“My family came from Russia. My father came from Ukraine and my mother from Minsk. They came to this country separately in the early 1900s. I met my husband through potatoes, which is an interesting story. My brother moved to Boise in 1945. After the war, there were a lot of displaced ex-soldiers, and he established a drug company in Boise and was successful. Through him and through his friends, my husband became aware that there was a young woman in New York who might be available. And he sent me a box of potatoes with a card that said, 'If you are 25 or younger, I would like to have a correspondence. We in the West are great,' or however he put it. We started a correspondence. Three months later, he came to New York and I married him. He was a nice young man. I had the idea that I would love to leave New York. The thought of moving to Idaho was very enticing. So even though I didn't know him so well, I'm a gambler. I thought, I'll take a chance.”
“When I started teaching… everybody was very nice, very pleasant, very welcoming. I had no problem whatsoever. And I never felt, though I was the only Jewish person in that school and probably in any of the public schools I was the only Jewish person, I never felt different. But it’s what you feel like because I’m sure that there would be other people who would not have been as accepting as I, nor accepted.”
~ Harriet