Leonard and Beverley Bloch, July 25, 2011
Dublin Core
Title
Leonard and Beverley Bloch, July 25, 2011
Description
Leonard Bloch talks about his father’s reluctant start in the needle-trade business. A few years after Lenny’s father started the business, Lenny’s mother was diagnosed with terminal cancer. As a result, rather than go to college, Lenny joined the business after he graduated from high school and quickly discovered he both enjoyed and had an affinity for managing the business.
Beverly Bloch talks about the challenge of growing up in Oliphant, PA in a home where her mom worked long hours in their “mom and pop” grocery store. Growing up without her own mother at home, Beverly was determined to be a stay-at-home mother to her children.
Beverly Bloch talks about the challenge of growing up in Oliphant, PA in a home where her mom worked long hours in their “mom and pop” grocery store. Growing up without her own mother at home, Beverly was determined to be a stay-at-home mother to her children.
Creator
Muhlenberg College Special Collections and College Archives
Publisher
Muhlenberg College Special Collections and College Archives
Date
2011-07-25
Rights
Copyright remains with the interview subject and their heirs.
Format
video
Identifier
LVTNT-31
Oral History Item Type Metadata
Interviewer
Susan Clemens-Bruder
Interviewee
Leonard Bloch
Duration
01:59:56
OHMS Object
OHMS Object Text
5.4 July 25, 2011 Leonard and Beverley Bloch, July 25, 2011 LVTNT-31 1:59:56 LVTNT Lehigh Valley Textile and Needlework Trades Muhlenberg College: Trexler Library Oral History Repository trexlerlibrarymuhlenberg Leonard Bloch Beverley Bloch Susan Clemens-Bruder Gail Eisenberg video/mp4 BlochLeonard_Beverley_20110725 1.0:|25(4)|48(9)|73(7)|92(3)|109(7)|128(4)|159(5)|184(8)|199(16)|218(5)|247(11)|264(11)|281(3)|300(7)|313(13)|330(14)|357(3)|370(12)|385(14)|402(2)|429(10)|448(4)|475(11)|494(13)|511(6)|536(6)|555(10)|574(8)|599(6)|616(9)|631(15)|650(6)|665(13)|682(7)|711(17)|736(17)|751(15)|768(17)|783(11)|806(10)|827(8)|844(3)|865(6)|886(8)|905(14)|922(12)|941(13)|962(5)|981(4)|996(10)|1029(11)|1056(4)|1085(6)|1106(5)|1127(8)|1156(3)|1185(3)|1204(15)|1219(9)|1240(11)|1261(3)|1276(16)|1303(10)|1328(10)|1353(13)|1382(8)|1397(15)|1414(3)|1451(8)|1486(6)|1501(3)|1520(17)|1539(10)|1570(7)|1599(5)|1614(3)|1647(8)|1666(9)|1685(5)|1702(4)|1739(16)|1758(11)|1779(7)|1808(13)|1835(13)|1856(6)|1877(8)|1902(3)|1925(8)|1948(11)|1969(13)|2000(5)|2025(12)|2054(2)|2083(5)|2114(5)|2139(2)|2158(5)|2179(6)|2198(5)|2219(14)|2242(5)|2265(15)|2286(13)|2311(10)|2338(4)|2361(13)|2382(13)|2405(4)|2428(12)|2451(14)|2476(14)|2499(5)|2522(13)|2543(14)|2570(13)|2597(12)|2620(12)|2643(5)|2666(17) 0 https://youtu.be/42fll13b1xU YouTube video 10 Early Family History SC: Today is July 25, 2011, an interview- attending is Gail Eisenberg and Susan Clemens-Bruder. Hi. First of all, I would like to put you into context. And so if you could give your full name and your birth date?
 ; 
 ; LB: Leonard Bloch, January 29, 1935.
 ; 
 ; SC: Where were you born, and where did you live in your early life?
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 ; LB: I was born in Wilmington, DE. Lived there at the most two years, I’m not sure the exact [time], and then my parents moved back to Allentown and I’ve lived here ever since. 0 269 Father's Business GE: What did your father do for a living?
 ; 
 ; LB: My father worked for Sears Roebuck. He was the manager of the furniture department with Sears Roebuck. Sears was located on 7th Street at that time between Linden and Turner, and then they decided to build a new store which was located on 7th Street between Tilghman and Allen. During that period of time, they transferred my father to their Wilmington, DE store for about a two or three year period, and after that, he came back to Allentown, and he started in the garment business in approximately 1944-1945. 0 381 Leonard's Start in the Business SC: So — and we’ll come back to all that — but tell me a little bit more about you, as far as what was your educational background and how did you become involved in a business, and where did you work, actually, all your life? Did you have little jobs when you were young and then move into the garment industry?
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 ; LB: How young?
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 ; SC: As young as you can be. Paperboy?
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 ; LB: No, I was never a paperboy. During the war, I used to, on the weekend, go around with my wagon and collect. At that time there was always a drive for some scrap metal, old rubber tires, and drippings from fats was used for munitions, and I would collect that and then sell it. Gas stations had places where you could buy that. I guess I was meant for the garment industry because we lived at 630 N. 23rd Street, had a nice front porch, and I invited all my friends on the porch, and I had little looms, and they made potholders. 0 612 Ideas of Early Businesses LB: So they were going to go into some business. And their first thought was a luncheonette. Well first, actually their first thought they were thinking of the potato chip business, manufacturing potato chips.
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 ; GE: Her, her- Interesting, her husband's family is Charles Chips.
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 ; LB: Oh, really.
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 ; GE: Yeah, her ex-husband’s.
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 ; SC: So they were thinking about that. And that was a perfect time to do it if you could get the oil.
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 ; LB: They looked into the potato chip business, and they were all set to do that, and then they discovered that you don't get a pound of potato chips from a pound of potatoes when the water comes out it's a big difference, so it wasn't quite the gold mine that it appeared to be at first. So they rented one of these small apartments, and they were going to put a luncheonette there. 0 866 Business Operations SC: Can you talk a little bit now about the business? What were the operations, what- how- how did you set it up, or your father set it up and you continue it?
 ; 
 ; LB: Well, as I said, my dad was not really a garment man, so he made polo shirts, and he really wasn't interested in making other types of garments. The polo shirt market was not one that I saw a future in even in the early 1950s. At that time, rather than things being manufactured in other countries, there was a migration to the South. There was a lot of clothing being made in the South. So I started looking at other types of clothing to make, and my dad always told me that if you go to work every day and you’re there in the morning, whatever you do, if you make a mistake or whatever you do, we’ll work it out, don't worry about it. Just be on time and we won't worry about mistakes, and he was always true to that. I did some crazy things. Most of them worked out. 0 1560 Competition in the Area GE: But while you were doing this, were there many other bouffant manufacturers in the area, or were you primarily the only one?
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 ; LB: There were a few others around, but... they had a lot of trouble.
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 ; GE: They didn't have some of these innovative ideas.
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 ; LB: If you can just imagine a seamstress getting starch in her eyes is- is a significant thing. The goggles that I got prevented a lot of it, but I also had an arrangement with a local physician where- when they got impacted, I would have them taken up to the doctor's office, they would clean out their eyes, and it had just gone in so it would just be in the corners. It was fine. 0 1713 More About the Business SC: So I have a couple of questions. First of all, in the ‘60s, what happened with the bouffant business and was polo generic polo shirts, or was it for Polo?
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 ; LB: T-shirt — no, it was not for Polo. 
 ; 
 ; SC: So the idea of generic polo, because Polo then had the name.
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 ; LB: Today, polo shirts are called t-shirts, and it’s one of the biggest items, but it’s very difficult to find a store that carries American made t-shirts. They are all made off-shore. And that was something that was actually- you could forecast was going to happen. Following WWII, the world was flat, and they needed industry, and there is no more exportable industry, at least as I read the tea leaves, then the garment industry. 0 2181 Unions SC: When the business started, did your father embrace the union right away, and was this something that you were committed to, to having the union in your operations?
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 ; LB: My dad did embrace the union very early on, and I was committed to it, absolutely. 0 2245 Business Anecdotes SC: So do you have any anecdotes about or stories that you remember about your years in the business? Anything that just strikes you — funny, sad, interesting?
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 ; LB: I made mention a few moments ago about sliding the cartons down the outdoor fire escape. Well, the first time that I did that, it was for a local company called Movie Star. Actually, it was a New York company, but they had a plant in Allentown, a shipping point in Allentown. And before I had the chute made, we actually just went out the fire escape door and dropped the boxes down one at a time. Well, the first time I did this, the truck driver thought we were crazy. He came running upstairs to use the telephone and called his boss, a man named Charlie Halperin [?]. And Charlie heard this, “He’s throwing your bouffants out the window!” 0 2425 Business Skills and Practices SC: What skills did you have? How did you divide the skills, for instance, there is the floor person, floor lady, and were all the workers women?
 ; 
 ; LB: No, I had — well, I had a cutting department, and the cutters were, the cutter was always a man. The shipper, the shipping clerk. In those days, you wouldn’t think of a female shipping clerk. So- and I had a mechanic, had a very good mechanic was one of the keys to being successful with some of these different things because a mechanic not only fixed machines and keep them running and sewing machines can constantly break, and if you skip a stitch, it’s a second, it has to be repaired ; but he could make attachments. 0 3055 Real Estate Owner LB: No. No. First I just bought, we just bought a couple of buildings, and then I actually built a few buildings. The largest one was in Allentown, 48 apartments.
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 ; GE: Oh, where? Which? I mean, is it just- is it a complex?
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 ; LB: Yeah. Garden Apartments, South Tioga Street.
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 ; GE: Okay. I don’t know…is that South Allentown?
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 ; SC: That’s South Allentown.
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 ; LB: And I had some in Emmaus. You might know — we owned at one point the Powder Mill Apartments back on Furnace Street. 0 3333 Bloch Children Involvement? GE: Any of your children- Did any of your children get involved either in the real estate part or in the garment, in the textile?
 ; 
 ; LB: No, not really. Our oldest son, Craig, is a pediatrician. Our daughter sold advertising space for a Washington newspaper, and now she is a special education teacher for reading. 0 3465 Flex-time for the Employees SC: This is tape number 3, July 25th, 2011, an interview with Leonard Bloch. And can we talk about flex time? When you started flex time before probably anybody did and also how you allowed women to work with their families in mind in other ways?
 ; 
 ; LB: I was able to handle flexible hours. If an employee had an elderly parent or children or whatever the need might be, they did not have to work 7 1/2 continuous hours. That was our...overtime was first over 7 1/2 and then over 7. But they could work, have an extra hour or two for lunch or just work mornings or just work afternoons or a combination of mornings and evenings or just evenings, and it worked out well for them, and it didn’t hurt me. I could- I had their loyalty. If I needed a favor in return, it was no problem. 0 3608 Lehigh Valley Textile Industry GE: No, and then we will talk about a little bit when you were saying in terms of family, as well as your sense . . . how about your sense of the Allentown textile industry, or I shouldn’t say the Allentown, I should say the Lehigh Valley — because there were a lot of contractors, correct?
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 ; LB: There were. There were several hundred in the Lehigh Valley at one time.
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 ; GE: Right. Can you just tell us a little bit about that? Was there much collaboration among the contractors? Was it very competitive among the contractors? How did all- some of those things…?
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 ; LB: It was a competitive market. It was competitive for help, seamstresses. It was competitive for getting the work, getting the contracts for- Speaking of contracts, it’s not in the usual context of a contract. 0 3775 Never Joined the Atlantic Apparel Association GE: What about, were you associated with the contractors association? Because we spoke with, we did meet with Arnold Delin.
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 ; LB: Yes- No, I never joined. 
 ; 
 ; GE: Okay, just wondering. Okay, why? You didn’t feel it was in your interest, or…?
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 ; LB: Well, obviously, I guess I didn’t feel it was in my interest, which maybe I was right or maybe I was wrong. 0 3876 New York Garment Industry SC: I hope this question isn’t too much of a tangent, but when you go to New York, and you see racks of clothing being wheeled down the street in the garment industry, the garment center of New York City, well how does that fit into the whole picture? And I’m showing my ignorance of not knowing. 
 ; 
 ; LB: Well, in New York there are also a lot of contractors, and many times there’s the garment district, so if the contracting shop is close to the manufacturer or jobber that they got the work from, they’ll just load it on racks and push them down the street.
 ; 
 ; GE: Oh, so it’s just that.
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 ; LB: Yeah, so it’s just the convenience. 0 3931 Community Involvement/Memories of the Community SC: Could we talk a little bit about your work in the community and in, you know, just in the general community, wherever you have been involved? 
 ; 
 ; GE: Actually, before we get into that, what are your memories of the community? In other words, when you were a child, you can give us a little bit of insight, what was the Allentown community like, and what was the Allentown Jewish community like? Both institutionally, what you know, what institutions were here, where were they, how active were they, what was the size of the community, where did it live, you know things of that nature? 
 ; 
 ; LB: Well, I’ve always lived here, and I guess summing up, you could say I always loved my community. And, after Beverley and I were married, we both loved the community. And I was active in the community, as you know. I was active at Temple Beth El. I was President of the School Board for a couple years. I was on the Board of Temple Beth El. I was president of Temple Beth El from 1982-1987. I was president of the Endowment Foundation for about 10-11 years. It started in 1987-1988, whenever my term as president ended. And I was a Trustee at St. Luke’s Hospital for 10 years, from 1982-1991. 0 4457 Memories of the Jewish Community GE: And tell us about your memories of the Jewish community when you were, because you grew up here your whole life, as a child and teen versus a young adult, you know, versus a father in, you know, your 30s and 40s and now as a senior? You know, what have you seen? How has it changed? You know a little bit of that. 
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 ; LB: Well in terms of demographics, the Jewish community has moved in a Western direction like for instance, Temple Beth El used to be at 17th and Hamilton-
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 ; GE: And I guess when you were younger, it was even 6th or something?
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 ; LB: I was BarMitzvahed at 12th and Walnut.
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 ; GE: 12th and Walnut, is that where it started? 12th and Walnut?
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 ; LB: Yes, that’s where it started. Well, we were married at 19, so as a young person ; and we were dating since we were 16…15? Yeah, 15. 0 4763 Needle Trades in Allentown SC: Do you remember any of the names of in- the needle trades right in Allentown? Maybe that would be something to write down sometime. It would be really-
 ; 
 ; LB: You mean other-
 ; 
 ; SC: Other businesses, yeah. 
 ; 
 ; LB: Schneider Manufacturing. That’s Irwin Schneider. Allentown Manufacturing. That’s George Hirsch. 
 ; 
 ; GE: We have Leonard- Len Manufacturing? Is that what it was called?
 ; 
 ; LB: Leonard. Leonard Manufacturing. 0 4866 Urban Renewal Processes in Allentown SC: I have another tangential question that’s a little self-interested. Do you remember anything about the years when the Urban Renewal Processes were going around- on in Allentown, especially the Little Lehigh Renewal Project that was the most contentious in Allentown? Were you involved with the city or any- any portion of that at that time?
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 ; LB: No. I remember when they wanted to change Hamilton Street into the Hamilton Mall, and I felt, along with the merchants, that that was a poor direction to go in. The merchants I clearly remember were solidly against changing Hamilton Street to one way and making it narrow. And I think the time has proven that they were right. 0 4968 Giving to the Family GE: But you know, we may want to ask in here in terms of just a little bit, I thought it was actually wonderful what Beverley was saying in terms of what you were able to offer your family education-wise and your wife education-wise. And I think that gets into here.
 ; 
 ; SC: Yeah.
 ; 
 ; GE: And so do you want to just share that with us because it wasn’t on the last tape. 
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 ; LB: Well, Beverley certainly didn’t come to work in the factory every day. We were always involved in everything together. We’ve been partners in everything. The factory and the building-
 ; 
 ; GE: Did you say she did come to work?
 ; 
 ; LB: No, she didn’t.
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 ; GE: She did not, okay. 
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 ; LB: But, we did things together. 0 5141 What Has Made You Feel the Most Creative in Life? SC: And what has made you feel the most artistic or creative or given you a sense of completion in life the most?
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 ; LB: I guess I’ve always valued my extracurricular, if you will, community activities the most. When I started in the garment industry, I made a promise to myself that I was not going just to be involved in business and get lost. And I suppose the experience that I value that I enjoyed the most has been the presidency of Temple Beth El. 0 5218 Beverley Bloch's Family History BB: I’m Beverley Bloch. Beverley Berg Bloch. And my birthdate is August 13th, 1935.
 ; 
 ; SC: And would you then, let's go back in your family a little bit, and then we’ll put you into context with your family. Where- What do you know about your parents? Give me their names, and also where they and perhaps their parents came from as far back as you know. 
 ; 
 ; BB: My father was, may he rest in peace, Joseph Berg. The name actually was Bergada, and he was from Pricin, Hungary, a small community in Hungary. And my mother was, may she rest in peace, Mildred Kleinberg. She was born in this country in a very small coal town called Oliphant, Pennsylvania. 0 5536 Beverley's Education BB: In the coal region. By the time I was 14, and I was the only Jewish kid in my class, I realized that I wanted to meet other Jewish kids. I realized that I would never get a good education. The education in Oliphant, Pennsylvania, the boys went into the mines, the girls went into then sewing plants. There were little sewing plants also in Oliphant. So I said to my parents that I would like very much to get a better education so there was a bus, buses that would start higher up in the coal regions — Carbondale, Jessup — and they would do what they call go “down the line” into Scranton. So when I was fourteen, I went, I registered to a Scranton school, Scranton Central High School, and I would take the bus every morning, approximately probably around 7:00. 0 5658 Meeting Leonard BB: And I got on the bus, and I had a blind date with someone named Leonard Bloch. 
 ; 
 ; GE: Oh, my goodness.
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 ; BB: We met at the Jewish Community Center at 6th and Chew Street, and the rest is history. 
 ; 
 ; SC: Wow.
 ; 
 ; BB: We kept dating. 
 ; 
 ; SC: Long distance dating for a while?
 ; 
 ; BB: Yeah, our wedding songbook said, “Martz Bus Made Money on Bev & ; Her Honey.” And it was true. Martz Bus would carry me to Bethlehem, not to Allentown, and Lenny would meet me in Bethlehem, and we just continued dating. 0 5732 Beverley's Parents' Store SC: To go back to your parents when they started their store, and that was 1931?
 ; 
 ; BB: Probably around then.
 ; 
 ; SC: They started the store, that was a really brave time to start a business in 1931. I mean that was going down to rock bottom by ‘32 to use a cliché. 
 ; 
 ; GE: However, people still had to eat.
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 ; SC: People had to eat so it was a good, it was a good decision, but also a lot of people had to sign a book rather than give money.
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 ; BB: Everything my father sold at the store was on the books. 0 5793 Anti-Semitism in School? GE: So given that you were- It was such a small number of Jewish children, and you were saying it was an Orthodox community in a much, in the school, whatever — was it difficult? Were you tormented or in any way?
 ; 
 ; BB: There was a certain amount of anti-Semitism. Basically speaking, no, I was not tormented. I can’t speak for what the boys in the area may have felt. From a girl's point of view, I had many non-Jewish friends, mostly non-Jewish friends. If they would become angry at me, the first remark out of their mouth might be “You dirty Jew.” It might be. Because they were being raised themselves in an environment that was totally anti-Semitic. 0 5943 Beverley's Involvement in the Business SC: Yeah. So if we move forward to when you got married and also how you became involved in the business, even if you didn’t go into the office every day. So if you can talk about how you got in, how you became involved in the business, and how you were involved, even though you didn’t go into work every day?
 ; 
 ; BB: I, actually, having been raised by a mother who was not home, I was truly averse to leaving my children. I almost made a vow that I would not marry anyone who would demand my participation in the business. But of course, Lenny and I discussed everything that he did, he would come home and we would talk. When he would have a jobber come to Allentown, of course it was up to me to be sure to entertain the jobber. 0 6260 Beverley's Community Involvement SC: What have you done in the community? How have you been a part of the Jewish community but also the wider community? 
 ; 
 ; BB: All right, when I was twenty, I went back- excuse me, when my child was twenty, excuse me- when my daughter who went to college, once she was able to go to college, I felt free to pursue my own education, and I went to Cedar Crest. The reason I went back to college was when she was about eight or nine, I started working as a volunteer at the Crippled Childrens Society. And I felt a real sense of a vocation for me. I liked working with people ; I liked helping people. And having raised this child and not having the ability to have a social worker help us — in 1958, there was no such thing as a social worker in the hospitals to send you home with a child who was going to profoundly need tremendous care. And your other children, when they would be involved in what had happened to the family — there was no such thing. So I saw my bent in life, I would become a social worker. So, it took me ten years. In the interim, I was active with Hadassah ; I was on the board of Hadassah. I was on the Board of the Temple, and when Rance Block was president, I became the social secretary- I don’t know what they called it. 0 6505 Did the Jewish Community Change in Allentown? SC: Did you, in those years, how did Allentown and the Jewish community and also in the wider community change?
 ; 
 ; BB: Well, as Lenny mentioned, the demographics of the community changed tremendously. When we bought our first home on Marshall Street, it was the end of the city. That was the end of the city. And then, of course, we saw the city move so much further west. And in terms of people who live here, it changed from a community of perhaps the entrepreneurs to professional men, mostly, as Lenny mentioned, medical. And so we saw that. 0 6782 Beverley Bloch's Perspective on Younger Generation Community Involvement SC: And is this the next generation or are these- Are the people that are involved now the people that have come in from other areas? Have you lost people that are, perhaps your children or your friends’ children, to go work in other places and live other places?
 ; 
 ; BB: Well, our children do not, unfortunately, live [here]. Our oldest son lives in Ann Arbor, Michigan, with his wife. I don’t think he’s- he does belong to a Chabad, but interestingly enough, he is married to a Baptist. 
 ; 
 ; SC: It’s the new generation.
 ; 
 ; BB: A new generation, yes. 0 6951 What Do You Value Most in Life? SC: So, what do you value in life most?
 ; 
 ; BB: My family. My family, my culture, my Judaism, very much my Judaism. The years when we were raising our daughter, without my faith, I don’t think I would have gotten through easily. And Israel. We value Israel, we worry about Israel, and we worry, I think, about Judaism in general, and, you know, where is- where is our country going, in general. 0 7108 What Makes You Feel the Most Creative? SC: What makes you feel the most creative?
 ; 
 ; BB: Creative? That’s a very difficult question. Creative. I like to make mandel bread for my family, that’s my specialty, making mandel bread. 
 ; 
 ; GE: That’s like a- like biscotti?
 ; 
 ; BB: Biscotti, it’s a Jewish biscotti, and whenever I have to take something to a friend-
 ; 
 ; GE: I’ll have to give you a call to get the recipe. 
 ; 
 ; BB: Mine is a basic simple recipe, and everybody seems to love it. So that makes me feel very good to be able to do something like that. Creativity, I am not a musician of any sort. My chanting, my chanting makes me feel very creative.
 ; 
 ; SC: Yes, metaphoric sense of creativity. 0 MovingImage Leonard Bloch talks about his father’s reluctant start in the needle-trade business. A few years after Lenny’s father started the business, Lenny’s mother was diagnosed with terminal cancer. As a result, rather than go to college, Lenny joined the business after he graduated from high school and quickly discovered he both enjoyed and had an affinity for managing the business.
 ; 
 ; Beverly Bloch talks about the challenge of growing up in Oliphant, PA in a home where her mom worked long hours in their “mom and pop” grocery store. Growing up without her own mother at home, Beverly was determined to be a stay-at-home mother to her children.
 ; Interview with Leonard Bloch, July 25, 2011 SUSAN CLEMENS-BRUDER: Today- LEONARD BLOCH: Is it all right if Beverley joins us? GAIL EISENBERG: Please. SC: Today is July 25, 2011, an interview- attending is Gail Eisenberg and Susan Clemens-Bruder. Hi. First of all, I would like to put you into context. And so if you could give your full name and your birth date? LB: Leonard Bloch, January 29, 1935. SC: Where were you born, and where did you live in your early life? LB: I was born in Wilmington, DE. Lived there at the most two years, I'm not sure the exact [time], and then my parents moved back to Allentown and I've lived here ever since. SC: And also, what is your family background? What- what- Where did your parents come from and what kind of education did they have? LB: My parents were both born in the United States, my mother in Coplay and lived in Allentown, and my dad is from Wilkes-Barre, PA. Both high school graduates. GE: How about their parents? LB: My father's family is from Germany, and I believe my mother's family is from Germany, as well. GE: And- And they were first generation? In other words, your parents- Do you know anything about when your parents, actually your grandparents came to America? Or what was the situation? LB: I don't know the dates. GE: Where did they settle? Did they live in which communities? LB: My dad's family settled in Wilkes Barre and always lived in Wilkes Barre. And my mom's family in the Lehigh Valley, as I said, started out in Coplay, which is just about five miles outside of Allentown and then to Allentown. GE: What kinds of careers or business or education did your- well I think you said that your parents were high school graduates. LB: Yes. GE: But what kinds of enterprise or business or jobs did they have? LB: My mother did not work, she was a housewife. Although prior to getting married, she was actually a coat buyer for Dobnoffs Store. SC: For the future, can you explain what Dobnoffs was? LB: Dobnoffs was a women's fine clothing store. SC: And where was it located? LB: In Allentown on Hamilton Street, I think between 6th & ; 7th. SC: And as far as your parents were concerned, did they actually come - did they come to Allentown at a specific time? LB: No. Well, my mother always- SC: She always lived in Coplay, but did they come to Allentown at a specific time and locate in Allentown proper, somewhere in Allentown? LB: I don't know what that date might have been. As I said, they initially settled right outside of Allentown and then moved into the city. GE: What did her parents do for a living? Your mother's parents. LB: Hm. Not really sure. I think they had a small dry goods store. My mother's father passed away quite young. I'm not sure just what age. And her mother lived close to 80. GE: What did your father do for a living? LB: My father worked for Sears Roebuck. He was the manager of the furniture department with Sears Roebuck. Sears was located on 7th Street at that time between Linden and Turner, and then they decided to build a new store which was located on 7th Street between Tilghman and Allen. During that period of time, they transferred my father to their Wilmington, DE store for about a two or three year period, and after that, he came back to Allentown, and he started in the garment business in approximately 1944-1945. GE: So he left Sears Roebuck? LB: Yes. He started out in two apartments at 716 and 718 Linden Street. They were two buildings that had three apartments in each building, and he converted the first-floor apartments, by knocking out walls, into a small garment factory. And... GE: So this was during the war, right? LB: Yes, it was just before the end of the war. GE: Right, right. --and what type of apparel? Was he a contractor? LB: It was a contracting shop, yes. And he made polo shirts. SC: And was- The factory was in Allentown? LB: Yes. SC: Did he have any other factories? LB: No. SC: Just the one in Allentown? LB: Yes. SC: So -- and we'll come back to all that -- but tell me a little bit more about you, as far as what was your educational background and how did you become involved in a business, and where did you work, actually, all your life? Did you have little jobs when you were young and then move into the garment industry? LB: How young? SC: As young as you can be. Paperboy? LB: No, I was never a paperboy. During the war, I used to, on the weekend, go around with my wagon and collect. At that time there was always a drive for some scrap metal, old rubber tires, and drippings from fats was used for munitions, and I would collect that and then sell it. Gas stations had places where you could buy that. I guess I was meant for the garment industry because we lived at 630 N. 23rd Street, had a nice front porch, and I invited all my friends on the porch, and I had little looms, and they made potholders. SC: That's great. GE: And you sold the potholders? LB: Yeah, I would put each potholder in a little sandwich bag, and I would go out around the neighborhood. GE: I remember making those potholders at camp. LB: Yeah it was a looping- GE: I know exactly what you're saying. SC: Any other jobs after that before you were an adult and got into a full-time business? LB: Well, when I started, when I was around 15, my mother started teaching me how to do bookkeeping. Payroll and things. My mother died young. She died when she was 47 -- breast cancer. GE: Is that why she taught you? Was she already sick? LB: No, she wasn't, she wasn't. I recall her having small ailments, but I think she wanted some help with it. She actually was very instrumental in encouraging my dad to go into the garment business. My dad was a furniture man, and... GE: So she was a visionary? LB: He really didn't know the garment business. In fact a funny aside -- the reason they were looking for a business, one of the motivating reasons, was because it was around that time in 1944 when Sears Roebuck was considering building another new building which they built out in the Lehigh Valley Mall. At first it was the one across the street from the Lehigh Valley Mall, the Whitehall Mall actually, and they were going to transfer my parents someplace else once again and they- my mother and my dad decided they wanted to stay in the same city. My brother and I, my brother's name is Stanley, Stanley passed away actually just in October of 2010. GE: Was Stanley older then you or younger than you? LB: No, younger. Stanley was 68 when he passed away. So they were going to go into some business. And their first thought was a luncheonette. Well first, actually their first thought they were thinking of the potato chip business, manufacturing potato chips. GE: Her, her- Interesting, her husband's family is Charles Chips. LB: Oh, really. GE: Yeah, her ex-husband's. SC: So they were thinking about that. And that was a perfect time to do it if you could get the oil. LB: They looked into the potato chip business, and they were all set to do that, and then they discovered that you don't get a pound of potato chips from a pound of potatoes when the water comes out it's a big difference, so it wasn't quite the gold mine that it appeared to be at first. So they rented one of these small apartments, and they were going to put a luncheonette there. And it was right around the corner from the Sears Roebuck store. Actually, the new store that they were going to build at that time was at 7th & ; Allen Street. I got ahead of the story a little bit. So they figured my dad's coworkers would walk around the corner and have lunch at the luncheonette. So they rented this apartment to be a luncheonette, and they had actually ordered luncheonette equipment already. Then before it came in before everything was delivered, they started thinking about the contracting business because there were a lot of sewing contracting shops in the area, and they changed their minds. They canceled the soda fountain equipment and luncheonette equipment and got sewing machines instead. So it was kind of a circuitous way to get into the clothing business. In any event, I graduated high school in June of 1952, and I had been planning to go to college, but along about July of 1952, my dad came to me and told me that my mother had breast cancer. And he wanted to spend some time with her, and they would have to go to doctors visits and so on and so forth, so could I go down to the factory and just take care of things, and I knew nothing about it except the bookkeeping, and going in after school, so I knew what a polo shirt looked like. So, of course, I said fine, and all of a sudden overnight, I was the boss of about twelve, thirteen, fourteen people. SC: So- and so you stayed there, and you didn't end up going to college? LB: No I didn't. SC: You went into the business. LB: Yeah, I liked it. My dad really didn't like it. My mom passed away in August of '53, and he continued to need me, and I just stayed. And I can't say, you know, I really always liked it. SC: You didn't have any- Did you have to go into the service at all in those years? LB: No, somehow I missed the service. Beverly and I were married in 1954 in November and missed the draft. Which we weren't unhappy about. SC: Can you talk a little bit now about the business? What were the operations, what- how- how did you set it up, or your father set it up and you continue it? LB: Well, as I said, my dad was not really a garment man, so he made polo shirts, and he really wasn't interested in making other types of garments. The polo shirt market was not one that I saw a future in even in the early 1950s. At that time, rather than things being manufactured in other countries, there was a migration to the South. There was a lot of clothing being made in the South. So I started looking at other types of clothing to make, and my dad always told me that if you go to work every day and you're there in the morning, whatever you do, if you make a mistake or whatever you do, we'll work it out, don't worry about it. Just be on time and we won't worry about mistakes, and he was always true to that. I did some crazy things. Most of them worked out. So one of the first different kinds of garments that I made that was really significantly different in 1955 I started making bouffant petticoats, which is a far cry-- GE: Now tell me what they are? LB: Bouffant petticoats when you have a billowy... GE: Is that when you would have a big formal gown? Oh. LB: No actually. SC: Like a big skirt in the 50s? GE: Oh, they wore these petticoats underneath it. SC: Yeah, yeah. LB: Women wore- this was a big thing. Just an everyday dress, there was a couple and women would wear more than one bouffant to make it very, very billowy. Well to make a dozen polo shirts at that time the minimum wage was with- for sewing machine operators was I think around $.60 an hour, something like that, and we were a union shop -- International Ladies Garment Workers Union. And to make a dozen polo shirts was maybe $.85 just supplying the thread and just make a dozen polo shirts, and if it was open shoulders it was maybe $1.00 a dozen. Everything was in units of twelve or a dozen, and there was just not enough business in that market. So Bouffant petticoats, first Bouffant petticoat I made, priced- we got $3.25 per dozen for making. And it was totally different but somehow I could see there was a future in it. It really wasn't that many more operations. They were like day and night as far as being different, but... For instance, what made them billowy so that they would hold the skirt out was the starch they put into the material but when you go to sew this each ruffle they were made in tiers and as it got longer each strip that you put on was larger than the prior piece and so you had to ruffle it in and you did that by using a shearing blade. Well, as that blade hit the fabric, it would kick out the starch, so that was very abrasive. It was so abrasive that it changed tops for the sewing machine after two or three months because it wore the table down. So you can imagine what it did to women's hands. To protect their hands, I bought calfskin gloves, and that would protect their hands. And they would have to change them daily because they would wear through. They could get starch in their eyes, so I bought plastic goggles, and it looked like a space- a spacesuit. Canvas aprons so it didn't damage their clothing. But with all these work aids, it worked out. Then I devised a system that once a girl ran a ruffle on, there was just a utility person who would take it from them and fold it in half and put it back in their work bin, so it was ready for the next ruffle after they finished putting all the first on. And that kept them sewing more often. GE: Is this -- I'm just curious -- the product I do remember as a little girl something called crinoline? LB: That's it, it was, yes. Crinoline. GE: I'm just wondering, so what your saying is, compared to the polo shirts, there is much more value added, that you were able to get a lot -- you know, given your raw material and given the selling price -- there was a much higher margin, right? LB: Yeah. GE: But obviously it also had a lot more obstacles, this was a more difficult- LB: Yes, for instance, packaging each crinoline, each bouffant had to be rolled up and put a rubber band around it so it wouldn't unroll and then pack either 3 in a box or 6 in a box depending on how billowy or what the style was. And this was a cumbersome job to try to roll this thing up and then try and put a rubber band on it. So I was, one day I was trying to figure out a way -- there has to be an easier way to do this then to struggle with it, because it really was a struggle if you can imagine it. The minimum sweep, sweep on the bottom, was maybe 3 yards that's 100 inches wiry and stiff. So I got an idea and went to a toy store and I bought sand buckets. I cut the bottom out with a can opener. Mounted it on a piece of 1 x 3 wood and mounted that on a table now the packing girl only had to grab it by the top, put it in the large opening at the top, and rubber bands were slid onto the can as it came to the end it just snapped. So the production went from maybe taking 5 minutes to roll up one to be able to do it in 5-6 seconds. GE: Wow! SC: That's what American business was made of. Ingenuity. GE: Honestly, it sounds like you were doing a lot of industrial engineering. LB: Yeah. GE: Did you have anybody else kind of helping you come up with these ideas? LB: No. GE: Your shop was basically you, and then was it about just like 15 sounds like 15 operators? LB: Yes. My dad started hiring more people. Then in 1956--actually maybe '55, I was looking for a larger place, new quarters. And let's see -- Craig was born in '55. We moved into our new quarters in 1956. The new quarters happened to be the two floors above the Lyric Theatre on 6th Street. Now it's- sure, you know, Symphony Hall they call it now. In those days, it was a burlesque house called Lyric Theatre. GE: Oh, wow. SC: There were stories from there. LB: There was no elevator in the building. I had the two floors above the main floor, and those two floors were equivalent. The sewing was on the top floor, which was the third floor and finishing was on the second floor, but because it was over a theatre with high ceilings, it was actually equivalent to a third floor and fourth floor in terms of getting to it. So we were able to put a conveyor on the front stairway to carry the freight in and to carry freight out as well. The Bouffants were, as I said, maybe six in a box, the particular style that I am thinking of, and we would ship them out every day -- maybe some days 200 dozen, that's 400 boxes. You could have someone all day long carrying them down the steps and unwieldy. So the building was right on the corner of the alley. So what I actually did was make a chute from the fire escape because that building had an outdoor fire escape. So I had an aluminum chute fashioned that folded up into 3-foot sections, so we slid them down. So that was another big labor-saving situation that converted something that could have taken a whole day to 400 boxes shooting down in 45 minutes. GE: Wow. Got a lot of labor and time-saving ideas. LB: Yes. GE: Now, at this time, were you still doing polos and bouffant or just the bouffants? LB: There were some polos, yes, but not too many because it was bouffants. Bouffants didn't last forever, though. Bouffants didn't last forever though. SC: No, I was going to ask, what happened to the '60s! GE: But while you were doing this, were there many other bouffant manufacturers in the area, or were you primarily the only one? LB: There were a few others around, but... they had a lot of trouble. GE: They didn't have some of these innovative ideas. LB: If you can just imagine a seamstress getting starch in her eyes is- is a significant thing. The goggles that I got prevented a lot of it, but I also had an arrangement with a local physician where- when they got impacted, I would have them taken up to the doctor's office, they would clean out their eyes, and it had just gone in so it would just be in the corners. It was fine. SC: Did you ever have a problem with other industrial spies coming in to see all your good practices? LB: No. SC: Because it was a small enough operation? LB: Yeah, well now I was up to maybe 50 people operating. And we'll get to it later, I moved -- my dad passed away in 1967, and in 1971 I moved to South Carlisle Street. Beverley and I bought two of those buildings, it was the old Quaker Shoe buildings, and there I was using about- I bought 75,000 feet and I only used maybe 25,000. The rest was leased out to other things. So I sort of got back into the real estate business. GE: Now, when was this? LB: That was in 1971. And I liked the real estate business, so we started buying apartments, and then I started building apartments. So I was really in the Garden Apartment business. GE: Were you still in the manufacturing- still in the garment business? LB: Oh, yea. SC: The Garden Apartment--this building? These buildings? LB: No, no. SC: So I have a couple of questions. First of all, in the '60s, what happened with the bouffant business and was polo generic polo shirts, or was it for Polo? LB: T-shirt -- no, it was not for Polo. SC: So the idea of generic polo, because Polo then had the name. LB: Today, polo shirts are called t-shirts, and it's one of the biggest items, but it's very difficult to find a store that carries American made t-shirts. They are all made off-shore. And that was something that was actually- you could forecast was going to happen. Following WWII, the world was flat, and they needed industry, and there is no more exportable industry, at least as I read the tea leaves, then the garment industry. During those days you could buy a sewing machine, table, and motor for under $1,000 and put a person to work. So whether it be Haiti or Japan at that time or wherever it might be, it was a very exportable industry, and t-tops or polo shirts were a good place to start. So following bouffants, we started making ladies sportswear and children's, as well. Two-piece sets. Knit polo shirt tops with slacks, popular-priced though, and then we went into ladies as well -- but also popular priced. One of the key features of a popular-priced slack, for instance, was an elastic top rather than a tailored top with button closure. And then eventually at the high point between the day shift and the night shift, we had close to 200 people working. SC: When- In these years, when you were doing this, who did you contract with? What contactors and where- what manufactures? LB: Manufacturers. SC: And where were they? LB: Mostly from New York and mostly unbranded. There's- We did a little work for Liz Claiborne, barely enough to mention. We did some for some national brands, Norma Kamali, but very little. The majority of the work was unbranded manufacturers, and these people sold to the volume users like Kmart, JCPenney, Sears. SC: This is tape 2. Today is July 25th, and this is an interview with Leonard Bloch. I didn't say that before. So, you were just going to say you gave out-- LB: I gave out 25-year gold watches, and I must have given out -- I have a plaque on my wall, I still have a little office downtown -- but I gave out close to forty, twenty-five year watches. When I finally, when I closed the plant down in 1990 we were down to about- between 45 and 50 employees left, and I really hung in longer than I should have economically, but a lot of people there that I knew forever and of those 45 to 50 people, somewhere between 25 and 30 of them were there in excess of 25 or 30 years. In many cases, when their daughters would grow up, they would have their daughters come in or even their sons on occasion would work. And we went- I used to take work in, I always wanted to keep the plant busy, and I felt that it was better to take something in that on paper figured out to be break even or even lose a little than to lay off. So actually for years when people worked for me they knew they had a job. We never ran into any unemployment problem whatsoever until the late '80s when I had to lay people off. There was- I took in anything just to keep busy. And it worked out advantageously even when it figured to be a loser. It wasn't all that bad because you're still- your rent costs the same whether you're working or you're not working. GE: Right. LB: And I still talk to a lot of people that worked for us. SC: Did we ask you the name of your company? LB: No. SC: I didn't think we did. LB: It was Leonard Manufacturing. Somehow I guess my parents thought I would be involved in it. SC: It was ordained. GE: Who did-? LB: I should also mention that my brother Stanley, following high school, came to the factory to work for a short period of time, but he never really liked it. I very much felt that he should go to school. He felt that since I didn't, he shouldn't have to, and that was a bone of contention. But in any event, he was in the automobile business, used cars, and never really liked the factory. GE: Did you- did you do your own selling- I don't know if it would be selling but who was really getting the contracts? LB: Me. GE: Okay. So you were really the salesman with the factory, with the manufacturers rather, and you were also the operations person. LB: Right. GE: Wow. SC: A lot of work. LB: I wish there were cell phones in those days, 'cause I remember well driving to New York and en route to New York, stopping at a phone booth maybe two-three times. Or if we went on vacation or just a day trip, stopping and using the phone booth to call. "What's happening? I have certain things scheduled to be shipped that day." SC: When the business started, did your father embrace the union right away, and was this something that you were committed to, to having the union in your operations? LB: My dad did embrace the union very early on, and I was committed to it, absolutely. GE: What was your father's first name? LB: He was known as Jay Sydney. His name was Joseph Sydney, but everyone called him Sydney. He went by the name Sydney. SC: So, as far as him starting with the union, was he actually large enough to have to commit to the union in those early years? LB: Probably not, but he did. SC: So do you have any anecdotes about or stories that you remember about your years in the business? Anything that just strikes you -- funny, sad, interesting? LB: I made mention a few moments ago about sliding the cartons down the outdoor fire escape. Well, the first time that I did that, it was for a local company called Movie Star. Actually, it was a New York company, but they had a plant in Allentown, a shipping point in Allentown. And before I had the chute made, we actually just went out the fire escape door and dropped the boxes down one at a time. Well, the first time I did this, the truck driver thought we were crazy. He came running upstairs to use the telephone and called his boss, a man named Charlie Halperin [?]. And Charlie heard this, "He's throwing your bouffants out the window!" He jumped in his car, this was in 1956 or maybe 1957, somewhere in there. Came running over with every intent of murdering me and just coincidentally Beverley and I had dinner with him last night. We became friends, best friends ever since. He immediately saw, like in geometry, the shortest distance between two points is a straight line. But he liked it better when we put the chute there, and his bouffants weren't flying. GE: Now, how was your- Was your father very- Was there any tension in terms of your father letting such a young person kind of take the lead on the business, or did that transition happen easily because he wasn't really enjoying the business anyway? LB: Yeah, it happened pretty easily. GE: And then he was really just appreciative of it. LB: Yeah, if people- if any of the workers tried to go around me, which happened- GE: Especially in the early years, I imagine, when you were younger. LB: There's always a floor lady in the plant who directs the girls, I would direct the floor person. So there was little- but that was quickly-- GE: Abated. SC: What skills did you have? How did you divide the skills, for instance, there is the floor person, floor lady, and were all the workers women? LB: No, I had -- well, I had a cutting department, and the cutters were, the cutter was always a man. The shipper, the shipping clerk. In those days, you wouldn't think of a female shipping clerk. So- and I had a mechanic, had a very good mechanic was one of the keys to being successful with some of these different things because a mechanic not only fixed machines and keep them running and sewing machines can constantly break, and if you skip a stitch, it's a second, it has to be repaired ; but he could make attachments. Like often we made blouses and buffonces. The bottom row of the bouffant I told you was a minimum 3-yard sweep, and they got up to actually- there was one time that we had one bouffant that had a 100-yard sweep on the bottom. 100 yards. And 50 yards was commonplace. Well the bottom tier had to be bound or hemmed and we did this automatically at stop motion so that if the material would run out, or the thread would run out or if anything happened the machine would stop, and there were folders that would guide all these different things in at the same time. So I was fortunate to have a good mechanic that could make all these different attachments. SC: And did he develop them himself, or did he learn from other, you know, from directions? LB: No, he was just innately good. I could show him what I wanted to do... GE: And he could figure out how to- LB: And he could take a-- We had a certain kind of metal, a soft, malleable metal and he would shape it and solder it and do it. SC: In the 19th century, they called that a mechanical genius. It sounds like he was. LB: When these automatic machines, one girl could run six machines at one time, because if something went wrong, it stopped. SC: So your technology increased from the '50s to the '90s, the sophistication? LB: Well that was just in the Bouffants. SC: Just in the Bouffants, yeah. LB: In the blouse industry, there wasn't automatic. There were plenty of attachments and things to do, and I always looked for niche garments, something that would be difficult for someone to make. If I could make something that had some kind of difficult twist to it, there wouldn't be competition for maybe a six-month period or something like that. And that was enough time to pay for the investment, and then whatever happened would happen. SC: So, the sewers--so there was the shipping department, there was the mechanic and- LB: The cutting department. SC: The cutting department, which is- is really an amazing skill. And then from there were the workers actually divided up into specific skills or did somebody make a whole blouse or-? LB: Nobody made a whole anything. It was all- Like there were sleevers. First thing on a shirt, you would close the shoulders. And then sometimes, like in a blouse, maybe the collars would be in a separate little bundle with a bundle number on it so that bundle #1 went with collars #1 and someone could be working on the collars while the shoulders were being closed, for instance ; and then same thing with collar setters, sleeve setters and hemmers. GE: So, in terms of let's say the labor force that you had, you had men -- you had somebody as a mechanic, a cutter, a shipper -- and were- and women were, of course, the sewing operators. And were there other types of jobs? Oh, pressers. LB: Finishing. GE: Yeah, pressers okay, and that would also be women. Correct? LB: Correct. But I had an automatic pressing system for our type of clothing, did an adequate job. If you get into more expensive blouses they have to be hand-pressed, and certain things did need hand pressing but I had a steam tunnel so when clothing was shipped out on hangers, which was the case 90% of the time, once they were trimmed, loose threads taken off and so on, they were put on a hanger and they went on a conveyor worm, and it took it through a steam tunnel. It would be steamed, blow through it and get all the wrinkles out, and it would continue to an automatic bagging machine, like your dry cleaning bags, and the same kind of rack except there were arms on it, and it grabs the polyethylene, pulls it down, seals it, cut it off. GE: Got it ready. LB: So that was a big thing if you can just visualize ladies standing, pressing as opposed to going through the tunnel. SC: And I think- you had said about the cutters. Were the cutters using a pattern and then hand cutting or was that mechanized too so that a form would be created in the machinery and then cut tons and tons of--? LB: First thing, something called a marker was created. First, you have to have a pattern. You didn't make the patterns. The manufacturers made their own patterns ; they knew what their design was going to be. In many cases, they made their own markers as well although we had the capacity to make markers, but I preferred that they make their own markers so that if they feel that there should be 5 yards to a dozen- if they make a marker and they find it is taking 5-1/4 yards, they knew upfront-- GE: How much fabric-- LB: So then the cloth was put on a spreading machine, and I had an automatic spreading machine for large orders where you could just put a bolt of cloth on it, and it would go back and forth by itself and stop if there was a flaw in the material so it could be cut out. But in any event, the cloth had to be spread out on- spreading on the table, and you could go up depending- blouse material was usually like 55-60" wide and it was called "open", usually woven fabric as opposed to t-tops were made out of knits, and the knit fabric was usually tubular. So if you put up 100, 100 plies of tubular, you really have 200 if your doing it open. So we would generally spread let's say 100 plies of tubular ply and might not compact quite as firmly open goods, so maybe you would only get 180, and then you put the marker on top of all these goods, and the knife is usually like 10" in height, although there are shorter ones, and they push it through following the line, and that's how you cut- cut out the different parts for the different garments. There were automatic cutting systems available too, but that didn't fit my type of- an automatic cutting system would be a good way like in a blue jean factory where you were just making millions of garments and everything is the same. SC: It gave you more flexibility in the business, it would seem -- that you could get in and out of one item.. GE: You have more niches. LB: Yeah, right. GE: Were there any other administrative people besides yourself? Or you were really the soul- LB: Yes. GE: The brains behind the whole operation and the selling. LB: Whatever. SC: Yeah. Wow. LB: The real estate business also became a significant part of my- SC: Was that unionized? LB: No. No. First I just bought, we just bought a couple of buildings, and then I actually built a few buildings. The largest one was in Allentown, 48 apartments. GE: Oh, where? Which? I mean, is it just- is it a complex? LB: Yeah. Garden Apartments, South Tioga Street. GE: Okay. I don't know--is that South Allentown? SC: That's South Allentown. LB: And I had some in Emmaus. You might know -- we owned at one point the Powder Mill Apartments back on Furnace Street. SC: Oh yeah. LB: I don't know if you are familiar with Emmaus. SC: Yes, I live outside of Emmaus. I have to visit them. GE: Now was this somewhat the '70s when the real estate is becoming a much larger part? LB: I started that right after we bought the Quaker Shoe buildings in 1972. GE: Okay. LB: So, between 1972 and maybe in 1993, we did real estate. SC: Was there a specific impetus for you to get into building your own after you bought in- bought some? LB: I really just liked it. SC: That's a good reason. GE: And I assume also at the same time the apparel was becoming a more difficult business, a less profitable, a more competitive business, going more overseas and things of that nature. LB: Well, not until the late '80s. GE: Oh, that happened more in the late '80s. Okay, okay. So in the '70s, when you were getting into this, you just saw this as a new adventure in a sense. LB: Right. GE: Just an expanding of your- LB: Didn't have enough to do. SC: Did you plan out the apartments, how they were going to be set up, sort of in the same way you did with your sewing business? LB: When I did that, I always worked with an architect. SC: But you had ideas about how you wanted them to be laid out? LB: Well, actually, I would always run it by an interior decorator first, make sure the furniture- there was enough wall space. Women always want a breakfront and just to make sure. Sometimes a wall just being a few inches too short is a big impediment to its being marketable. But believe it or not, one of the first things that women would look for, "Is there room for my breakfront?" BEVERLEY BLOCH: [inaudible]. LB: Everything washers and dryers. The Tioga Street property, I did put a washer and dryer in each apartment, but prior to that, we had laundry rooms, which was a lucrative business as well. SC: But that movement as you- it got more towards the present was people wanted their- LB: Sure, but there is still the laundry machine business, laundromats, is still a good business. GE: Interesting. LB: Not a bad business. There is a large one that opened up about two years ago on 8th Street between 9th and 10th. GE: On 8th Street where, between Tilghman? LB: No, on Linden Street. GE: Linden, okay. LB: Between 9th & ; 10th. SC: And that would be a good area to have one. LB: Well, the area for laundromats is where there's older homes and people would not have washers and dryers. If they have their own washers and dryers, they are not going to go to a laundromat. SC: New populations. LB: But there are a lot of people who still don't have washers and dryers. GE: Any of your children- Did any of your children get involved either in the real estate part or in the garment, in the textile? LB: No, not really. Our oldest son, Craig, is a pediatrician. Our daughter sold advertising space for a Washington newspaper, and now she is a special education teacher for reading. SC: What's her name? LB: Carol. And our youngest son, Wayne, is an attorney, and he was a partner in Philadelphia, Klehr Harrison. And he gave- he left that firm about twelve years ago and started his own hedge fund, he's in the investment business now. GE: Oh, okay. LB: And as far as the sewing business, they could have been interested in it, particularly our older son, but I could see at that point without a doubt that the future for the clothing manufacturing business was not bright and rosy. GE: Right. LB: And he was so good in the sciences. GE: Right. He is lucky you had that foresight. LB: And so I said I think you should go to school for the sciences. SC: Where did he go to school? LB: Ah, Craig went to Tufts undergrad, Carol went to the University of Maryland, and Wayne went to the University of Michigan. GE: All wonderful schools, right. SC: This is an American story, this is a dream story. BB: [Inaudible]. GE: Well, you know what, Beverley, we'll interview you. No, no, no because- because- right. No, no, absolutely. SC: This is tape number 3, July 25th, 2011, an interview with Leonard Bloch. And can we talk about flex time? When you started flex time before probably anybody did and also how you allowed women to work with their families in mind in other ways? LB: I was able to handle flexible hours. If an employee had an elderly parent or children or whatever the need might be, they did not have to work 7 1/2 continuous hours. That was our...overtime was first over 7 1/2 and then over 7. But they could work, have an extra hour or two for lunch or just work mornings or just work afternoons or a combination of mornings and evenings or just evenings, and it worked out well for them, and it didn't hurt me. I could- I had their loyalty. If I needed a favor in return, it was no problem. SC: That's wonderful. And when did you- Did you start that right from the beginning? LB: Yeah. GE: In fact, why don't you share with us- You were saying that where the typical shift ended at 3:30, if you wanted to stay a little bit but if you had a job that required people to work later... LB: Oh, right. If I had an order that had to go out and wasn't finished, it just wasn't going to be done by quitting time, and I needed people to stay to finish it, the only reason someone would refuse generally speaking was if they just had a commitment or a responsibility that they just couldn't, but they could stay until 8, 9 o'clock in the evening on many occasions. SC: So do you have any other questions about the business that you can think of? GE: No, and then we will talk about a little bit when you were saying in terms of family, as well as your sense . . . how about your sense of the Allentown textile industry, or I shouldn't say the Allentown, I should say the Lehigh Valley -- because there were a lot of contractors, correct? LB: There were. There were several hundred in the Lehigh Valley at one time. GE: Right. Can you just tell us a little bit about that? Was there much collaboration among the contractors? Was it very competitive among the contractors? How did all- some of those things--? LB: It was a competitive market. It was competitive for help, seamstresses. It was competitive for getting the work, getting the contracts for- Speaking of contracts, it's not in the usual context of a contract. In my over 40 years in the business, I never had one written contract. It was always word of mouth. I would go to New York and some style we decided we were going to make, and it was just, the industry didn't lend itself to contracts. Like they could say, we are going to make this style for the next one month, or 24 months, they didn't know any more than I knew, so it was always just- And if someone would come in at some point and make it for less money, you might lose it if you couldn't meet the price. And in the New York market, the New York jobbers as they were called, the people I dealt with, some of the sharpest, shrewdest business people you would ever meet. GE: Now when you say the jobbers, they were therefor in between the manufacturer and a contractor? LB: No, the jobber and manufacturer would be synonymous. GE: Okay. But they were the ones who actually were selling them to the department stores or to whatever. LB: They sold the merchandise to the department stores. GE: Okay, and who you worked with was just the person in their firm who worked with whoever was going to make it for them? LB: Right. GE: What about, were you associated with the contractors association? Because we spoke with, we did meet with Arnold Delin. LB: Yes- No, I never joined. GE: Okay, just wondering. Okay, why? You didn't feel it was in your interest, or--? LB: Well, obviously, I guess I didn't feel it was in my interest, which maybe I was right or maybe I was wrong. GE: Right. LB: I always did my own negotiation with the union. I never had a strike, and I never gave in too easily. And I just felt, I guess-- GE: That it wasn't needed. Okay. LB: It wasn't, it wasn't in my interest. And I was one of the few plants that did not belong to the Association. But if you belong to the Association and the Association decided to go in a certain direction, you were obligated, I would be obligated to go in that direction as well. GE: And you wanted more, both autonomy and independence that way? LB: Yes. GE: Were there any directions that they went into that you did very differently? LB: No, they were very good for the members that they represented, and there were times I should've- when I thought maybe I should have joined, but I didn't. GE: Right. SC: I hope this question isn't too much of a tangent, but when you go to New York, and you see racks of clothing being wheeled down the street in the garment industry, the garment center of New York City, well how does that fit into the whole picture? And I'm showing my ignorance of not knowing. LB: Well, in New York there are also a lot of contractors, and many times there's the garment district, so if the contracting shop is close to the manufacturer or jobber that they got the work from, they'll just load it on racks and push them down the street. GE: Oh, so it's just that. LB: Yeah, so it's just the convenience. GE: Right, they don't have to worry about having trucks deliver it. SC: Especially in New York City. LB: Right. SC: Could we talk a little bit about your work in the community and in, you know, just in the general community, wherever you have been involved? GE: Actually, before we get into that, what are your memories of the community? In other words, when you were a child, you can give us a little bit of insight, what was the Allentown community like, and what was the Allentown Jewish community like? Both institutionally, what you know, what institutions were here, where were they, how active were they, what was the size of the community, where did it live, you know things of that nature? LB: Well, I've always lived here, and I guess summing up, you could say I always loved my community. And, after Beverley and I were married, we both loved the community. And I was active in the community, as you know. I was active at Temple Beth El. I was President of the School Board for a couple years. I was on the Board of Temple Beth El. I was president of Temple Beth El from 1982-1987. I was president of the Endowment Foundation for about 10-11 years. It started in 1987-1988, whenever my term as president ended. And I was a Trustee at St. Luke's Hospital for 10 years, from 1982-1991. GE: I'm sorry, that was St. Luke's? LB: St Luke's Hospital. Don Ritter, Congressman Don Ritter, appointed me to the Local Small Business Administration Advisory Board. I was on that for about three years, one term. What else did I do? GE: That's pretty good. SC: Yeah, that's a pretty long list. How about when you were in high school, were you involved in the community in any way? Or at school, in the activities at school? LB: Not big involvements . . . GE: Were you in the youth group? Were you in AZA? LB: I was in SAR. GE: SAR. Can you just tell us what SAR is? LB: Sigma Alpha Roe. GE: Okay, and is that a secular fraternity, or is that a Jewish one? LB: It's a Jewish fraternity. GE: Oh, okay yeah, I knew of AZA. LB: Yes, it's a cove.[?] GE: Okay. LB: But not affiliated with any umbrella group. GE: Okay. And did your family, were they members at Beth El? LB: Yes. GE: Okay. So your member- your leadership at Beth El, your leadership at the hospital, at the Small Business Advisory Group, did all of these activities, would you say this is starting in the '70s? Most of this leadership, the leadership roles? Or even earlier? LB: Oh yeah, there was a handicapped group at the Good Shepherd Home. GE: What is that called? LB: It was called Operation Overcome. They couldn't afford a lawyer, so they had me as chairman of their legal committee. GE: And this is, this is with just a high school? LB: Yes. This was in the days before- when curb cuts were just getting started. GE: Oh, the curb cut, yeah. LB: And I organized a roll on the mall since Bartholomew was the mayor at the time. GE: Gosh that's before my- SC: Was that in the early '80s? GE: I think earlier. SC: Earlier than that? LB: Earlier. It was in the, perhaps in the late- GE: Because Doddona was in the '70s when I came in the late 70s. LB: Pretty sure it was Chip. In any event, the mayor, whoever he was, said, rolling off a curb is such a small thing, why would you need a ramp? And it's going to be an impediment for able-bodied people when the sidewalk slopes down. I said I'll tell you what, do me a favor, any day it is convenient for you and one or two or three other City Council people, let's have a roll from 10th Street down to city hall. And after you've bounced up and down from the curbs, if you still tell me that it's nothing, I'll go away -- on a wheelchair. And so after that they endorsed curb cuts. And then the addition was being built for, at that time, Allentown High School. Now it's William Allen High School. On Linden Street, they were building a Library and Science addition, and they were not putting an elevator in into the building. So when I went to speak to the Chairman of the School Board, they said there is already an elevator in the main section, and there is going to be a way to get from that main section to the new section. And besides, there is going to be library and science rooms in the old section as well as in the new section. So my response to that was I think that went out a couple years ago with separate but equal. But as things worked out, we didn't make any progress on that. So my lawyer at the time was Clayton Hyman, I got him to file a lawsuit against the school district, which he did pro bono. And we got the state Department of Labor and Industry to file a brief on our behalf in support of it. And the end of the story is, they not only redesigned the building once they understood the problem -- they came and sat down and listened and they understood -- and they redesigned the building and put an elevator in the design. But the new Administration Building on 4th and Penn was already built and could no longer be brought into this lawsuit. It was from- with the American Disabilities Act, the basis, they retrofitted that building, but there was room on the outside to patch in an elevator, similar to what they did at the Lyric Theater. Now there is an elevator on the parking lot side. So we got an elevator in the Administration Building which during the negotiations I made mention that there are physically challenged people in the community, and we have more than our share because of the Good Shepherd Home. People are residents there, and they can do things, but a step prevents them from going into a building they are paying taxes for and being able to work there. And so, that was- GE: That's really something. That's really wonderful. And so again, just for me to get a little bit of a timeline, so all of these things were these things that you were involved in starting around the '70s, all of these different things, your leadership roles? LB: No, I guess- GE: Even earlier? LB: Yeah. GE: [19]60s, maybe? The '60s and on? LB: In the '60s, right, hon? GE: Yeah, yeah. Well, I'm saying that would be 50 years ago. I'm not exactly sure how old you are, 70-? LB: Seventy-six. GE: Seventy-six. So you think these were things, even leadership, you started getting involved even in your 20s or 30s or-? LB: Yeah. GE: And tell us about your memories of the Jewish community when you were, because you grew up here your whole life, as a child and teen versus a young adult, you know, versus a father in, you know, your 30s and 40s and now as a senior? You know, what have you seen? How has it changed? You know a little bit of that. LB: Well in terms of demographics, the Jewish community has moved in a Western direction like for instance, Temple Beth El used to be at 17th and Hamilton- GE: And I guess when you were younger, it was even 6th or something? LB: I was BarMitzvahed at 12th and Walnut. GE: 12th and Walnut, is that where it started? 12th and Walnut? LB: Yes, that's where it started. Well, we were married at 19, so as a young person ; and we were dating since we were 16--15? Yeah, 15. GE: Isn't that unbelievable? Wonderfully so. LB: Yeah. I was very active in Sigma Alpha Rho and the Jewish Community Center. I was not active in sports. GE: What- Where was the Jewish Community Center? LB: 6th and Chew. GE: Okay, and that was there until- when did it move to 27th and Tilghman? LB: 1958, yeah. SC: Okay. And is that when some people in the African American community started the Negro Cultural Center? Right around that time? LB: They bought the building. SC: Yeah. LB: Yeah, I'm not real aware of it. SC: And then, of course, it's the Health Department, the Conference of Churches, I guess now. GE: But it moved itself to 22nd and Tilghman really just to move with the community, I assume? LB: Right. Oh, and the new Beth El building was built, Rance Block and I supervised the construction with the Butz Company. We- GE: This one? The new building? The last- right. LB: Yeah. Rance and I met with the Butz Company on a weekly or every other week basis, or as needed. And the building came in on time. Started in January and moved into the following January. SC: Wow. And now you're neighbors? Now you're neighbors, you and Lee Butz? LB: Oh yeah. SC: So, did the community change in the next generation, in your children's generation in any way? GE: Did it get larger, smaller, less cohesive, more cohesive? LB: I think the Jewish community has certainly grown. From a business point of view, you don't have the individual business owners that there once were. Like for instance, in the garment industry at one time, it was a really significant- GE: A big presence. LB: Significant presence. The retail stores along Hamilton Street are no longer there, but the professional community has grown, particularly the medical community. And I think the growth for this area in the medical community is certainly going to continue. Right now, St Luke's has an affiliation with Temple University and the new medical school. St. Luke's has started constructing already ; they own a 500-acre tract at the intersection of Route 33 and 78. And they started building, there's going to be a General Electric, they are going to have one of only five in the country, showplace of their latest x-ray and scanners. GE: That will be wonderful for the community. SC: Do you remember any of the names of in- the needle trades right in Allentown? Maybe that would be something to write down sometime. It would be really- LB: You mean other- SC: Other businesses, yeah. LB: Schneider Manufacturing. That's Irwin Schneider. Allentown Manufacturing. That's George Hirsch. GE: We have Leonard- Len Manufacturing? Is that what it was called? LB: Leonard. Leonard Manufacturing. SC: But if you think of any, it would be really helpful if we- you know just to sort of look back maybe in the newspapers or anything. GE: Who all- You know who I have a feeling will be able to give me a lot of those names? LB: Arnold Delin. GE: Oh, Arnold Delin, yes. LB: He could take out- GE: Yes. LB: He could take out- GE: Yes. SC: Yes, yes. LB: He could take out this list. They'll all be there. SC: Yes, sorry, that's true. GE: But actually even, even Rance. I was surprised how much he knew the names because he gave me a whole list of people to contact. LB: Lot of clients. Yes. GE: But he said, you know I insured them all. And I thought that was interesting, you know, you don't necessarily think of that. Or at least I didn't initially think of that, so I thought that was interesting. SC: I have another tangential question that's a little self-interested. Do you remember anything about the years when the Urban Renewal Processes were going around- on in Allentown, especially the Little Lehigh Renewal Project that was the most contentious in Allentown? Were you involved with the city or any- any portion of that at that time? LB: No. I remember when they wanted to change Hamilton Street into the Hamilton Mall, and I felt, along with the merchants, that that was a poor direction to go in. The merchants I clearly remember were solidly against changing Hamilton Street to one way and making it narrow. And I think the time has proven that they were right. All around the country in those days, the cities were tearing down old elevated subways or railways, whatever it was, and we were making our own Hell coming down Hamilton Street. SC: So, some of the- You answered most of the questions before we could ask them. You honestly did, you followed through in such a logical fashion. We asked about the wider community, and I- GE: But you know, we may want to ask in here in terms of just a little bit, I thought it was actually wonderful what Beverley was saying in terms of what you were able to offer your family education-wise and your wife education-wise. And I think that gets into here. SC: Yeah. GE: And so do you want to just share that with us because it wasn't on the last tape. LB: Well, Beverley certainly didn't come to work in the factory every day. We were always involved in everything together. We've been partners in everything. The factory and the building- GE: Did you say she did come to work? LB: No, she didn't. GE: She did not, okay. LB: But, we did things together. GE: Right. And do you want to just share with us that eventually one of the, maybe, one of the things you were able to do, putting your children through college, letting your wife go to college that she never had that opportunity. If you just want to share, you and Beverley mentioned it briefly before, but we just don't have it on the tape. And so where your children ended up going to college, you were able to do without them taking out loans. LB: Yeah, well, we both certainly knew the value of education. And there was no question that our children were going to go to college and it was great that after our kids were in college, that Bev could go back to school and get her degree. GE: Right. And where did Bev go to school? LB: Cedar Crest. GE: Right. And also, do you want to just tell us where your children ended up going to school? You already told us, but for the tape. LB: Oh, I thought it was already on tape. GE: No, it wasn't. It was in between tapes. LB: My son Greg went to undergrad at Tufts University, and he went to medical school at Duke. Our daughter Carol went to the University of Maryland, and our son Wayne went to the University of Michigan and got his law degree at BU, Boston University. GE: Wonderful. And then we just wanted to ask a couple of final closing questions. SC: Right, but it's going to go off, so I'll just ask that in a second. So I- we have two very sort of amorphous questions, maybe, but what do you value most in life? LB: My family, my wife, obviously. SC: And what has made you feel the most artistic or creative or given you a sense of completion in life the most? LB: I guess I've always valued my extracurricular, if you will, community activities the most. When I started in the garment industry, I made a promise to myself that I was not going just to be involved in business and get lost. And I suppose the experience that I value that I enjoyed the most has been the presidency of Temple Beth El. It was a challenge in many different ways. And also the years I spent at, second, it would be the years I spent at St Luke's Hospital. SC: Thank you so much. LB: My pleasure. Interview with Beverley Bloch, July 25, 2011 SUSAN CLEMENS-BRUDER: Today is July 25th, 2011, interview continuing with the Blochs. And would you state your full name and your birthdate? BEVERLEY BLOCH: I'm Beverley Bloch. Beverley Berg Bloch. And my birthdate is August 13th, 1935. SC: And would you then, let's go back in your family a little bit, and then we'll put you into context with your family. Where- What do you know about your parents? Give me their names, and also where they and perhaps their parents came from as far back as you know. BB: My father was, may he rest in peace, Joseph Berg. The name actually was Bergada, and he was from Pricin, Hungary, a small community in Hungary. And my mother was, may she rest in peace, Mildred Kleinberg. She was born in this country in a very small coal town called Oliphant, Pennsylvania. GAIL EISENBERG: Oh I've heard of Oliphant. Sorry, tell me again, what was your mother's name? BB: Mildred. SC: And that will be on the tape, too, but sometimes it's good to have it on the notes. Okay, do you know any more about their parents and grandparents? BB: Definitely. My mother was actually second generation, born in this country. Her mother was born in Oliphant, Pennsylvania. My mother's grandfather came with his cousins and probably brothers and sisters I did not know to Oliphant, and my great-great-grandfather built buildings. He had- he had a factory, I mean a foundry, and built buildings. Her mother- his mother- my mother's- GE: They "built buildings", did they build the bricks? BB: He built the bricks that made buildings. Excuse me. GE: Right. BB: Yes, that's exactly what he did. He made the bricks that build the buildings. So my grandmother, my mother's mother, was also born in Oliphant, Pennsylvania. When I was a child growing up, I had a kindergarten teacher, a private kindergarten teacher, Miss Flynn, who actually taught my grandmother and my mother in the Oliphant public schools. My mother's father had a grocery store. My dad was an immigrant boy whose family had come to Scranton, Pennsylvania. And he drove a cookie truck, a bakery truck. And my mother- GE: A delivery route. BB: A delivery route that went as far as Oliphant. And, excuse me. My mother and he fell in love. She would push putting his bakery products on the shelves of her father's store. They became engaged and opened their own little store on the main street of Oliphant before they actually were married. And then they opened the store. It was a mom and pop grocery store. In later years we lived over the store. SC: Was this in the '30s? BB: Yes, I was born 1935, and they were married for about four years. And we, my sister and I who was born two years and 9 months later, and we were actually raised with the store as the focal part of our existence. It was a Polish, Ukrainian, Irish community -- Welch, because the name Oliphant was taken from a Lord Oliphant, he named it for his Welch compatriots. We had a babysitter, a nanny, you would say today, and she wasn't really, the Polish girls would watch us while my mom and dad worked in the store until late in the evening. And that's the way we grew up. Do you want to know more about my background? GE: Your mom's family, they were in Oliphant, where were they from in Europe? BB: Poland. GE: From Poland. Did you know where in Poland? BB: No, I have no idea because my mother was already- because she was third generation never spoke about Poland. I did try to find my father's village when we were in Hungary. And it had moved from Hungary into the Ukraine and was put there by the Russians when they occupied Eastern Europe. GE: So today it's really part of the Ukraine? BB: Part of Ukraine, Pricin, P-R-I-C-I-N? P-R-I-C-I-N, Pricin. SC: And how many names do you know going back? Do you know any other names in your family? BB: No, I only know that I had, well, an uncle, who was in radio and television locally in Wilkes-Barre and Scranton. He changed the name to Berg, and then the rest of the family followed suit. SC: What was his first name? BB: Hal. Hal Berg. He had a wonderful children's show called The Land of Hatchy Milatchy. But he died tragically at the age of 54, so he did not fulfill a lot of- SC: Yeah, so your young life was up in- BB: Oliphant. SC: In the coal regions? BB: In the coal region. By the time I was 14, and I was the only Jewish kid in my class, I realized that I wanted to meet other Jewish kids. I realized that I would never get a good education. The education in Oliphant, Pennsylvania, the boys went into the mines, the girls went into then sewing plants. There were little sewing plants also in Oliphant. So I said to my parents that I would like very much to get a better education so there was a bus, buses that would start higher up in the coal regions -- Carbondale, Jessup -- and they would do what they call go "down the line" into Scranton. So when I was fourteen, I went, I registered to a Scranton school, Scranton Central High School, and I would take the bus every morning, approximately probably around 7:00. GE: Was that a problem? In other words, was that something that someone was just able to do? BB: No, not necessarily. My grandmother luckily, my father's mother, the family that migrated from New York when they came off the boats from Europe and went to Scranton. Most of them stayed in Scranton. My father was the only one that moved to Oliphant. So I was able to give my grandmother's address. I would not have been allowed to go to a school out of the district. GE: Right, I was wondering. BB: Fortunately, I think the administration looked the other way. I was a decent student, and they didn't question my graduating year. And in the course of time, the second year of school, when I had befriended a young woman who, also her father, had moved their family to Scranton. She moved to Allentown, so at fifteen she called me -- why she would remembered someone she had met for only one year -- called me and said, "I would like you to come to visit, you were so nice when I lived in Scranton." And I got on the bus, and I had a blind date with someone named Leonard Bloch. GE: Oh, my goodness. BB: We met at the Jewish Community Center at 6th and Chew Street, and the rest is history. SC: Wow. BB: We kept dating. SC: Long distance dating for a while? BB: Yeah, our wedding songbook said, "Martz Bus Made Money on Bev & ; Her Honey." And it was true. Martz Bus would carry me to Bethlehem, not to Allentown, and Lenny would meet me in Bethlehem, and we just continued dating. And having had the responsibilities he had as a very young boy made him very mature, and after his mother passed away, it was even more so. He was very close to his mother, and he was very lonely for . . .you know, so we married at 19. GE: How old was he when his mother passed away? BB: Seventeen. Eighteen, actually. GE: So you already had met her? BB: Yes. I did get to meet my mother-in-law. GE: That's a blessing. BB: Yes, that's when she was starting to be sick. SC: To go back to your parents when they started their store, and that was 1931? BB: Probably around then. SC: They started the store, that was a really brave time to start a business in 1931. I mean that was going down to rock bottom by '32 to use a cliché. GE: However, people still had to eat. SC: People had to eat so it was a good, it was a good decision, but also a lot of people had to sign a book rather than give money. BB: Everything my father sold at the store was on the books. SC: Everything. BB: Everything. The miners, who were his main source of income, they lived from one paycheck to the next, so- And my mother worked very hard with my father in the store. My sister and I were like original latchkey kids. We always came home to an empty apartment. GE: So given that you were- It was such a small number of Jewish children, and you were saying it was an Orthodox community in a much, in the school, whatever -- was it difficult? Were you tormented or in any way? BB: There was a certain amount of anti-Semitism. Basically speaking, no, I was not tormented. I can't speak for what the boys in the area may have felt. From a girl's point of view, I had many non-Jewish friends, mostly non-Jewish friends. If they would become angry at me, the first remark out of their mouth might be "You dirty Jew." It might be. Because they were being raised themselves in an environment that was totally anti-Semitic. But as I said, we did have a little synagogue that serviced the area. When I said "area", it was like Jessup, Blakely, Dixie City, these were all small towns where mostly, the merchants were Jews, they have little stores, the dry goods stores, the pharmacy was a Jewish man in our community, the grocery store. These were Jews, so, yes, they came together in Oliphant. The beauty of my childhood was the very fact that because we could not afford a rabbi full time if they did, a Malamud, a teacher, if they did not educate the girls as well as the boys, they wouldn't have been able to have them. So I therefore after school almost every day went to our little Talmud Torah, which was a little building next to the synagogue, and I loved to pray. I loved to chant. Today in my adulthood, I do a service once a month in a nursing home ; I did it here in Allentown. I- I became very adept. I love to chant. So I do thank my parents very much for the very fact that the community was as it was. I got a Hebrew -- not a speaking-- a prayer Hebrew education. GE: Right. Interesting. SC: Did you want to add on to that question at all? Or should we move on? GE: No, no, I thought you did a great job. SC: Yeah. So if we move forward to when you got married and also how you became involved in the business, even if you didn't go into the office every day. So if you can talk about how you got in, how you became involved in the business, and how you were involved, even though you didn't go into work every day? BB: I, actually, having been raised by a mother who was not home, I was truly averse to leaving my children. I almost made a vow that I would not marry anyone who would demand my participation in the business. But of course, Lenny and I discussed everything that he did, he would come home and we would talk. When he would have a jobber come to Allentown, of course it was up to me to be sure to entertain the jobber. I remember once we actually had a jobber with his wife who came to Allentown, and New Yorkers, I don't know if this is typical, but she said, "Do you have central air conditioning?" It happened to have been summer, and I said, "Yes," and I made a little offhanded joke, I said, "Yes, but the plumbing is outside." So I mean, that's the kind of thing we would do, and when we went into the construction of apartments, of course, I was also not physically involved but we would discuss everything. And at one point actually, I did help with the rentals for a time with one of the projects. But basically speaking, I was not physically involved in his business. SC: And as far as those years, do you have any memories, just anecdotes of the business, the things that just as you would talk, that you remember or jumped out at you? BB: Well, there was one really funny one. Every Christmas, Lenny would give, we would have a Christmas party, and we were not large enough or economically feasible enough to go and rent a hall, so we would have a party in the factory itself. Lenny would order cold cuts- my specialty was making Jell-O molds. And I remember taking -- I didn't have a car, I took a taxi with my Jell-o molds out to 6th street. And on the way, the molds started to melt. And this poor taxi driver, my mold melted all over his car, his cab. Well, that was one of the really highlights of my helping out with the Christmas party! I knew a lot of the girls that worked for him, and they would tell me different things about their home life, things like that. We were always invited every Christmas to his bookkeeper's home, for the most delicious kiffles that you ever want to taste. And that was another example of Lenny's flex time. She was a woman with small children, lived near the factory, Lenny took the bookkeeping books to her so that she did not have to leave her home. And that's how she worked for him, out of her home, and she appreciated that very much. GE: Right. BB: Other than that, just a sounding board, I tried to be a sounding board for whatever my husband had to talk about. SC: Do you have any thoughts about the business, as far as how Lenny managed it, and- and the way he treated his workers and you know, the years of how the business got along? BB: I admired and respected my husband tremendously. To be a person without a college education, which most of his friends, when we were twenty and had a child, his friends came to visit, and they were second-year college students. I mean, they looked at us and thought... And then I admired him tremendously for another reason. Our daughter is disabled, she was born disabled. And he became not only my help-mate, but I could not have actually gotten through the years that we had with hospitals and physical therapy, and everything that goes with raising a disabled child without having this wonderful help-mate, strong, courageous, was at my side for everything. And into our adult years, I mean our elderly years where we both have had major physical problems, we have been there for each other. So I'm- and I am very proud of him, very proud of all the accomplishments that he's had, and with all of the obstacles that were put in his path. SC: What have you done in the community? How have you been a part of the Jewish community but also the wider community? BB: All right, when I was twenty, I went back- excuse me, when my child was twenty, excuse me- when my daughter who went to college, once she was able to go to college, I felt free to pursue my own education, and I went to Cedar Crest. The reason I went back to college was when she was about eight or nine, I started working as a volunteer at the Crippled Childrens Society. And I felt a real sense of a vocation for me. I liked working with people ; I liked helping people. And having raised this child and not having the ability to have a social worker help us -- in 1958, there was no such thing as a social worker in the hospitals to send you home with a child who was going to profoundly need tremendous care. And your other children, when they would be involved in what had happened to the family -- there was no such thing. So I saw my bent in life, I would become a social worker. So, it took me ten years. In the interim, I was active with Hadassah ; I was on the board of Hadassah. I was on the Board of the Temple, and when Rance Block was president, I became the social secretary- I don't know what they called it. GE: Probably recording secretary for the Board? BB: No, I worked with programming. Programming. I don't know if it was the vice presidency. GE: Activities? BB: Activities Vice-President, yes. I was the Activities Vice-President under Rance. GE: And that's a big job. BB: I was going to college, maybe thirty credits at a time. Something like that. It took me ten years to get my degree. SC: That's great. Have you worked as a social worker? BB: Unfortunately, no, not as a- I did not have a paid position. When I was ready to graduate, one year before my graduation, Lenny had seven bypasses, heart bypasses. He was 49 years old. I think he realized then that he would have to find a way to take life a little easier. And we had had an apartment in Florida that we used just as an interim place because my mom lived in Florida, and we wanted to be able to touch base easily. We- he said he'd like to start going to Florida, at least for a month. And when I went looking for a job, and I did go looking for a job, and I told them I would have to be taking off a month, they- it wasn't- so I have done, in Florida I- I worked as a volunteer for a group called Listen to Children: Palm Beach Mental Health, where I worked one-on-one with children who had emotional disturbances. I did that, I'm now a Vice-President of Education for my chapter of Hadassah in Florida. So I have found ways to- and I- I do a service once a month at a nursing home for the residents. SC: And you live in Florida for seven months of the year? BB: Seven months of the year now. We did not originally, of course, but we gradually started to go to Florida for longer times as our children got older. SC: You mentioned that there was some anti-Semitism in . . . when you were a child. Did you experience that once you came to Allentown? BB: No. None whatsoever. But then again, we were heavily involved in the Jewish community. But well through Lenny's activities and mine somewhat, we did interact a lot with non-Jews. And never did I feel any anti-Semitism. SC: Did you, in those years, how did Allentown and the Jewish community and also in the wider community change? BB: Well, as Lenny mentioned, the demographics of the community changed tremendously. When we bought our first home on Marshall Street, it was the end of the city. That was the end of the city. And then, of course, we saw the city move so much further west. And in terms of people who live here, it changed from a community of perhaps the entrepreneurs to professional men, mostly, as Lenny mentioned, medical. And so we saw that. As the years went on, our involvement with other Jews became greater, of course, when we were young marrieds, the small Jewish community then would have nothing to do with us because they knew our age and they weren't going to be friends with people who were 19 years of age since they were already in their mid-twenties. GE: Did you really find that? BB: Yes. But then as the years went on and we had children, right away, we became more integrated and neutralized the situation. Yes, yes. SC: Because your children and the other children and the other parents were all- BB: At the same age. SC: And so has the Jewish community changed over the years in other ways, any other ways? BB: I think Beth El, from- which really is the only community I can speak of, has become more vibrantly Jewish, which is really lovely to see. When we go to services now on a Shabbat morning, and we have- participation is just marvelous. In the early years, that when I was here with Rabbi Greenburg, let him rest in peace- in peace -- in fact he bar-mitzvahed my son as well as my husband -- it was a more formal Jewish experience. For example, Friday nights, Lenny and I would leave our children, rush to get out of the house after Sabbath dinner, so we could go to services. No one would do that today. You would bring your small children to services with you. Rabbi Greenburg, let him rest in peace, was of the old school, children could be a disturbance to the service, not an adding of beauty to the service. And I'm- I was sorry for that later on that my children did not get that kind of an experience, but I find the Jewish community today to be much more vibrant, and I love seeing all the little children. For instance, this Friday night, this last Friday night, we had congregational dinner, and we had babies, babies at the dinner. It was marvelous. GE: We were there Saturday? BB: Yeah, yeah. SC: Along with all of that, have you belonged to any social organizations outside the Jewish community? BB: I was the vice-president of the Parent-Teacher Association's at Trexler Junior High School. As I said, I worked for the Crippled Childrens Society, I volunteered for five or six years. I think that's about, about it, yeah. SC: And with the community, has the community been more- has it dispersed more a little bit in some ways, or has it been pulling together? Because in so many communities, whether it's ethnic or religious, everything is just sort of dispersed, and there isn't a core anymore. BB: Well, I'm looking at the community, remember, from the outside-in. I'm seven months away from this community. SC: That's true. So you probably have a more objective viewpoint than some people. BB: Well, I think from what I read in Hakol, from what I just see, Federation seems to be, Jewish Federation seems to be the nucleus of what really brings the entire Jewish community together. From what I can see, there is a tremendous vibrancy within that group. Young women especially being very involved -- young men and women -- being very involved. SC: And is this the next generation or are these- Are the people that are involved now the people that have come in from other areas? Have you lost people that are, perhaps your children or your friends' children, to go work in other places and live other places? BB: Well, our children do not, unfortunately, live [here]. Our oldest son lives in Ann Arbor, Michigan, with his wife. I don't think he's- he does belong to a Chabad, but interestingly enough, he is married to a Baptist. SC: It's the new generation. BB: A new generation, yes. Our daughter lives in Rockville, Maryland. She still works. She's working for- as a reading specialist, as Lenny mentioned. Her first marriage ended in divorce. Her second marriage is to a also physically challenged man, and he's not of the Jewish faith. But she did BarMitzvah the child that they have, who was adopted. Our grandson was BarMitzvahed, so she belonged to a conservative temple. Our youngest guy and his wife live in Philadelphia. They are very active in the Jewish community. My daughter-in-law is on the Board of Federation, she's very active in Jewish Family Service. Our son was on the Board of the New Jewish Museum so they are very active and they have two youngsters. One going off to my son's alma mater, his daughter is going off this fall to his alma mater, University of Michigan. GE: He'll be able to see your older brother, or their older uncle. BB: Yeah, they're- she's thrilled that she'll be coming to Michigan. GE: I think the only thing is to ask the last couple of questions. LEONARD BLOCH: [inaudible] BB: Pardon, honey? LB: [inaudible] BB: Well that's within Federation, Jewish Family Service. LB: No [inaudible]. The Bridge. BB: The Bridge. My daughter in law and several of her friends started a new organization called the Bridge, where they specify x amount of dollars that are given only to people who unfortunately have had things happen to them that has thrown them perhaps into temporary welfare, whatever. The money they give is the bridge, the bridge that puts them back into being able to have independent lives again. GE: That's wonderful. SC: So, what do you value in life most? BB: My family. My family, my culture, my Judaism, very much my Judaism. The years when we were raising our daughter, without my faith, I don't think I would have gotten through easily. And Israel. We value Israel, we worry about Israel, and we worry, I think, about Judaism in general, and, you know, where is- where is our country going, in general. SC: Have any of your children or grandchildren been able to go to Israel? BB: Yes. SC: Because this is something that our students are really- so much opportunity, it's wonderful. BB: Yes, our oldest was in Israel when he was in his early-in college- oh no, he went before that, didn't he? LB: Early 20s. BB: Early 20s for sure he was in Israel. Our daughter -- and she is disabled, she walks with crutches and with the braces -- and she went to Israel with a youth-- We did elocution, that's what they called it. You had to give a little speech or something. SC: So you were talking about your daughter going to Israel? BB: Yes, Lenny reminded me, our daughter Carol went to Israel as a teenager. She has not since been back, as far as we know she has not been back. Our son Wayne, our youngest child, went to high school in Israel and then- GE: Was that one year? BB: One year, one summer, actually. Just one summer, and that was a marvelous experience for him. He has since been back, he brought- took his family there, just a few years ago. Lenny and I support in Israel, in Jerusalem, Alyn. Not many people know about Alyn. Alyn is the hospital for disabled, the only hospital in Israel for disabled youngsters. And we were on our first Federation trip, when we were married 20 years, we were taken to Alyn. And Alyn is one of our favorite charities. And our son went there with his family. And then our grandson did a project, he's 16, for his Bar Mitzvah, with disabled youngsters in the United States. SC: What makes you feel the most creative? BB: Creative? That's a very difficult question. Creative. I like to make mandel bread for my family, that's my specialty, making mandel bread. GE: That's like a- like biscotti? BB: Biscotti, it's a Jewish biscotti, and whenever I have to take something to a friend- GE: I'll have to give you a call to get the recipe. BB: Mine is a basic simple recipe, and everybody seems to love it. So that makes me feel very good to be able to do something like that. Creativity, I am not a musician of any sort. My chanting, my chanting makes me feel very creative. SC: Yes, metaphoric sense of creativity. LB: I was going to say, I've been at Bev's service already at the nursing home, and the looks on the faces of the residents of love when they say "here comes the Cantor". GE: Oh, yeah. BB: I enjoy doing that very much. That makes me feel very creative. LB: They really love her. SC: That's wonderful. I can understand why. I can see that. Well, thank you very much. 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Muhlenberg College Special Collections and College Archives , “Leonard and Beverley Bloch, July 25, 2011,” Muhlenberg College Oral History Collections, accessed October 20, 2026, https://textile.digitalarchives.muhlenberg.edu/items/show/34.