided on a name," she said, "Well, it's going to be a boy." And I said, 'Aw, that's wonderful." "And we're going to name him Noah." Well I just got the chills because I had no idea what Beth was having.

GE: You know, I met your youngest, Benjamin, not long ago they had in the synagogue a program with Klezmer Dancing, and he was there and he is a sweetheart. A very, very nice young man. He was with some young girl; maybe there were just friends doing the thing, but I'm just saying that they were adorable. And I remember asking, who is that, and someone said Ben Delin, Benjamin Delin.

DD: Yeah, they had a nanny for all three children because Beth, you know, is a nurse practitioner.

GE: Oh, no, I didn't know that.

DD: Yeah, neurology nurse practitioner. And so they had a nanny for the childrn and in fact Beth was the RN at Lehigh. She was in charge of the emergency. It was terrible, she worked all kinds of crazy hours. And she said to me, 'Mom, I'm thinking about going back to school to become a nurse practitioner, but it's going to be a couple of years.' I said, 'well, honey, what difference is it going to make. The years are going to pass whether you do it or don't do it, so you might as well do it.' 'Well, what am I going to do with the kids?' I said, 'I'll tell you what, I promise you that one day a week, every single Wednesday you can count on me. I will be there. The rest of the time you will have to figure it out, but every Wednesday, I'll give you every Wednesday.' So that's what happened. I gave her every Wednesday. And one Wednesday, I am driving down the highway, I had a Jeep at the time, and I came to Kutztown, and we were 00:11:00stopped. I those days we didn't have cell phones. How am I going to get to her? I got out of the car and I ran up and down, 'does anyone have a telephone in their car?' So nobody had anything so I'm sitting in the car and I'm waiting and time is passing, and time is passing, and traffic moved just a little, and there is a bank and a farm. And I was thinking, to hell with this, I'm going over to the bank, I have a Jeep, I saw them do it on television. I went over this bank, through this cornfield and around and got to the house cause my daughter-in-law had to go to Philadelphia. Now they have a fence there. Every time I drive by, I see the fence, and they should put my name on it. Or I should pay for the fence. And when she graduated, they gave her a bouquet of flowers, and she gave me a bouquet of flowers cause she knew that she could count on me, you know, once a 00:12:00week. Through thick and thin, she knew I'd be there.

GE: Well that's really nice.

SC: So what do you value most in life?

DD: I value my children and my grandchildren. My grandmother would say that is the interest on your principle. That is the truth. They are special. And another thing she would say is that is the reward you get for not killing your children: your grandchildren.

GE: See that's the dividend.

SC: And what has made you feel the most artistic or complete in life? I'm talking about artistry in its most broad sense.

DD: Well I think I appreciate everything that I see. I mean, living out here I 00:13:00just love. I always tell my children, when I get old and senile, just put an electric fence like they do for the cows and just let me wander around because I just love it. And I see a lot of beauty in a lot of things. I'm driving down, when we first moved here, I remember, when you go to Shenandoah from here, there is one area where the ice forms over, goes down to the road. And my girlfriend who came from Shenandoah, we were driving up and said 'oh, my god, this is gorgeous,' and she didn't even know what I was talking about. She was just driving by and didn't see it. I just see the beauty that surrounds you, and I'm so thankful for it.

SC: I always love that drive.

GE: When you say Shenandoah, is that--

SC: Into the hills. And the Blue Ridge Parkway, and what's the other one? It 00:14:00goes into North Carolina.

DD: Oh, you're talking about a different area. I'm talking about Shenandoah which is a little town from Pottsville, Flackville, Shenandoah. But I know what you're talking about. This area, when you go up there, it is all mountainous. Right now, you'll see all of the windmills are up there, but the mountains in the winter, the ice just forms from running off of the mountains and it is just a cascade of beautiful ice waterfalls. It's really so pretty.

SC: I'm going to make a note to go there.

DD: In the wintertime right.?

SC: Yes.

DD: Now you'll see all of the windmills, all of the windmills are across the skyline now.

GE: So a little bit you're saying is that you just love the natural beauty.

DD: I do, yeah, I really do. I like everything. I'm thankful to be alive. I can't believe that 85 years have gone. That's the sad part of it all.

SC: Well, thank you.

DD: You're welcome.

GE: I remember my grandmother lived to be, who I was very close with, lived to be 90/91, and I remember her saying, you know, when you get older, she said it feels like a dream. She said that so many years have passed, and she said it's just hard to grasp it. And frankly, I already feel that way.

DD: Well, if you look back on what you've achieved over your lifetime, and you're like, how did it happen.

GE: Right, right. And also, it feels so compressed because it feels like it wasn't all that long ago that my children were little. Not long ago, I was a young bride. And you know, so many years have passed.

DD: And you see the young people growing up and having children, and you wonder.

SC: And I worry that they don't value the wisdom of us as we get older.

DD: I think that's a problem with our culture. We don't appreciate the older 00:16:00people. I mean, other cultures appreciate them, but they don't think that we are very smart. That we haven't experienced life, that they are the only ones experiencing it.

GE: I'm not sure, I might just don't know enough, maybe, Sue does, I don't know if that was always true in America but I certainly think since the 60s.

SC: Yes, they had been, it has been since the 60s.

GE: Right, right, and very exaggerated.

SC: Very exaggerated.

GE: It's almost like anyone above the age of 30, don't--

SC: Don't trust anyone over 27 is the stigma historical statement.

GE: Right, is that really was it?

DD: You know I think it's further back. I think when the immigrants came over, and the next generation spoke English, they looked back at their parents as griner [Yiddish for greenhorn or new immigrant]. Now my grandmother spoke three languages, Russian, Polish, English, and Hebrew, and Yiddish, five languages. 00:17:00And yet, when she would come and visit, people would talk down to her. And knowingly, it bothered me, and she had a sense of humor, and I said she was a cook and a baker, she made challah every Friday night. And one of my friends was a doctor, and his hobby was making challahs. So they came to visit, and one day he came to visit, and my grandmother and I made rugelach. "Oh," he says, "Fanny, these are delicious. I'll teach you how to make challahs, if you'll teach me how to make rugelach." She says, 'that's a very good idea.' We're not giving her credit for what she can do and also speaking down to them, and I think that's a part of it. The respect, you know, what they brought with them when they came.

SC: I think you're right.

DD: Yeah, and then you had a college education, and your parents didn't have a college education.

GE: Even the first generation, my parents' family, first generation did not go to college, but nonetheless they were English speakers.

DD: That's right.

GE: And so it's interesting, my father's side, the family came one generation earlier but my father's father remained in Europe, my family went through the Holocaust. My dad was the only survivor. When he came here, he really had much less in common with his cousins. They were Americans, and they in many ways do look down upon you, but the aunts and uncles adored him because my father knew their culture. My father could speak their language--

DD: They had shared memories.

GE: They had a lot of shared memories. So as much as they loved their own children, of course they love their children and are proud of their children, but their children it was much more of a divide because they were Americans. So 00:19:00it was interesting, he always did have much more of a relationship with a lot of the aunts and the uncles than he did with the cousins.

DD: That's a shame, but that is the way that it is. That's the way it goes.

GE: Now, are we done?