Archives West Finding Aid

Tape-recorded interview covering years 1904-1973 conducted by Meta Kaplan and Fani C. Roberts, December 25, 1973, with transcript. (Only first tape in the sequence has been transcribed.)

Mr. Schreiber discusses his childhood, family life, and town in Poland with great detail. He describes the migration of people caught in WWI, his mother's death at the hands of a Russian soldier, the orphaning of his family of 7 and how they survived. When contacted by an aunt in America, he arranged passports/visas for himself and oldest sister Esther in Warsaw and Danzig, and sailed for America from Antwerp in October 1920. Jewish life on the ship and on Ellis Island is briefly commented upon. He discusses the train ride from New York to Spokane and covers his schooling, work at his uncle's store, the Standard Furniture Co., and Jewish life in Spokane; moving to Seattle in 1928, he married and began a furniture business with Israel Volotin. In 1933 the partners opened a furniture store in (Grand) Coulee, which they sold in 1939.