Archives West Finding Aid

Tape-recorded interview conducted by Howard Droker, M. Buttnick, and Larry Kleinberg on August 23, 1981.

Mrs. Holzman talks about her father, Henry Kleinberg, who came to Eastern Washington from Poland to join his older brother Sam in 1880. A tailor by training, her father peddled, set up a clothing store in Ellensburg, and then went into the hay and feed business since the family had been in the hay and feed business in Poland. He was very prosperous and owned dairy and other farms in the Kittitas Valley and was an early advocate and user of irrigation. Mrs. Holzman talks about her girlhood in Ellensburg where the Kleinbergs were one of two Jewish families. There was very little Jewish content to their lives, though the Dreidels (or Kreiders) and the Kleinbergs spent Jewish holdiays together. Samual Kreidel was mayor of Ellensburg in 1915. When her father sold his business in 1917, the family moved to Seattle. She talks briefly about his business activities - real estate and farming interests - in Seattle and some big losses incurred. She describes the homes the family lived in and her own social life. Her friends were the girls of Temple de Hirsch families.