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29th. Today is Thursday, September 29th, 1994, and this is Penny Mitchell, and I'm going to be doing a Bannockburn Life Histories interview with Stan and Madeline Siegel at their home on East Halbert Road.

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Yep. Karen was in the first class. Oh, she was? Yes.

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Who was that? So that was, was it the year you all went to first? Must have been in 1969. You think she went two years to

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class? Or just one? I don't know. We left in December 1961, so it might have been the same.

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Yeah, we say it's 1861. Yeah, that must have been the first. So December '60 when you were in France? Yeah, We left in '61, so it was the previous year that it started.

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It must have been '66. It was the year before we moved to '61. And then, when, so you were in

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France for how long? Two years. We left in the middle of the year. Middle of the school year? Middle of the school year we left January 1st and where were the

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western kids? They overlapped us on the each end That must have been funny Yes it was wonderful probably 3 or 4 years before we were there probably 2 years and then there were 3 years but in any way it was wonderful because we arrived in

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Paris and there they were on the platform. And you know our kids were the same ages. They were friends. You know, they had friends.

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So it worked out very well. It was very good. Well, I understand this oral history project. And I'm coming in on this kind of in the middle.

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It started at the 40th anniversary in '86. It did. People were very informed. Right.

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It was sort of, there was no effort to be systematic they just had something going at the clubhouse and you came if you wanted to the kids did And we all thought we were getting these reports shortly thereafter.

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We haven't heard about them and we haven't seen the histories that everybody took, the written stuff. They also took histories where they wrote things down, I think.

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They have that in that field. And I don't remember who's in charge of it. I have no idea. So this was Also at the same time?

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At the same time. Oh, yeah. Huh. It was quite a reunion.

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Wow. Well, Harvey was the real organizer of this, and he did very well. Well, I'm meeting with him tomorrow.

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And I understand that he has some tapes. Yeah, well, he has some tapes that nobody else has heard. Are you recording this? I believe so. Well, don't play it to me.

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Well, I'm hoping to hear the tapes and to try and get myself up to speed. I think there are other tapes that were done. I think the tapes that were done were mostly of the kids who were

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in jail [?]. I'm not sure that it was a lot of adults. So I remember carrying...

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Probably they would have had the tapes and that's... Right, absolutely. Well, and as I understand from... I guess Claudia, I'm not sure at what point Claudia came in on

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organizing. I have no idea. It was very surprising to me when I saw it in the news. Well, what this sounded at that, what was that meeting in the

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clubhouse? Oh, that was just a couple months ago. Oh, the one in the summer or spring.

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It was a sprint. But the tapes, things started before then. I think so, because I think people had done some tapes. I think in particular Ellen Peckman had done some.

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But I was in connection with that. That was, maybe she really did. She may have run tapes back, but before that, there was occasionally some notice in the newsletter that Claudia was a

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Banneker in history project, but then I don't know what happened to it. I don't know how Claudia got into this.

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I think she just became interested in it. I see. I mean, just out of, or maybe she's the one who is organizing it

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more on a. If somebody in that project was supposed to come around and talk to us about it. Yeah, it was Linda Yao. Linda was.

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Linda Yao. And I talked to her. We had to cancel. She canceled out of it and we canceled out of it.

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Right, right. We had to go through that. Well, I guess Claudia had made a list of some people that she thought were original.

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Well we were trying to define original settlers the other night. And you know, what exactly is the definition of original settlers? You and I talked about that.

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Well, original to me is really the people on the other side, who were really cooperators and settled. Now, if you want to find original owners of houses, then that's where we would come in.

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But we came in in '56, so this is at least six years after the people said so when you came in, had the cooperative paid? Oh, yeah. When did that pay off?

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Well, it had to be before '56, before '55. Because we bought the lot. Because we bought the house. We built the lot on the water.

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So it must have been, I don't know. You know there's the history. Right.

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I think it must say in there when they call it that. I don't remember it exactly, but the history is very good, but it sort of skirts some issues a

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little bit. What are you interested in? What are you trying to do? What are you talking about? Well, what I'm doing is I'm doing an ethnographic field research

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methods course. And So we need to do a project. You tell it. OK. So for this ethnographic field

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research methods project, we need to do some research, some field research. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, and a live project kind of thing.

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And then what we do is we write three papers during the semester on the process of doing it. How do you think about it? How's it going? What's difficult?

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What's hard? What's your methodology? Da da da da da. So you write these sort of process papers.

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Oh, you can fake that since they're not asking you the substance of what you've done. But at the end, you have to do the substance. Right, exactly.

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So at the end, we turn in a short ethnography. So I thought, since I had been, I'd seen what Claudia had passed around at that celebration in

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April or May, and I thought it was interesting, I thought I'd like to help, but of course, whoever gets the time, which is why it isn't going anywhere. And I thought, well, this would be

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great that I have the time where this would be a priority for me, since it's a class priority. Why not put some effort into this now, and then that'll help move it ahead.

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So my goals are very subscribed from one side, but on the other side, open-ended in the project of Bannockburn. Now, what Claudia is interested in and how she understands this project is to record oral histories of people of what she

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used the term original settlers meaning original owners, but basically to try to get a feel for what the beginning was like. Why did people come here? Why here? And with the original cooperators, you know, what was the cooperative

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movement like? How did that flavor things? What was their involvement? And then even people who weren't original cooperators who were like yourselves, original owners, what was it like in those early years? Fantastic.

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But to get on the first part of it, as to the, how it, who the cooperators were, And what the atmosphere then, you really got to go to the pilot project, which was over Braeburn, basically Braeburn, a lap-rocker, up and down, we'll see.

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Because those houses go all the way back to 1949 I think. Right. Yeah, I think Betty Langham. The first house was put up there.

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You know Betty Langham? Huh. She's a good source for it. Okay.

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Because she has a very balanced view of it. And second, she has good memory which is...

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Yeah, right. And... You understand, half the people you want to talk to are going to make stuff up.

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I mean, that's, they're not going to... It's going to... But not you, right? No, no, me too.

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Me too. It'd be meant, and it'd get filtered through, and it'd get filtered through all the other stuff. Well, yeah, for 40 years it gets filtered.

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So you're not really getting... That's the trouble with these oral histories. They're not oral histories.

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But they're not oral histories. They're oral something, but they're not oral histories. Right.

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So that was one whole group with sort of a joint memory and you can hear them at things like that meeting at the clubhouse. They're a quite different group in the community. And when the co-op failed, the people who came, some of them may

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have been in the co-op movement after that, but that's, you know, and so we said, gee, it's still there, the people are there. The street names are still there. You know, Halbert is a leading

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light in the Washington cooperative, or the national cooperative. And so that's the reason. Well, we can look at the new one.

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I don't think it's still there. So that it was. So there is that group. And I think to some extent, that group is quite a bit different on

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the average, the people who came after. Mm-hmm. Tourists, yeah, right. But one of the reasons a lot of people came after is because they

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have heard of Bannockburn and they figured not only the location, now we came for two reasons. One was that looking for houses, this was one of the few areas where the trees were still

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standing. It wasn't a project there. For low price, for development. Yeah, where the developer didn't

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come in and raise the trees and then build houses. And the other thing that attracted us was that since different developers bought different lots, the houses weren't all, you know, smack the same thing.

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The Wilson, no, the part that's on Dalroy and Callender and all these, that was not at all. I mean, that was a decade later. So, and the other thing that

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attracted us was the type of people that lived here. We knew some of the people who lived here. And in schools of Montgomery County, you know, looking for an area in Montgomery County.

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And that was really sort of the general reason. Whom did you know? Well, we knew the Fosters who moved here.

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And the Peckmans we heard of. Yeah. Well, I knew Peckman. You knew Peckman.

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And Herb Schwartz lived here already, and Desai Sal's lived here already, and Ramsey Wood lived here. I mean, some We knew better than others, but we knew off them and what this was all about.

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Sort of the general feeling of the people that lived here. But I don't, in a sense, we fell into it.

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We were part of any cooperative. Yeah, right. And we were, I don't think either one of us had ever lived, we hadn't really lived in a house

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before, either one of us. We had been apartment dwellers, both in our youth or in flats, not individual houses. So this was a big, you know, this was a big adventure to us.

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A house, my God. And, But we weren't really part of the cooperative movement and we didn't really see that a great tragedy had occurred when we failed.

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So we were quite different. So we were quite different. And I think our attachment to the place, the place became much better than we ever could have imagined in terms I'm sort of out

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flowering here. By the time we left, see we came here in '56 and then we left in '61 for Paris. So we've only been here 5 years.

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And in that time… And in that time, I was already, in that time, five years, I was president of the nursery school. I became involved in Montgomery

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County politics. I was chairman of the '73 Women's Democratic Club, and Stan was president of the PTA. I mean, you know.

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We moved in in September, and at the end of October, I ran the newcomers party, which was not as big as nothing compared to what we have now. It was just a little get together, but we had, you know, a little bit

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of food and drink. Well, there's something still of that. I mean, when we moved in, Kathy

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Madabo said, well, you know, there are all these boards and you have to serve on these boards. And evidently she called Allie and Brody.

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Yeah. And so immediately she called me and said, well, we have this BCI board, would you like to be on? And I was sort of like, okay, well, Kathy said we do these things.

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And so within a week I was on the BCI board. I didn't even know what it stood for. And Sammy's in there after he joined BCA. So this became just a great thing.

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Yeah, and so the show started in the spring of, we moved in fall of '56, so the first show was in April of '57, and I was in the show right away. Stan was not in the show yet because we needed a babysitter,

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you know, we had a... So how many kids did you have at that point? Two. You had two? Yeah.

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Karen was... When we moved in, Karen entered first grade. Uh-huh.

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And Joan was not... Three. Three. And then I felt that Karen had

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been in school too much, you know, for a three year old. So I was going to keep Joan out of nursery school for an only starter at age four. And I was informed that if I'm

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gonna wait that long, there isn't a chance of her getting in. Really, even at that point? At that point, there were no outside kids. There were only kids from

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Bannockburn in the school. And I think the number was like 20 in each class or something. And there were only two classes.

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Two. Yeah. A three-year-old and a four-year-old class. And then, when Joan was to go into the four-year-old class, then I

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was present. And we went on vacation. And when I came back, Mrs. Bellman had organized another class because her kids couldn't get into the classes one or the other.

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I don't remember whether it was an age thing or whether we had enough boys, because we tried to have boys and girls of the same number or what. But in any event, all of a sudden

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there was hammering going on and that third room of the grill started to appear. And there was another three-year-old class, I guess.

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And from then on that went. But there were no kids from the outside. And I don't know how long that went on, quite a while. So how old were you when you moved here?

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So we're all '56, 32. And you were 36. And so this was your first house? Yes. And we were a little older.

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And were you moving from D.C.? No. No, from Maryland, from Prince George's County, Mount Rainier, Maryland. We lived in a garden apartment in

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K-Wood Gardens, which were a lovely garden apartment. Which was one of the reasons we didn't have a house before. And let's see, the Lieblings who live on West Halberd lived there, and the Fosses who live on the East Halberd lived there in

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Cabletown. That was all. There was somebody else from Cabletown. Oh, the Schwartz's who don't live here anymore, Herb and Pearl

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Schwartz. No, they didn't live in Cambridge. They didn't live in Cambridge, no. And where were you all working at

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the time? I was at the Federal Museum. All of them. Ever. It's the only place I ever worked for.

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And were you working in all families? Not then. And did you, right? Or did you? No. At any point?

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Oh, before I had kids. Uh-huh. Yeah. But not after I had kids.

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Oh, before I had kids. I worked for the FAO, Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations. Which moved to Rome.

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No, they moved just right. They would have had a decision to make whether I was going to give up my job or she was going to give up her job. Were they here in Washington? Yeah.

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Yeah. Ah. Yeah. Yeah.

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Yeah. Yeah. And what did you... What were you doing for them?

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What was your position? Translation. Oh really? Yeah. From what to what? Anything French, Cody. She made it? Scandinavian languages that I

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really didn't speak. Not up to this day. What am I? Great. German, French, whatever.

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Statistic, I was. I didn't know anybody. Wow. Wow.

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And what were you? You worked on the food balance sheet. That's right. Thank you.

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Yes. Food balance sheet. There was a big worldwide, it was a very elaborate structure. That is, the structure of statistics was an elaborate

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statistical matrix of where various foods were coming from being grown or made and where they were being consumed. They had this sample and then the exports and uphold between them. It was a very nice thing.

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It was called the food foundation. Thank you. But I remember the books now. Yes, in fact, I still have some.

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And what was your position at the Federal Reserve, Stan? Oh, then? Uh-huh. Then, then, this is a skid.

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Well, oh then I was, well I'd been in the research division, research economy in the research division in 1947. We came to Washington in 1947 and I'd been in a gradually gone, you know, seniority over that until 61, so it's about 14 years, right?

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And so I was a section chief, head of the National Income Projection, I worked in national income projections and structural national income accounts, but I did a head of a section called the floral funds accounts, one of the originators, which is also an

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elaborate statistical structure of the entire financial structure of the country. The what fund you're talking about? Flow of funds.

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Flow of funds accounts. Yeah, flow of funds accounts, Which is a structure of financial flow similar to the national income statistics on product flows.

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Wow. And so I was doing that and as a result of, so that's what I was, when we came here in '56, I was working in that.

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Yeah, because I did '50. So in '56 I was still, I was in that. By the time we left '61, I was the head of that unit and because of that work I got the job in Paris.

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What was the job in Paris then? The job in Paris had an elegant title. I was the director of statistics and national accounts of the OECD which is the organization for economic cooperation and

00:24:16.040 - 00:24:40.380

development which was an elegant title and an elegant job, until I couldn't stand one of my bosses. I had a work for one of the super serious British, not all the British were super serious, in

00:24:40.380 - 00:25:00.420

fact I had worked for one man, he was great, but when the Oxbridge types are super serious, They know how to be super serious. I think you and Sammy could talk about that for a while. I think he's experienced way too many Brits, too.

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So, so haught. Yeah, I think he prefers the haughtiness of the French. Yes, yes, yes.

00:25:08.960 - 00:25:23.960

We had no problem with the French. So, you came in '47 to DC. Where were you coming from then? Cambridge, Massachusetts. Oh, really? I didn't know that.

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Were you married in '47? When were you all married? '47. '47. We were married in March of '47.

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We came here in September. So you were married up there? We were married in New York. So how did you meet? Did you meet in Cambridge? No, I'll tell you very quickly.

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His sister and I worked in the same office in New York. And so in Manhattan? And during the war.

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And he was in the Navy. And she gave me his address. And we carried on the correspondence for a couple of years before we met.

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Wow. That's the thing. Wow. And so then we met After the war

00:26:16.780 - 00:26:39.480

in Europe was over, in May of '45, he came back with the ship. And then we dated for two years before we got married. And were you living in New York or were you sort of dating back through Cambridge? We were dating through Virginia

00:26:39.480 - 00:26:52.360

and Cambridge. No, I was still in the Navy and I was assigned first to Virginia, to Little Creek. Oh right, and then you came back to New York.

00:26:52.360 - 00:27:06.340

Little Creek, Virginia, down near Virginia Beach. And then I came back up to New York only at the very end when I was assigned to lead this job. They were demobilizing people.

00:27:06.340 - 00:27:14.520

Right. They needed people to shake hands with the people who were leaving. Everybody got a handshake.

00:27:16.120 - 00:27:21.540

Thank you. Uncle Sam says thank you. Uncle Stan says thank you. I went to Cambridge.

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And then I went to Cambridge to continue my graduate work. Oh really? Where were you doing that? In Harvard. At that point.

00:27:32.580 - 00:27:56.200

Were you working on a Masters in Economics? Masters and PhD. Masters and PhD in Economics? Did you finish in both? Not then. I didn't get my PhD until 1953 and I got that, I did that by writing

00:27:56.200 - 00:28:11.560

up a dissertation on the work, the developmental work I was doing in my job. And got it, Harvard conferred it. That's my second job.

00:28:11.840 - 00:28:27.540

That's why, and that's when Karen was, of course, Karen used to, for years, for a couple of years that it took me to do this, you know, at night, you know, and paid a very little attention to Karen.

00:28:27.770 - 00:28:36.240

Who was three, two, three, '53. '53. She was 43. Yeah, but you started writing at 51.

00:28:36.240 - 00:28:48.720

I know, But she always, and I realized what I was doing when we heard her once telling some people, my daddy always takes me to the playground. But her daddy almost never took

00:28:48.720 - 00:28:55.280

her to the plate read. I said, oh, god. I mean, that's. Ha, ha, ha.

00:28:56.140 - 00:29:05.520

Well, Nora said to me tonight, I said, oh, you know, When I finish in April, I'll be ABD. And she said, well, what's ABD? And I said, that's all but dissertation.

00:29:05.580 - 00:29:19.420

She said, you mean all but disorganized. So. Well, that could be, too. Canada was only two. So that's two to three.

00:29:19.920 - 00:29:31.080

So anyway, I started taking it to the playground, little less writing, shift it more to the night. Yeah, I remember when he was

00:29:31.080 - 00:29:43.660

getting his PhD, we just had Joan with us. Joan was, I don't know, two months, five weeks or something like that. And so we didn't go up and get

00:29:43.660 - 00:29:48.280

his. You didn't go up in person? Uh-huh. To get him for commencement.

00:29:49.060 - 00:29:59.240

And I always have been sorry that we didn't scrape it together. Me too. You know, the money to get somebody or do something.

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So it's a good thing. Right. Right. As we do that.

00:30:04.540 - 00:30:14.840

Maybe they have some sort of, you know, after the fact, Well, we go out to my reunions. All the time. It's a lot of fun.

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I didn't say it. But that was before we moved here, because I got my degree in 1953. You got your master's?

00:30:25.400 - 00:30:33.980

No, no, I got my master's in 1947. I got my PhD in 1953. Dr. D. 53. I think that's right.

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Let me see. Let me quickly turn around. Okay. So then you came down here, and

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you were working at the time for the Federal Reserve. And so... I was a housewife. And you were a housewife, and proud of it, no doubt.

00:30:55.240 - 00:31:00.200

No, no. No? Did you wish that you were working, or... No, not really. Not really?

00:31:00.400 - 00:31:06.360

No. That's just what one did, you know. Right. Right. Right.

00:31:06.580 - 00:31:16.400

So when I came to Bannockburn and I saw all these opportunities of doing things, besides my kids were older by then. Uh-huh.

00:31:16.400 - 00:31:30.920

Madeline always figured her amateur standing would be ruined if she took money from the community. Absolutely. I was just telling Wanda today, We

00:31:30.920 - 00:31:44.160

were talking about in the earlier days what we did. And it was very funny. A lot of people on the street, you know, in the area said, oh, could I put your name down to the school

00:31:44.180 - 00:31:55.320

because you're going to be home? And I said, sure, why not? But I never was. When there was something wrong with my kids, they always called Stan and he came over to take care

00:31:55.320 - 00:32:01.860

of them. But I was there with the eyes, whatever. I was so involved.

00:32:02.220 - 00:32:10.820

I was not all in. How did you get so involved in politics? Was there a history of that? Or did it just take off when you got here?

00:32:10.820 - 00:32:21.880

No, it started with the Stevenson campaign. I was just very fascinated by the whole, you know, that was going on. And which year was the Stevenson

00:32:21.960 - 00:32:27.020

campaign? Well, actually the first was before we moved in. Fifty-six. Fifty-six.

00:32:27.380 - 00:32:36.540

Fifty-six. Just about the time. And then the 58th. You know, the people who lived here were all very politically

00:32:37.660 - 00:32:52.740

oriented, you know. Oh, there were a lot of people, it's not me, there were a lot of people in the original project, the co-op, the real co-op, who would come out of the labor

00:32:52.740 - 00:33:01.220

movement. These were a lot of, some of them were even old time Norman Thomas socialists. Huh, really? Yeah.

00:33:01.420 - 00:33:05.260

Like, Bukka. And some of them are still here. Hi, Bukman. Uh-huh.

00:33:06.460 - 00:33:15.480

And Weiss. Murray Weiss, yeah. Some of them. And so this was always sort of The

00:33:15.480 - 00:33:26.680

left wing of the Democratic Party. There was also another thing that was very important and actually is still happening, but not to that extent.

00:33:30.580 - 00:33:42.760

There was the, you can't get involved in government, the Hatch Act. So all across Montgomery County really it was the women who were active in politics.

00:33:44.480 - 00:33:57.440

If they were working, the non-working women, the working women who were likely to be working for the government Oh, because most of the men worked for the government Yes, most of the men worked for the government So

00:33:57.440 - 00:34:13.200

they were all hatched, and so the whole political structure Was really manned by women Was manned by women Very good There were some men, but this is interesting, though. A few women.

00:34:15.060 - 00:34:30.820

There were very few women running for office, except who was Estella Werner, I think, was the first one, she was on the council. But it was all the women who did

00:34:30.820 - 00:34:46.300

all the organizing and the scat work and so forth. And some of the men who were running or were involved in politics, they were all young lawyers, as they are today. But they're not working for government.

00:34:48.260 - 00:34:55.820

Is that what people said? You were hatched? Is that the term? And what year was that? Oh, that's forever. It's still a tax haven.

00:34:55.820 - 00:35:00.340

Yeah, I know. But what year was that started? I don't know. Before we came.

00:35:00.340 - 00:35:06.000

Yeah, the 1930s. I think you were in the '30s. The Hatch. Act, yeah.

00:35:06.040 - 00:35:18.580

Very early. I don't know exactly when it was, but certainly there was... It got more restrictive as it went

00:35:18.580 - 00:35:30.280

along. So then most of the men in the area here were government workers? Yes. You could, however, you could run for the school board.

00:35:30.640 - 00:35:35.860

School board was not part of it. School board didn't come under the Hatch Act. But county council would.

00:35:35.860 - 00:35:46.840

County council would, the party organizer would, the precinct chairman would, running for almost anything. Collecting money. Collecting money.

00:35:49.360 - 00:35:58.160

You could contribute money, I think, I don't know, the Hatch Act has been weakened. It's been weakened recently. But I don't know how much.

00:35:59.540 - 00:36:16.100

But it did mean that there was, and it was taken quite seriously, but, and so that it did mean that you, you had, this sort of great division of pulling a whole lot of people in the population.

00:36:17.080 - 00:36:22.160

Especially in a place like Washington. I mean, it wouldn't be so important in Detroit.

00:36:23.040 - 00:36:36.700

But that's what happened. Exactly. So these people out of the labor movement and near socialists, were they also working for government?

00:36:36.820 - 00:36:43.940

Many of them were. Many of them were working for unions. And they could get involved.

00:36:44.380 - 00:36:53.400

So there were A lot of men who were involved in county politics who were union people. And what kind of unions would they have been working for? Oh, any.

00:36:53.740 - 00:36:59.630

I don't know. The teams that the elected were working as the, So like, if it were to happen. This was the national headquarters.

00:36:59.630 - 00:37:02.960

The national headquarters. They were organized. Right. These were all people who were

00:37:02.960 - 00:37:06.920

already here. These were people who were working for the unions. Right.

00:37:08.360 - 00:37:20.140

In a managerial capacity. They had already been, you know. Or they were hired, you know, lawyers who were hired. Right.

00:37:20.740 - 00:37:29.700

So were there a lot of lawyers here? There were a lot of economists here. There were a lot of psychiatrists

00:37:30.020 - 00:37:34.580

here. Laws, really? Oh, sure. Over on the other side of it.

00:37:35.860 - 00:37:51.060

And? Not many doctors. Not many. Not many doctors are there. No. There was a very young dentist who died of what's her name?

00:37:52.060 - 00:37:55.960

Cold very soon. Eta. Oh. Go. Oh, yeah.

00:37:57.300 - 00:37:58.140

For the doctor. Very well, the dentist invited, what's her name? Goldberg, Vita, go, go here for the doctor.

00:37:58.700 - 00:38:17.740

Yeah, I was reminded today because Wanda told me, Wanda Moss have you met her? No. So Wanda told me she called me to go over to participate and she says I can't participate, I'm a doctor in the nursery school.

00:38:20.820 - 00:38:34.300

I see. There are lines. Those floating lines. So then, now you say the Spring

00:38:34.300 - 00:38:42.520

Show started then, your first Spring Fair. When did the nursery school start? Oh. It had preceded you. Yes. It's in the book.

00:38:42.520 - 00:38:48.860

Right. I don't know, about three, four years before we met. And so, who were the presidents

00:38:48.860 - 00:38:56.960

that preceded you? I mean, had they been formalized and had presidents come in? I have no idea who the presidents were preceding me. Oh, I think Lucille must have been

00:38:56.960 - 00:39:08.500

one, Lucille Reitman. Because she wasn't president after I was here. But you know, this is very funny,

00:39:08.500 - 00:39:23.400

we were even, when we lived in Paris and the Reifens lived there, a lot of people from the area came through on their jobs. You know, they were all tax- They were needy, as they did. So one day we went to dinner, and there was a whole group from

00:39:23.400 - 00:39:33.740

Bannockburn at dinner, and we figured out that there were two presidents of the Pacific... There were only five or six people there.

00:39:34.340 - 00:39:51.200

But there were about 12 presidents. There were two presidents of the nursery school, one or two presidents of PDA, the community

00:39:51.560 - 00:40:00.980

club, and the civic association, you know, between the five of us. There were 12 townhouses. There were 12. That has brought change in the Rockies.

00:40:01.300 - 00:40:08.900

It's very good. So that whatever I am. Where were the Reifmans living then, here? They lived on Wilson Lane.

00:40:08.960 - 00:40:13.680

On Wilson? Yeah, like their first house. Where the Mages lived now. Mages.

00:40:14.720 - 00:40:19.960

Uh-huh. I know where Peckman lived. No, this is a little bit further up.

00:40:19.960 - 00:40:25.520

A little further up? Up to the gondola. Up to Mage, and that's where the writing is in your book.

00:40:25.520 - 00:40:43.780

Okay. And then when they came back They moved into the house or not? They moved into the house and then they brought the house. And so this went to the H. So then were they one of the original

00:40:43.780 - 00:40:51.900

cooperators or they still came a little? I don't think so. But they preceded you here. Yeah, we met them here.

00:40:51.900 - 00:41:01.120

Right. And I don't know. Al was a foreign service type. Yeah, he lived in, he was in Paris before that, in '47, '48.

00:41:01.120 - 00:41:08.080

That was his second tour of the house. It was his second tour of the house. Right after the war. And Anne, who moved into Wilmer

00:41:08.080 - 00:41:13.580

Phillips' house. Yeah, one of the wife and daughters of Potterhouse. Right, right, right.

00:41:14.440 - 00:41:29.560

Well, that's One thing that Claudia was saying, that she felt so many children had come back, or were coming back, and that she found that to be rather unusual. Well, it certainly is great.

00:41:29.860 - 00:41:38.040

Yeah. And I don't know how many there are. Steve Zeisel, who lives on West

00:41:38.040 - 00:41:46.400

Harbor, just across the house on West Harbor, the Gessa House on West Harbor. How do you spell his last name? Zeisel.

00:41:47.080 - 00:41:54.940

Z-E-I-S-E-L. He grew up on East Halbert. Uh-huh. Down the next block.

00:41:57.160 - 00:42:06.720

Uh-huh. Pass, Pass, pass. Well, there's another guy over there on West Hlbert.

00:42:07.640 - 00:42:15.600

I'm sorry. He's at the pool all the time. One little boy, Mindy, with his wife, Rick, Rick Newman.

00:42:16.520 - 00:42:22.570

Oh, yeah, yeah, Rick Newman, right. Rick Newman, his mother is Claire Johnson, who lived on Bannockburn.

00:42:22.820 - 00:42:26.820

Right. She may still own that house. I think so. She still owns the house.

00:42:26.820 - 00:42:32.820

Right, I don't think she's so right. Oh, yes, her son lives there right another son Sam, right? Right.

00:42:33.580 - 00:42:40.080

And now does she live there too with him? Oh yeah. Because the son, I don't see that often, but I think she lives there.

00:42:40.080 - 00:42:47.320

Oh yeah, yeah. Claire used to be a, she was a fixture at the pool. She was a fixture at the pool.

00:42:48.100 - 00:42:59.980

She was a fixture at the pool as much as, as, who was it? Eileen Brody? Claire Johnson. Claire Johnson sat in the pool from morning till night, just like that.

00:43:00.180 - 00:43:09.140

Oh, even more than Claire, than Eileen. So, yeah, so that's right. Rick Newman is a bannered child.

00:43:09.140 - 00:43:17.880

We're talking about kids moving back in. And Ellen Peckman? Ellen Peckman, of course, has deserted us, gone to America.

00:43:18.140 - 00:43:28.440

She was very upset that I wasn't a house-sitter. No, it was terrible when she came. And Gutiero, Wendy Gutiero up there on Brigadoon? Her family.

00:43:28.440 - 00:43:31.960

Oh, yes. Reiner. She's In her family. That's their house.

00:43:31.960 - 00:43:36.920

And Katina's. Yes, she has. And Katina. No, and Reines.

00:43:38.840 - 00:43:44.280

Reines Graubart. She's living in her own house, too. Oh, she is?

00:43:44.280 - 00:43:51.540

Where is that? Is that up on Matterhorn, too? Next to the Wendy Hotel. Oh, I didn't even know. They were neighbors when they were kids and now they're neighbors

00:43:51.540 - 00:43:57.620

when they're adults. Too much. Oh, that is amazing. You know, I talk to her on the

00:43:57.620 - 00:44:07.770

phone all the time because she's had a flus right now. Who? Rene Scrobart. Oh, Grandpa. Carolyn.

00:44:07.770 - 00:44:19.200

But it never occurred to me to look up where she lived. I never thought that she lived in Bannockburn. In fact, I talked to her on the phone just the other day. I think that is, Oh, wow.

00:44:19.200 - 00:44:23.540

Let's see, who else? That's, oh, Steve Sasson. No, I mentioned Steve. Let's see.

00:44:26.320 - 00:44:39.440

I'm just trying to think. There's another one kicking around in my head. There is, I can't think of it. Maclay, Maclay, his daughter lives

00:44:39.440 - 00:44:49.780

with him and her child. Oh, it's Anne Levine. Oh, Levine, right. Hannah Levine, At the moment.

00:44:51.420 - 00:44:59.140

Anyway, she seems well set. I think, yeah, I think that looks pretty permanent. Sam may move out.

00:44:59.140 - 00:45:04.690

No. He seems to have acclimated to it. Oh, yeah. I don't like it. Yeah.

00:45:04.690 - 00:45:14.000

I don't like it. I'm sorry. Leanne Gallardo. I think it's her name.

00:45:14.160 - 00:45:23.500

Gallardo. I didn't know her. She is probably Ellen Peckman, Galado, Leanna McClay.

00:45:24.860 - 00:45:34.850

She lives back at her…her parents live there on Braeburn Place. Where am I? Gee, Galado.

00:45:34.850 - 00:45:45.100

Oh, Leanna McClay. Oh, and that's her parents' place? Yeah. So were they original? Uh-huh. But her father lives there.

00:45:45.100 - 00:45:54.160

I think they were original owners. Oh, wow. Huh. In Amarillo.

00:45:54.800 - 00:46:00.420

Right. Karen doesn't count. She lives two miles away. Yeah, right.

00:46:01.000 - 00:46:05.400

That totally throws her out, I guess. That totally throws her out, right.

00:46:06.060 - 00:46:14.560

Well, actually, I was quite struck first getting into the nursery school at how many people there were. But not only that, I mean,

00:46:14.700 - 00:46:24.840

actually in the whole area. I mean, when you come to Washington, you figure that everybody's transplanted here. And then when you get out in the suburbs and realize, oh yeah, you

00:46:24.840 - 00:46:35.440

know, I went to Whitman or I went to Hoover or I went to wherever. Well, when we first came back, that was not the case. Right. We were all transplants.

00:46:35.740 - 00:46:42.040

Everybody was a transplant. Practically, everybody was a transplant. So where are both of you

00:46:42.040 - 00:46:50.560

originally from? Well, I'm from Vienna. From Vienna. But I lived in New York. I lived in New York and then in Spain.

00:46:51.740 - 00:47:00.510

When did you come to the United States? In 1940. Uh-huh. I was born in Boston, grew up in Maine, Portland, Maine.

00:47:00.510 - 00:47:15.030

And I basically just went to school for a while, you know, so I didn't live anywhere. Right. Went to the Navy and to school.

00:47:15.030 - 00:47:22.800

Oh, yeah, I was in the Navy. So were you in the Navy, in school before the Navy? Yeah. And then sort of like in the

00:47:22.800 - 00:47:29.980

middle of college or graduate school? In the middle of graduate school. Did you do your undergraduate at Harvard too? I did undergraduate at Harvard and

00:47:30.060 - 00:47:45.920

I did graduate work at Berkeley. Did you really? Yeah, and I was a teaching assistant and did graduate work. And then I was, then the war intervened, and so I was in

00:47:45.920 - 00:47:56.780

Berkeley in 1941. Yeah, '41. I was coming back. And they were, the draft boards

00:47:56.780 - 00:47:59.360

out there were tough. They weren't giving any...