Ronnie Sheftel, May 11, 2016

Interview with Ronnie Sheftel, May 11th, 2016

SUSAN CLEMENS-BRUDER: Today is-

RONNIE SHEFTEL: May 11th

SC: May 11th, thank you, Ronnie. May 11th, 2016, interview with Ronnie Sheftel. Could you state your full name one more time, and where you were born, and where you live right now?

RS: Ronnie Sheftel. It's May 11th, 2016. I have lived in Allentown from 1950, and I came from Brooklyn, New York. I was born in- on November 12th, a long time ago.

SC: Okay, thank you. And really the question today is, could you talk about your role as wife and mother and volunteer and any- any work that you did?

RS: It's a long time to go back. But when I first came to Allentown as a young 00:01:00bride, I was included in, I think, three or four boards, something I had never done before. And my first experience was being- to collect raffle- to sell raffle tickets to a dinner dance at Temple Beth El. And as time came closer, of course, I had to go away with my husband. When he said let's go, I went. And coming back, I had given it to a friend of mine to collect and I came back to find out how the dinner dance went and how we did with the collection. And I found out that half the people that were there had gotten ptomaine poisoning because whoever had cooked the dinner had left it out too long. And it was very 00:02:00sensitive and nobody was talking about the dinner, so I had never knew if the tickets were ever sold. That was my first experience with being on a board. The rest of them...

SC: So if you would talk a little bit more about after that, after you were at that first board meeting.

RS: No, things got much better. I had three children, a boy, Bruce, and two girls, Hildy, and then six years later, Abby. And they are now far distant from here. Hildy lives in Seattle. Abbey lives in South Carolina and has for a long, long time. And I have no grandchildren, but Bruce lives here in Allentown, is 00:03:00taking care of my house. He normally lives in Blue Bell, Pennsylvania. And right now I have moved to Haverford, Pennsylvania. My husband, Milton, is in the dementia unit. He has dementia and he's fine. He smiles. He is happy and has had two girlfriends there, unlike me, although I do have two admirers. One is- will be one hundred in October- in August. Delightful old man, but very cute. The other one scares me. He's a friend of mine's husband. Never happened before, but it's fun.

SC: So could you talk about- Oh, go ahead.

RS: No. I then, when my children became school age, I was on board at the Jewish 00:04:00Day School and was the gift shop's chairman for many, many years, and would- the kids would have dinner- have lunch and they would have gift shop on Thursday. So I was there and I learned how to say the prayers after lunch.

GAIL EISENBERG: Birkat Hamazon.

RS: Birkat Hamazon. I learned it by hearing it, I didn't ever learn the words. But that's okay. As far as the big deals in my life, I was one year, I was chairman for the Federation -- Jewish Federation of Allentown, of the Lehigh Valley. And we raised a lot of money for the Women's Division. It was a lot of 00:05:00money at that time. And then shortly after that, I became president, very proudly, of Hadassah, which at the time I became president in 1980, it was seven hundred members. And it was a wonderful organization, and at that time, I think we raised over fifty thousand dollars, which was enormous. And I sat down and realized I'm now the one head of a fifty thousand dollar business, which I guess in the 1980s was pretty good. And we did very well. And subsequently I was on the board of Jewish Federation and as I said- oh before, before Abby was born, I was a great lady at the Allentown Hospital, which was really very satisfying. But when I became pregnant with her, I decided it's not a good time to be in a 00:06:00hospital. So those are really the main things that I did. Milton was always busy. He was either head of the -- what was it? B'nai B'rith boy?

GE: Yes, B'nai B'rith.

RS: And that was before we were married. After we were married, he's the head of- he became the chairman of the- of his organization. It had many names at various times, but it was the textile and secondary material, the waste, because his business was collecting the cuttings of all the textile dealers in the Lehigh Valley, South and North. And the- it was a very good business at that time. Of course, it's not an existing, non-existent almost, in these days. Everything has gone overseas. And- but last night I heard on the radio they were 00:07:00talking- this morning, actually, that they were doing recycling and that recycling only collects 16 percent of what's delivered and things that you give to various charities rarely get on, you know, to the- the floors when you give it to the -- what do you call them? Can you cut this out?

GE: Yes.

RS: Is this- The consignment stores and the various charities that, you know, drop in the box.

SB: The Salvation Army.

RS: The Salvation Army, the whatever, you know, those barrels. And Milton always used to say that he never recycled anything. And I kept saying you're in the recycling business. How come you don't recycle? We have two bins right in our 00:08:00kitchen, you know, garbage and recycling. And he says it's crazy, don't do it. But I do it.

GE: But the interesting part is, in a sense he was the recycler. A reuser.

RS: I said that you are a recycler. Absolutely! Yes, he really was. And he never recycled anything but- I think it's becoming, they're becoming aware that it is important.

GE: So all those different, you know, organizations of a different leadership that you mentioned, which of those was the most that you felt that you were the most impactful? And if you want to just tell us a little bit about that.

RS: Hadassah I thought was.

GE: So tell us what Hadassah was about then and what it meant to you to be a part of that? And--

RS: Hadassah is the largest women's Zionist organization. It was started in 00:09:001900-something, by Henrietta Szold, with two nurses that she sent to- was able to send to Israel, to Palestine at the time, and I was always very proud of it, being- it's an international organization. At the time that I was very active, they had three hundred thousand women all around the world. And it's, it's still growing, but it's shifted. There's very little of it in the Lehigh Valley. It's still there. It never has gone away and hopefully never will. But in the Philadelphia area, it's quite active. And in Florida it's very active. But I get the bulletin with the- magazines every year, and boy, they are there all over the world. And it raises money and it has saved children from World War II. And 00:10:00it's- to me it was, you know, something really big. I had wanted to go on the regional board. I had many friends on the national board. And as I see their names, it's- I'm very proud of it. But-

GE: What were some of the programs that you were, some of the programs that you were involved with here, that you brought here, that you were-

RS: Oh what started it was the- we had study groups, and the study groups were wonderful because it taught you a lot about things, like one of the things that I -- I think I was vice-president at the time, but I made a-What happened was you're given a topic and one person will be the leader of it. Once I had I think it was mothers and sons, or why, you know, eating was very important. And I 00:11:00found out a little clue: Eating was very important to the immigrants in the- in the United States in the early years of the 19th, 20th century, because when you got very thin, they thought you had tuberculosis. So people would say, "Eat!" It wasn't the Jewish mother's attitude. It was a necessary thing because tuberculosis was very prevalent in those days and living conditions were quite horrible. But it's- it was really- I was very busy. I was also on the board of the Day School, as I said, and I'm trying to think of what else. God, I was always busy, till I picked up tennis and then I played tennis three times a week 00:12:00until I was past eighty.

GE: Wonderful. Well what did, what did these things mean to you? How did you feel in terms of both what you were able to conribute or how they helped you as a person, as-?

RS: They did help me very much. I mean, when I started making speeches, I would shake -- and then I realized, you know what? These are my friends. They don't want me to fail. And I hoped I didn't. And it was very important, and as I said, when Milton became very active in his industry organization, I was there, and we would have things to do. You know, they have- which, whatever city we had the convention. And usually there was a guest, not a guest, but a resident host and hostess. And they would set up programs for the ladies because most of the men- 00:13:00there were very few women in the textile waste. There were a few, but very few. I don't know what it would be like now, but, but it's been a long time. But it was- it was an active life.

And the three kids, I thought they grew up very nicely. And they went to- Abby and Bruce went to the Jewish Day School. And when Abby graduated in sixth grade, she went to what's- what's the school on Walnut Street? Raub -- Raub Junior High. And it was very strange for a child her age to say to me, "Mom, I think I learned much more at the Day School." 'Cause they were a little bit ahead, considering that they had like twelve, ten kids in class. And when she went to 00:14:00Raub, she was dealing with a whole different group of people, but to her advantage, a whole group of Puerto Rican, Dominican, and Black people had taken a liking to her. And at one point she was thrown into the bramble bushes alongside Raub, and -- it was a little anti-Semitic -- and all her friends took over and they yeah, she really did, you know, she was really very good with that. I guess she was preparing herself for living in the South, which she did eventually when she was- when she was- graduated from Allen High, she actually 00:15:00moved to Atlanta and was selling apartments, you know, apartment residents. And then she moved to Greenville, South Carolina, where Milton had a- a plant. And she had set up- they set up for her a linen, you know, bedding plant- store. She had at one time, she had three stores, and she was doing very nicely until the companies themselves, she would get, you know, seconds and handouts. And when we first moved, when she first moved into the business, the former owner had big baskets and the sheets, you know, were all mixed up together. They came from all the plants, Laura Ashley, Ralph Lauren, and she managed to rearrange it where 00:16:00she got the print, the twins together, and the kings and the queens, and then the- she would package them together. And she did a good job until, as I said, the industry- the manufacturers themselves realized that they were, you know, getting rid of things by the pound when they could get they could get rid- they could make a good profit on selling them in seconds if they just packaged them. So that business went away, too. So she then decided to go into real estate and she's been there for- God, almost 20 years.

SC: In Atlanta?

RS: No, she's in Greenville. Yeah. She, well she got married and she- six months after she got married, she lost a leg in a motorcycle accident. But in this day 00:17:00and day, I want to tell you that she is number one in the paint horse show ring. So, with a one leg, she has done very well. And my other daughter is in Seattle. She works in a vegan restaurant. My two daughters are vegan, gluten-free vegans, and it's very difficult to listen to them because all they talk about is food. I think it's a loss on their part because I still eat meat and all the bad things that they say I shouldn't eat. And I survived, believe me better than some of the people at the quadrangle because every night they have ice cream.

SC: Yeah, I have a question about Hadassah.

RS: Sure.

SC: Do you think that Hadassah began to sort of--?

RS: Diminish?

RS: Diminish. Yeah, I- I- yeah, I was going to say "go downhill", diminish is much better. And because the children have moved away and because many people have moved to Florida. So is it that-

GE: And also the women work.

SC: What?

GE: My generation, the women work.

SC: Yeah, the women work, that's true.

RS: Well actually in 1980, when I became president, I noticed that half of the women were going back to school, another half were starting to go to work, getting teach- people who had been teachers, and getting teachers certificates, were working as teachers. And yes, I had a lot of trouble -- as a matter of fact, my board, which was I think forty strong, had its three top off positions I couldn't even get anybody to do. I finally asked the executive board to help 00:19:00me, and we managed to get everything done pretty well. But, yes, of course, I think all women's organizations are, you know, much less -- I mean, everybody calls it your grandma's business, so we're now into the great-grandmas and past. But listen, I have great, great nieces, I have two great, great nieces, but even the great-nieces and nephews are old!

SC: But you don't look it, so it's fine.

RS: Thank you. But other than that, no, it was fun. It really was. But it's a different life now. I'm pretty much on my own. Now can I talk about Omaha, Nebraska?

SC: Sure.

RS: That was an experience. My son, Bruce has taken over my entertainment, I think, because he has introduced me to things I really had never done before. And he asked me- he's also taken over some of the money problems, and has been dealing in investments and he's doing beautifully. And he- his father never thought it was important, but he did go to a school at Harvard that was called "SOB: Sons of Bosses". It was a program that they were- they, they're still running it. And they went three weeks from, I guess, 9:00 in the morning till 9:00 at night for three- but three weeks, they went for three years. And at the 00:21:00end of it, they actually got a Master's Degree, which was- they were told, he says to me that they were told that it's beyond a Masters, beyond an MBA, that the things that they were teaching them were way past that. So he's took- put it to very good use at this point. And a few weeks ago, he said to me, would you like to go to Omaha? And I knew exactly what he was talking about. And we went to Omaha on a Friday afternoon and went to a Berkshire Hathaway stockholders meeting, because I found out we had stock, we are the stockholders, and it was an experience that forty four thousand others shared with me.

GE: That's how many people were there?

RS: Yes, we don't know exactly, but they- they said that forty four thousand 00:22:00were registered to go, and Bruce said he had dealings with them. He wanted to take his camera and get, you know, a slip for press. And he said they called him, and he said if you- anything he wanted, if you called them, they called you back. And it's like Warren Buffett himself. We got up at five o'clock in the morning to get into the auditorium by 7:00 a.m. Because it was raining, they opened up the auditorium before 7:00 a.m. So there were lines everywhere, but Bruce got us a seat and he was taking pictures of Warren Buffett from 8:30 in the morning until 4 o'clock that afternoon. Warren Buffett is eighty-five years old. He talked and answered questions from- there were six people asking 00:23:00questions, one of which was Andrew Sorkin from The Times. He was there, among others. And there were- oh, Bill Gates was also there with his wife. We have big pictures of him and of Warren Buffett and his- his- I don't know if Charlie Munger is his partner or what, but they were sitting at the table together, munching on their See's Candy, peanut brittle, which is very good. He was talking about he- he was questioned, and then he would answer, and then he would talk a little bit more, and then in the afternoon, there was a break at noon and he came back, we came back at 1 o'clock and there were questions that the 00:24:00audience had submitted, and he would answer, he'd say, "Platform four," and a spotlight would go on and someone would be standing in the spotlight and asking a question, and he would answer the question. I mean, he never- never fumbled, never did anything that was- he just calmly answered every single question. I mean, he was amazing. It really was amazing. And he'd always say, after he spoke for a while, very nicely, he would say, "And Charlie, what do you think about that?" Charlie would say four words. He's 92, but very sharp. I mean, he- some of the answers he gave were very sharp. And it was really a delightful show. It- amazing. He was down on, after the- they had an hour, I think, over half an hour to buy the goods. Friday, I understand, was all buying. You didn't have any 00:25:00meetings or anything, but they did have a dinner and a brunch, and- but they were- he was down, not on the arena floor, but on the selling floor. And I see this big crowd and I saw a guy six foot four or so and I said, "You're tall enough. Who is there? Is it Warren?" And he looks and he says, "Yeah, it's him." And he's surrounded by people who- very, very nice man.

And then we had an Uber driver take us around on Sunday. Oh Sunday morning was a brunch at a jewelry store that is the largest in the United States. And I don't think anybody has ever heard the name. It's Borsheims. Gorgeous, sixty-five thousand square foot jewelry store, beautiful and gorgeous stuff. I mean not 00:26:00only jewelry, but dishes and flatware and a Swarovski -- I mean, you name it, it was there. Paintings and tiles, beautiful things, really. Actually, I sent my great nieces, my great, greats, little dishes of you know, like from three to five, nine years old dish sets, cup, plates, fork, and spoon. And on my cell phone, I have one of them saying thank you in taking it apart, and saying, "Oh, a cup for drinking!" And they said it was perfect because she was growing out of her little infant bowls. And she's adorable anyway. But it was, it was really quite an experience. And I said we got an Uber driver to take us around and she took us all around and she says, "Oh, you have to see Warren's house, don't 00:27:00you?" So we said, okay, you want to take us? "Oh," she says, "Everybody goes there!" And if you didn't see the yellow cord around the house because people didn't want them to come in, it's a very nice house in a very wonderful neighborhood. Nothing extravagant. I live on Main Street in Allentown, and I lived, and the houses are very similar and nothing extravagant or elaborate. He is a very simple man, and Bruce was able to take a picture of him getting into his car, going to dinner with the stockholders, and a very simple place, an old fashioned steak house in Omaha. And that was- And then the next day we went to Lauritzen Gardens, I think it was called, the most gorgeous greenhouses you ever 00:28:00want to see, almost bigger than the New York's Botanical Gardens. It was- it was really an eye opener to see this. It was really nice. We missed the tornadoes. There was one last night and one just before we got there. So that's a minus, but we weren't there for. But it was an experience that really- And then we stopped, that week ended by seeing John Williams conduct the Philadelphia Orchestra at the Kimmel Center with Star Wars music. It was an amazing week. Weekend, really. So, and that's my life now.

SC: Yes. May I ask a question?

RS: But it was very interesting. Go ahead.

SC: What do you- I have two more questions. What do you value most in life?

RS: My kids. I think that was the best thing, and I have you know, it's fun learning to live with your adult children. Right now, my son is taking care of me and his father. And Milton was an interesting character to live with. And even today, he's- even though he's really not in great mental shape, he's the same Milton. Walks over to everybody, says -- if it's a woman -- "You are the prettiest woman in the room"; and the men, "You're great." And they love him, I mean, they think he's wonderful. And it was funny, I went to a Cinco de Mayo festival that they had in this unit, and the director of it is about twenty-four 00:30:00years old, very beautiful, and was wearing a very short skirt, and she was dancing around, and every time she would come by us, we were sitting there, he would say, "She's a very pretty lady." But that was fun, it was. Everybody was dancing and laughing and singing. And it was, it was cute. Very good.

SC: So what made you feel the most creative? This is my last question, I promise.

RS: Creative?

SC: Yes.

RS: Well right now I'm writing stories for a writer's group. Most of the people in the group, of course, are residents of the quadrangle. They are all, I mean I feel like I'm uneducated because I only have a B.A. Degree, but they have 00:31:00Master's and two or three PhDs, and they're writing their autobiographies. Just last year, unfortunately, he died shortly after he finished his second book on his life work. And he was 94. He was a psychiatrist. And I'm telling you it's wonderful because I'm thinking, I'm remembering every time somebody tells a story, it sparks something in your head, and you say, "Oh, I remember that!" That's fun. I really find it fun. Physically, I can't do that great because I'm very off-balance. But that I like, I enjoy that.

GE: Tell us about the stories you're writing.

RS: Well, I've written a story about when my father and mother and sister went down to- up- we were going to a convention in my father's- my father's 00:32:00convention in Atlanta. In 1945? No, it couldn't have been, it was '48. My mother was still alive. And we went- we drove down to the- down south and we were meeting a couple who were leaving Greenville, who- he had- he was a shirt manufacturer in Greenville and was moving to Manhattan. And we were going to meet his family, and we went to a place called Tybee Beach in South Carolina. And nobody I know has ever heard of it except my daughter, when I- who lives in South Carolina said, "Oh yeah, it's a nice beach." So we went there and Eugene Talmadge was at the hotel. He was just leaving the hotel. And at that time, he 00:33:00was a famous or infamous politician in South Carolina. And my- How old was I? I don't remember. Maybe 12, 11? Eleven, I guess. It was, I said, "He looked like just a little corn pone." There was nothing very important about him, he didn't look like a hayseed -- that's the word. And I was not impressed, but I was impressed with the going down and seeing the chain gangs on the road. That was impressive- not impressive, but scary. And how we- when we left, when we actually left the hotel to go to Atlanta, we got into an accident and our car 00:34:00was smashed, so we had to take a bus to Atlanta and left the car there to be repaired. And the children- my mother got hysterical because she was wearing pants. It was a beautiful pair of the patio pants, but in 1948 you did not drive a- in a- you know, you didn't get on a bus with a pair of slacks, more or less. And I said today we would think it's formalwear. And then the night drive through rural South Carolina was something because in the middle of nowhere with no lights, no nothing, they would stop and somebody would get off. So it was quite, that was an adventure.

And then the next one was when? In 1954 or '52, something like that. We were in 00:35:00a blizzard and we had gone out to dinner at the Gourmet Inn, and we had some visitors from Italy in. And when it was snowing, I kept saying, I'll take a brisket out and I'll put- and have dinner here. We had invited two more couples for dinner and Milton said, "No, we'll go out to the Gourmet Inn." I said, "Can't we stay in town?" "Nah!" And this Italian is saying, "This is no snow!" He comes from the Alps. They had six feet the week before. And we went there on Saturday night. And we left the- at about 10:00 that night, we left the Gourmet Inn and got about half a mile down the road when we had to stop because the car 00:36:00wouldn't move. The wind was blowing and the snow was blowing and it was five degrees, and we stayed four days. We were very lucky when we saw light out in a bleak, dark night. And Milt and his brother got out of the car and the snow was up to their waist, and they opened the hood and snow was packed all the way into the- to the engine. So we had Vera Shiff with us, too. And Morty was in Cincinnati and he kept saying, "What do you mean you're stuck near the Gourmet Inn? Can't you go home? Kids are home," and everybody's kids were home with the babysitters. And we stayed there because we couldn't get out. And we realized Amelio Falco, who is this outside- The Italian kept saying, "We had six feet of 00:37:00snow!" And after I wrote the story, I looked up in the- on the dates at how much snow we had -- we had 15.4 inches. And last winter, we had- you had 32 inches here in Allentown. So I apologize for saying it was a blizzard, but that was- it was an amazing- Listen, we got through that.

But I have another one. We were caught in- We went to Acapulco, and we went out fishing and the boat burned underneath us. So that's another one I'm writing but I don't want them to know that I was in catastrophic situations all my life. I had some very happy, calm ones. So that's an interesting- that's what I'm doing now. And meeting a hundred new people. And getting along very nicely.

SC: Thank you so much.

RS: My pleasure.