Interview with Leon Cooper, October 16, 2015

FERNHEIMER: Hello, my name is Janice Fernheimer. I'm Associate Professor of Writing, Rhetoric, and Digital Studies, and Director of Jewish Studies, and it is my great honor and pleasure to have the opportunity to spend the next couple of hours speaking with Leon Cooper as part of the Jewish Heritage Fund for Excellence Jewish Kentucky Oral History Project. Uh, Leon, some of these questions are going to look familiar to you, uh, probably because I sent them to you before we started this interview, but um, I hope that you might be willing to state your name at birth for me, to get us started today?

COOPER: Leon Milton Cooper.

FERNHEIMER: And when and where were you born?

COOPER: Norfolk, Virginia at the Protestant hospital, on August 27th, 1927.

FERNHEIMER: And, what were your parents' names and occupations:

COOPER: Isadore Cooper, my father, was a grocer. He had a grocery store as 00:01:00long as I can remember. My mother was Dora Cooper, and she was a housewife. In those days, women didn't have many occupations, especially those coming from overseas.

FERNHEIMER: Where were they born?

COOPER: Excuse me?

FERNHEIMER: Where were your parents born? I'm sorry, I'll --

COOPER: My father was --

FERNHEIMER: -- speak up.

COOPER: -- from a small town northeast of Kiev, in the Ukraine. My mother was in a small town north of Vilnius, in Lithuania, Roksik.

FERNHEIMER: How do you spell that?

COOPER: R-O-K-S-I-K.

FERNHEIMER: Roksik. And when did they come to the United States?

COOPER: They came separately. My father came, um, in about 1919. My mother, in about '20 or '21.

FERNHEIMER: And, do you have siblings?

COOPER: I do.

FERNHEIMER: What are their names and ages relative to you?

COOPER: I have a sister who's nine years younger, Barbara Cooper. I had a brother that was a year and a half younger who died in March.

FERNHEIMER: Oh, I'm sorry.

COOPER: Yeah, uh --

FERNHEIMER: Hard year.

COOPER: It's been a terrible year.

FERNHEIMER: And what was his name?

COOPER: Arnold.

FERNHEIMER: Arnold. And, oh, what was the birth name of your wife, and the names of your children and grandchildren?

COOPER: She, uh, was born Harriet Rudman. No middle name. In Winston-Salem, North Carolina.

FERNHEIMER: Rudman. Was -- one --

COOPER: Rudman. R-U-D-M-A-N.

FERNHEIMER: And, your children?

COOPER: My children --

FERNHEIMER: ----(??)----

COOPER: -- are -- Lynn was my first born daughter. And she was born in January 00:03:00of '55. Then Ira was born in February of '57. And Andy in April of '59.

FERNHEIMER: And is there anything unique we should know about your family background or your childhood years?

COOPER: Well, both of my parents came from shtetls in eastern Europe, and all of their friends came from similar shtetls, and all of the relatives did. Actually, my first language was Yiddish, because nobody spoke anything else. And I'm really hard-pressed to figure out how I learned enough English to get into the first grade, but obviously I did, from somewhere. But it was an interesting, uh, community. They all had similar status in life, and they were 00:04:00all merchants of some sort, and scrap business, grocery business, restaurant business. And, uh, they shared, uh, all the good and bad times together. It was rather nice.

FERNHEIMER: How did they get to Norfolk?

COOPER: I think -- I was trying to find that out myself -- and I think my mother's brother ended up in Norfolk, and he was responsible for bringing a lot of his family here. Other family settled up in, uh, Connecticut.

FERNHEIMER: Ah.

COOPER: Putnam, Connecticut. Got into the livestock business. Cattle. Which is what they did in, in Europe, surprising. I didn't know any of our people were doing that, but --

FERNHEIMER: My family were live stockers, eh --

COOPER: Were they?

FERNHEIMER: Well, that was what I was told. My father's family, yeah.

COOPER: Well --

FERNHEIMER: Also shocking to me. (laughs)

COOPER: That's my mother's side. My father's side, they were all in the grocery business. And they ended up in Norfolk because during hard times, when things got bad in Los Angeles or Chicago, wherever they were, my father would bring them to Norfolk and put them in business in a store. So we ended up with just about everybody in the Norfolk, Portsmouth, Tidewater area.

FERNHEIMER: Wow. So most of your family was there growing up. Most of your family was there while you were growing up.

COOPER: Yeah.

FERNHEIMER: Wow.

COOPER: Yes.

FERNHEIMER: Um, and I understand that you were in the service. Was it the Navy? Is that correct?

COOPER: It was.

FERNHEIMER: And --

COOPER: I --

FERNHEIMER: -- when was that?

COOPER: I enlisted in the Navy at 17, and, uh, served in '45 and '46. And the war ended in '45. And, uh, they let us out in time to go to college. So I got 00:06:00out in August of '46. Then I was called back in the service when I got out of college in 1950, and served two more years. And was released in active duty, uh, in 1952.

FERNHEIMER: Can you tell me a little bit about your experiences being a Jewish person in the -- in the Navy?

COOPER: Actually, it was fascinating. I, I, I had to give up kashrut, of course, and that was, um, kind of difficult to do. Not difficult, but strange. And there were still things I wouldn't eat. I'd have to ask them what they were serving. But I got used to it. You had to. They -- nobody, uh --

FERNHEIMER: Where was your red line? What was it that you wouldn't eat?

COOPER: Pork. And shellfish. And milk with meat. That was it. Um, if they 00:07:00served a steak or a lamb chop, that -- no problem.

FERNHEIMER: (laughs) That was all right.

COOPER: That was okay. I, I ate that. I had no -- no qualms about that. But one time on the ship, at Yom Kippur, for break the fast, they had pork chops --

FERNHEIMER: (laughs)

COOPER: -- which I thought was kind of, uh, not very nice. I had to pass those up for the vegetables.

FERNHEIMER: I bet. Uh, did you -- were -- did you feel that your other service, uh, men treated you differently?

COOPER: No. I thought it was, uh, they was fine. Uh, there were others on, uh, on shore or in -- uh, on the ship, and we sort of bonded together. We were at sea one Yom Kippur, and strangely enough, I was on an aircraft carrier, which is quite large. (coughs) Excuse me. They had matzas onboard. It would not 00:08:00surprise me that they had a siddur, but it did surprise me that they had matzas for the high holidays.

FERNHEIMER: Oh, wow.

COOPER: So in the ship's library, we assembled, and there must have been 12, 15 of us for the Yom Kippur services. We were interrupted every once in a while from general quarters or something, but, uh, all in all, we, uh, we did our, our Yom Kippur. And then at Passover, the ship was in Greece. And I took a bunch of guys, the officers, into Athens, to shul. And they said, "Well what are we going to do here? We can't speak Greek." I said, "But I know Yiddish." And I got there, and it was the first time, at that tender age of 25 or so, that I learned that all Jews don't speak Yiddish.

FERNHEIMER: (laughs) I was wondering about that.

COOPER: They speak, uh, Ladino. Or Hebrew. And we were lost. Uh, there was 00:09:00one person who I could communicate with, but other than that, it was a big surprise. Because every Jew I ever knew up until then spoke Yiddish. And so, uh, it was an interesting experience, being in the Navy and being Jewish.

FERNHEIMER: What -- what made you decide to enlist in the la-- in the Navy versus the Army --

COOPER: The war was going on.

FERNHEIMER: Yeah.

COOPER: And Hitler was treating us badly. And I needed my parents' permission, at 17, and surprisingly they f-- signed up for me to go, because they felt the same way I did. We had to get this thing over with, and I was just the guy to do it. So, uh, everybody I knew was going in the service. There wasn't anybody --

FERNHEIMER: Yeah.

COOPER: -- slacking back in those days. So me, and, and all of my classmates, uh, ended up in some service or another. I chose the Navy because I like, uh -- 00:10:00being in Norfolk, I was familiar with a lot of the Navy. And it turned out to be a good decision. I enjoyed it. And I stayed in the Reserves, uh, 'til I retired in about '68 --

FERNHEIMER: Wow.

COOPER: -- with the rank of Lieutenant Commander. So it served me well, and I served well.

FERNHEIMER: Wow. I'm going to switch gears a little bit. It's going to feel a little bit weird, um, to kind of fast forward a little bit in your life. Um, about this time last year, it was, Tom Eblen published a great article on his bo-- blog -- called "The Bluegrass and Beyond" about your involvement with the IBM team that developed word processing. And I understand that your job with IBM and the invention of the IBM Selectric, um, is what brought you here to Kentucky from Poughkeepsie in 1958? Is that correct?

COOPER: Yes, but let me set the record straight.

FERNHEIMER: Please do.

COOPER: The Selectric was a marvelous, uh, product, and did amazingly well. My fingerprints are not on that product at all.

FERNHEIMER: Oh, okay.

COOPER: I had nothing to do with it. Word processing is another matter. I was the first engineer on the, uh, mag tapes electric typewriter, which kind of -- according to the writers in Jeopardy, which this was one of the questions -- it opened up the door for word processing for the rest of the world. I didn't realize it was that significant. You want to talk about this some more?

FERNHEIMER: Yeah. Tell me -- can you back up and -- I know there was -- he wrote a, a good article, though I guess some of it was -- I'm glad we got the record straight here. (laughter) Um, but tell me a little bit about kind of 00:12:00those years in between, uh, your time in the -- the service -- and then you went to college. Where did you go to school?

COOPER: Virginia Tech. Was VPI at the time. And I took mechanical engineering. Graduated in, um, the spring of 1950. And I was back in the Navy in August. Uh --

FERNHEIMER: And --

COOPER: -- and got out in August of '52. And, uh, a shipmate, uh, asked me one day up on the bridge in mid-watch, "What are you going to do when you get off the ship?" I said, "Well, I really don't know." And he said, "Have you ever heard of International Business Machines?" I said, "What do they do?" He said, "They make punch card equipment." I said, "Wow, that's right up my alley. I'm a mechanical engineer." So, uh, one day the ship was in port. I put on my dress blues, and walked into the IBM office. And I got invited for an interview 00:13:00up in Poughkeepsie. And the first question they asked me was, "How would you start and stop a magnetic tape in three milliseconds?" I said, "Wait a minute, what's that got to do with punch card equipment?" Well, it turns out, that 1950 is when IBM was transitioning from the mechanical card punching to computers. It was a very exciting time to be there with them. Uh, and I liked to worked on an entire machine. The big computers were just too much. No one person understood -- well, I won't say "no." Hardly anybody understood the whole workings of it. And I wanted a machine I could work on that, uh, I can understand it all. Well, we started talking about the mag tape and the 00:14:00typewriters. And my manager said, "What we need is a recording device that captures the keystroke so you can play it back." Now, up until that time, if a typist wanted to send a bunch of the same letter --

FERNHEIMER: Mm-hmm.

COOPER: -- she -- and I say "she" because mostly they were women -- would take sheaf of, of, uh, paper, and slip carbons in between each, uh, every two of them. And then start typing. And a typist who could type 90 words a minute went down to 8 or 12, because if you hit the wrong key, you had to roll them out, and, and erase every copy. So simply enough, what they wanted was 00:15:00something were you could type the original message, and backspace, and hit the right key, and then throw away that piece of paper. Put in the carbon back, and type eight copies flawlessly. Well, that's what we started making. And as we got further and further, we said, "Hey, y-- we can do a lot more than this." And as it turned out, we ended up with two tapes where you could take information off this tape and then do a lot of things which we do much easier today, and then put it on the second tape. And then, you had a composite tape with all the corrections and everything else. It turned out to be a reasonably good product. A $10,000 typewriter. And it sold fairly well. Uh, but as 00:16:00technology progressed, um, we more and more got sort of, uh, superseded. We were still using relays for storage, and, and a lot of the components from the old, uh, keypunch to do some of the work we wanted to do. So, that was a fascinating project. I'm glad I had a hand in it.

FERNHEIMER: Yeah, that's -- it's amazing. I mean, my background is in writing, rhetoric, and digital studies here, so it's pretty exciting to hear that we have one of the founders of word processing right here --

COOPER: Well --

FERNHEIMER: -- in Lexington Jewish community.

COOPER: It was not a solo operation. There was an army of us working -- working on that. I happened to be the first guy on the scene, and built the first plate model proving that you could record on a tape, and then play it back 00:17:00to the typewriter.

FERNHEIMER: Wow.

COOPER: So, that was in 1957 or so.

FERNHEIMER: How many people were on your team?

COOPER: Well after they moved down here, there were, you know, three, four, eight, ten, twelve, and the more we got into doing all these fancy steps, uh, the more people we needed. And, uh, then, of course, getting it into production was a whole other matter. So it turned out to be, uh, quite a project. And I'm glad to be -- to have been a part of it.

FERNHEIMER: When did you move from Poughkeepsie to Lexington?

COOPER: Nineteen fifty-eight. March of '58.

FERNHEIMER: And who came with you at the time?

COOPER: We had -- of course my wife, and we had two children, Lynn and Ira. They were born in Poughkeepsie at Vassar Hospital. And, um, Andy was born here 00:18:00in Kentucky. We lived in Wappingers Falls. It's a little bedroom community south of Poughkeepsie, like Georgetown is to Lexington.

FERNHEIMER: Okay. And did you have any -- could you talk to me a little bit about your considerations in moving here, especially any discussions you might have had about Jewish life in Lexington at that time?

COOPER: When I had the opportunity to come here, the first thing I looked for was a Conservative synagogue. If there were no -- if there was no Conservative synagogue, I would not have come here, because I thought that was a very important part of my life, our family life. So I came, and there was Ohabei Zion, which was, uh, great. And they had the temple Adath Israel, uh, Reform congregation. And, uh, the truth is, that was the most important thing I looked 00:19:00for. My wife and I are both from Virginia, so coming here from uh, Hudson Valley, was no big, uh, cultural shock for us. As a matter of fact, my wife never got warm in five and a half years in the Hudson Valley. So it was, uh, a welcome relief to come, come here. Uh, the town was about 90,000 when we came, and they were mostly merchants here. They owned the stores or worked in the stores, and their ports were --

FERNHEIMER: They, the Jewish people, or they --

COOPER: Yeah.

FERNHEIMER: Okay.

COOPER: The Jewish stores. Meijers, and Hymson, and Kaufman, and Wilth (??), and Wild, and, and all of these people. Um, and they closed on Rosh Hashanah, and they closed on Yom Kippur. It was kind of nice. Uh, there were, of course, 00:20:00some, uh, professional people also. But until IBM came, and then the medical center opened up, uh, there was not any real influx of, uh, Jewish people to Lexington.

FERNHEIMER: And when -- so, when you came -- that was -- most of Lexington's downtown was mostly Jewish-owned shops at that time, right?

COOPER: Yes.

FERNHEIMER: Uh --

COOPER: Yes.

FERNHEIMER: M-- almost all of Main Street, um. So those merchants -- when you say -- i-- 90,000 -- that was the size of Lexington, of course, right? As a whole, not just the Jewish community?

COOPER: No, the whole town.

FERNHEIMER: Yeah. How big was the Jewish community then, would you say? Uh, how many --

COOPER: Two thousand.

FERNHEIMER: Uh, so that is different from now.

COOPER: Well, it's about 2,500 isn't it?

FERNHEIMER: Yeah. It depends who you ask. Twenty-five hundred, thirty-five hundred.

COOPER: Okay.

FERNHEIMER: Bu--

COOPER: But the, the medical center brought a lot of Jewish couples to town.

FERNHEIMER: When did that open? Do you recall?

COOPER: Sixty-two. I -- believe I'm right.

FERNHEIMER: I'll --

COOPER: It was an interesting time, um, Jan. It opened at the same time that the Hadassah Hospital in -- at Ein Kerem -- opened in Jerusalem. My wife, and uh, Marilyn Mostik (??) were co-chairs of the Hadassah twinning group that twinned those two openings together. We had fancy dress balls, and dinners, and everything. And brought the director of the Hadassah Hospital over to Lexington. And, uh, it was quite a to-do. And that was about '62. The Chandler Medical Center. And a lot of faculty came who were Jewish, and boosted, our, uh, population considerably.

FERNHEIMER: The numbers in the community. I'm going to go back to the word processing for just a minute, because I wonder, uh, uh, if you could tell me a little bit about the difference in Japanese and Chinese word processing? I have a note here to ask you about this.

COOPER: Do you?

FERNHEIMER: I do. And I -- I -- I have to confess, Beth helped ask some of these questions, and so I -- I was --

COOPER: Well Beth isn't --

FERNHEIMER: -- hoping to get some -- to get some background on that from her, where this was coming from. So this is coming from Beth. I'm channeling her right now.

COOPER: Well, I'm going to tell you --

FERNHEIMER: From Indonesia.

COOPER: I'm going to tell you more than you need to know. But with the advent of the, uh, ink jet printer, we could print kanji characters.

FERNHEIMER: Oh, wow.

COOPER: Which are -- are different in Chinese, Japanese, and Korean. But the ink jet didn't care what it printed. It just printed a picture. And it could print a Japanese character as well as it could print a -- uh, alphanumeric 00:23:00character. So, I worked on a Japanese typewriter, which was a fascinating, uh, assignment. The problem wasn't printing, because we could do that. The problem was getting information into it. There must be -- and I'm quoting you some old numbers from the '70s -- 10,000 kanji characters in the Japanese language. For any discipline, there's probably 3,000. The typewriter that the Japanese had was called a wabin (??). And it was a tray of maybe 3,000 type slugs. And the operator moved that tray under a picker, and when she got the right character, she would -- again, I say she -- would push down and a finger would lift that character, wipe it past a ribbon, and bang it into the paper. And it was just, 00:24:00uh, curiously a very difficult thing to comprehend, how someone could learn where every character was on that thing. So our biggest problem was to take the 3,000 characters and compress them into a typewriter keyboard. I worked with the Human Factors Group in San Jose, run by, uh, Dick Hirsch, and we became quite friendly. I'd send him a box of matzos every Pesach so he could remember who he was. But anyway, what we did was to get a group of women who were born in Japan, educated in Japan, and fluent in the kanji language. And the biggest supply of them in this country is in the San Francisco Bay area. So going to 00:25:00San Jose w-- seemed like a reasonable thing to do. So we developed a code for several strokes to get a kanji character, and trained a bunch of these women to -- to do that. And they got pretty good. The problem with it was cultural. I don't think the Japanese wanted us to tell them how to do this.

FERNHEIMER: Mm-hmm.

COOPER: And we never got past the experimental stage with it. Uh, it gave me many trips to Japan, which was quite nice. And, uh, it was a fascinating project.

FERNHEIMER: And when were you working on that? That was in the '60s?

COOPER: The '70s.

FERNHEIMER: The '70s.

COOPER: Yeah, we didn't have ink jet until then, and uh, it was in, uh, maybe 00:26:00the middle-to-latter '70s. Uh, a fascinating program. Now, Japanese of course, goes like Hebrew and Farsi and Arabic, right to left. Or, down the page. But that wasn't a problem either. Although going right to left does pose problems, but maybe you don't want to talk about that.

FERNHEIMER: Yeah, do you -- do you have experience working with, uh, other language, uh, typewriters? I mean, I -- my husband, Jim, has a collection of Arabic and Hebrew typewriters in his home office, in his office office here on campus. But if you have experience working them, I would like to hear.

COOPER: Only -- only Japanese. Only Japanese. But the big problem -- and I talked to people who were working on them -- going from right to left works okay, except if you have something like a - a big number. Six thousand, eight 00:27:00hundred and fifty-two. You got to know what that whole number is --

FERNHEIMER: Right.

COOPER: To start printing it. So we needed a little memory. And, uh, that was the big problem in doing that. But -- and I'm not even sure how they solved it. I didn't get involved in the --

FERNHEIMER: Yeah. You were -- you retired shortly -- well, I don't know about shortly -- but a few -- 10 years later, right?

COOPER: Eighty-two.

FERNHEIMER: In '82? Um --

COOPER: IBM had a very generous program to reduce the people on board. We learned "we." IBM learned lesson in the Hudson Valley -- we do not want to be the, uh, dominant financial factor in the area. We were up in the Hudson Valley, and when IBM took a hit, the whole place kind of got depressed. So they 00:28:00had a very sensible arrangement here, where if we got the -- a number -- like 5,000 -- we'd open up another location. Which we did, in Austin, Texas. And then they got up. And then we opened up Boulder, Colorado, to keep from taking too big a position in the finances of the region. It was a very, um, responsible thing to do. So why am I telling you this?

FERNHEIMER: Oh, because I was going to -- I asked you -- well, I didn't really ask you a question. Um, when you retired from IBM in 1982, you created a new company, QED Medical. And so I wanted you to tell me a little bit about that new company, and how it came to be, and your continued involvement with.

COOPER: In the middle '60s, I had the job of running the exploratory engineering group in Lexington. Thomas J. Watson, Jr. issued a decree that 00:29:00anywhere there's an engineering facility near a medical facility, we are to offer them all the assistance they needed at no cost. In the middle '60s, IBM had a Dr. Eisman who was in charge of surgery, and the VA had a doctor -- I think his name was Molette. These were both prolific inventors, and they took almost all of the effort of my department working on their medical devices. We actually built the artificial heart for a cow for one of the --

FERNHEIMER: This is at IBM or at QED?

COOPER: IBM. This is back in the '60s. And we did a lot of fascinating things. And I became, uh, enamored with, uh, medical work. And then we had 00:30:00friends -- Marty and Marsha Blacker -- in town. He was a professor of, uh, neurosurgery at UK. And we were out to dinner with him one night, and he was telling me the problems they had -- or he had -- getting enough illumination in a s-- in a bore hole in a skull to do work. And I said it didn't look like too serious a problem. So, um, another engineer and I put together a system, which wasn't unique -- we just put together what we could find -- and built the unit for him that he really liked. And so when time came for me to think about what I was going to do when I got out of IBM, I thought, well that's probably a pretty good business. So I -- I retired in August of '52, took Labor Day 00:31:00weekend off --

FERNHEIMER: Fifty-two or eighty-two?

COOPER: Eighty-two. Excuse me.

FERNHEIMER: Okay. I was going to say.

COOPER: No, no, no. I'm confusing you. It's '82. Took Labor Day weekend off, and um, rented a space, hired a bookkeeper and a shop foreman, and we started building these units.

FERNHEIMER: So they were a special kind of lamp? I -- I just want to be clear on the --

COOPER: It's a fiber optic. It's a light source and a fiber optic hose that brought the light up to the, uh, to the headlight, which was situated in a -- in a headband. And then the light came between your eyes, off the tip of your nose, into whatever cavity the doctor was working on. And you could focus the light, or make it smaller, so that you didn't get glare from the surrounding 00:32:00bone and tissue. And that was '82. And then in '85, my son decided he thought he wanted to get into the business. In '89 my daughter did, and in '95, my other son did. So I was able to supply my three children with, uh, with, uh, occupation, which was quite good.

FERNHEIMER: And you still work there, yeah?

COOPER: I still show up there. And the best thing I can do is stay out of their way, which they -- and so he has an office for me, and if he needs me, he'll call me, but, uh, I let him run it, because it's his business now, not mine. We do not run the same business formula, but I get out of his way. It's the nicest thing I can do. My daughter, on the other hand, started another 00:33:00company, so she's not involved with the two boys anymore. So --

FERNHEIMER: What did she start? Just out of curiosity.

COOPER: A different company. She found a new maker, and she's now in the business with them. Uh, I mean, the same business, but, uh, Ira and Andy are the two who, uh, are running the business that I started.

FERNHEIMER: The QED.

COOPER: Actually, yeah. The QED.

FERNHEIMER: And what is -- what's the name of Lynn's company or just --

COOPER: BFW.

FERNHEIMER: BFW. Well, you talked a little bit about your family's involvement in the business, and I want to switch gears a bit, again. Of course, I -- we're talking about gears -- I realize this is kind of a bad pun -- to talk about your involvement in the Lexington Jewish community. Uh, I know -- even though it's well before I was here -- that ever since you first settled in Lexington that 00:34:00you've been involved in the local Jewish community. And I was wondering if you could tell me a little bit about your experience getting settled in this community.

COOPER: It was easy to do. There was a very friendly community, and both Harriet and I were interested in getting involved. And so, uh, we showed up at the synagogue, and within two years I was president, so, you know, it didn't take much. And then Harriet turned out to be the membership chairman for Hadassah, Council of Jewish Women, and the synagogue at various times. So getting involved in the community was -- if you wanted to do it, it was an easy thing to do.

FERNHEIMER: And can you tell me a little bit about -- you said the transition from Poughkeepsie wasn't too tough. That it was kind of similar, or at least not so different here than it was in Virginia for both of you.

COOPER: It was a smaller community, um, than it was in Tidewater, Virginia. But the people are friendly. There are a lot of people came down from New York who turned around and went right back. The cultural shock was something too much for their system. But for Harriet and for me, and it was coming home. Uh, we were familiar with, with, uh, the culture and, and the friendliness of the people. And we, uh, we had no trouble getting established. We were anxious to do what we could, and they were anxious to have someone come and do it, what we could do. So. And, and there wasn't much different. Uh, up in, uh, the Hudson Valley, even though Poughkeepsie had a -- an Orthodox, and a Conservative, and a 00:36:00Reformed congregation, we still had to drive to Beacon to get our kosher meat. Uh, so that's what we had to do here, too.

FERNHEIMER: Where did -- I was -- I was going to ask about the kosher meat. Where did you get it at that time?

COOPER: Louisville or Cincinnati.

FERNHEIMER: There was no Trader Joe's then.

COOPER: There was nothing here. Empire chickens were frozen in the store, but other than that, there was no market, actually, and uh, it wasn't around. But, we were used to that.

FERNHEIMER: Was Guller's still around at --

COOPER: Guller?

FERNHEIMER: Yeah.

COOPER: Yes. Yes. But not all that long. He wasn't around. Well, I -- I may be talking out of turn here, because I don't know exactly when he closed, but, uh --

FERNHEIMER: But do you remember his kosher butcher shop --

COOPER: I do.

FERNHEIMER: -- when you first --

COOPER: I do.

FERNHEIMER: -- moved to town.

COOPER: Right there by Transy. Uh, I think it was Fourth and one of those 00:37:00streets that go the other way. Uh, yeah. We -- we did shop with him, too. But, uh, he closed up and moved, I guess with his daughter and son-in-law in Cincinnati.

FERNHEIMER: And did a lot of, um, members of the, the synagogue at that time also keep kosher? I know --

COOPER: No, I wouldn't say.

FERNHEIMER: -- now it's a pretty small percentage.

COOPER: A lot of the original members that came from Europe certainly did. Uh, their children, uh, lot of them did or didn't. But, uh, there wasn't that much. I think there may be more now that there were -- was then.

FERNHEIMER: Oh, really?

COOPER: Yeah, it's kind of neat.

FERNHEIMER: Uh. I know you've been very involved in th-- as you've mentioned -- as president, and a bunch of different leadership roles -- at OZS, at the Federation, at B'nai Brith, and some other Israel-related activities. Can you 00:38:00tell me a little bit about the various leadership roles you've had, and, and maybe which ones you think were most important?

COOPER: Well, of course I was president of the synagogue on two separate occasions. And I think that was very important. Uh, the UJA I think is extremely important. Back when I was a kid in high school, I used to follow my father around. This is before Israel. And he used to speak at the UJA rallies.

FERNHEIMER: United Jewish Appeal, correct?

COOPER: United Jewish Appeal. It's called something else now. I can't remember ----(??)----

FERNHEIMER: I'm just making sure. I'm talking -- you're ta-- I think you're talking about the thing I think you're talking about. So, yes.

COOPER: Yeah. United Jewish Appeal. And he would speak to them in Yiddish, and they were his tayere khaveyrim -- his dear friends. And they all shared his background. And I really loved listening to him talk -- talk to them. So I've 00:39:00been imbued with the UJA spirit from back in high school. And I think that's an extremely important, uh, function that needs support. Bonds -- another matter. Uh, with a lot of help, we were able to raise quite a bit. Three -- four million dollars in, uh, Israeli bonds. Surprisingly, isn't it?

FERNHEIMER: When was this?

COOPER: Well, they had a program that was fascinating. Uh, if you could get 20 people together, they would pay 150 bucks a year to the Federation, and we can borrow a half a million dollars from the bank.

FERNHEIMER: Wow.

COOPER: And we did this, one, two, three, four, maybe five times. And, uh, 00:40:00after, um, five years, the bond matured. Or seven years, whichever. And um, the bank got its money back. Fifth Third was quite, um, cooperative in this venture. They fu-- furnished the money for quite a few of those --

FERNHEIMER: And --

COOPER: -- Israel bonds.

FERNHEIMER: This was in the '60s, the '70s, the '80s?

COOPER: No, no, no. It was probably in the early 2000s or --

FERNHEIMER: Oh, wow. I didn't realize it was that recent.

COOPER: I could be confused, but I think that's right.

FERNHEIMER: I -- I actually didn't know anything about -- that precedes my arriving here in Lexington, so, um.

COOPER: Okay. And, uh, the U.S. government put a stop to that program. I think -- well, I don't want to go into detail as to why, but we did quite well. 00:41:00We had temple people and shul people working together, and it was no trouble to amass 20 who wanted to participate in it. And that was the bonds, UJA, and the shul, and -- of course, B'nai Brith. I grew up in ACA and Hillel. And I had a fondness for the B'nai Brith organization. And, uh, I'm just happy to see that, uh, we had one here. Actually, it's about 150 years old. At our birthday, we read minutes of the meetings during the Civil War --

FERNHEIMER: Wow.

COOPER: -- of the B'nai Brith Lodge here in Lexington.

FERNHEIMER: You all still --

COOPER: Fascinating.

FERNHEIMER: You still have those minutes? Who --

COOPER: I don't.

FERNHEIMER: They do, though.

COOPER: I know who has them, yes.

FERNHEIMER: Wh-- okay. We can talk about that later.

COOPER: It's at the temple. They're at the temple.

FERNHEIMER: Are they? Wow. Um, that's pretty amazing. So what did they say? Those minutes from the Civil War?

COOPER: Well, they were fascinating about, you know, we never seceded in, in, uh, Kentucky. And uh, they were talking about what's going on, and what we could do, and raise money for the soldiers, and so forth. Uh, the other --

FERNHEIMER: Which soldiers? The Union or the Confederacy?

COOPER: You know --

FERNHEIMER: Or both.

COOPER: -- I don't remember. Yeah, um, I don't remember where our sympathies lied. Uh, lay.

FERNHEIMER: Uh-huh. That's a good question for my students. To go take a look.

COOPER: They can go to the temple and get those minutes and find out.

FERNHEIMER: Yeah. Um. So y-- you think those -- the, the work with the Israel bonds, and your role as president were some of the most important leaderships positions you had in the community. Why -- why is that?

COOPER: Well, I haven't done anything in the general community. I -- all my efforts have been in the Jewish community. And working for the shul was fine, 00:43:00but it's a limited group of people. Local. And worthwhile. But the others involved the world. The, um, UJA, with the Jewish Agency, and HIAS, and, and, uh. Of course, bonds for Israel, uh. One of my trips over there, they showed us a road that they were building that, uh, we don't know if it was our bonds, but they were built with bonds that were bought in this country, uh, for Israel. So yeah, I feel that's a very important part of my life.

FERNHEIMER: Um. You said -- you put all your community effort into the Jewish community. Why is that?

COOPER: There are enough people to do everything else. We've got a limited population here, and I can't spread myself too thin. And, uh, I'm not one of 00:44:00the pillars of the community -- of the general community -- so I put my effort where I think they'll do the most good.

FERNHEIMER: That's a good -- good, uh -- I like the way you think about that. Um. One of the things that you did as part of that effort is to reestablish the chevra kadisha here. And that is the, um, for others who are watching this later, that is the, uh, committee that takes care of the dead.

COOPER: Burial society. The first thing that a Jewish community did when they went into a place was to establish a burial society. And at the time, and I'm going back to the middle-to-late '80s, you -- are you familiar with what the chevra kadisha does?

FERNHEIMER: Mm-hmm. They -- I -- you can -- but -- feel free to talk about it, um.

COOPER: There are two groups. One prepares the body for burial, and the second group sits with the body from then until the funeral. So up until the middle '80s -- or '87, 6 -- if anyone wanted that service, they either had to take the body to Louisville, to the Meyers funeral home --

FERNHEIMER: Oh my.

COOPER: -- or ask Meyers to send over a crew to Milwards or Kerr Brothers to take care of the body. It occurred to me -- and I don't remember what position I was in, maybe it was religious chairman -- that this is foolish. We shouldn't have to have people pay that extra fare to do this. There's no reason why we can't do it ourselves. Rabbi Smith was the rabbi of the shul then, and so I approached him, and he thought it was a marvelous idea, and we got together and 00:46:00started planning for putting a group together. And it's not something you do right away. You got to study, and learn, and do things. We thought the best thing would be to hire -- not hire -- to recruit, enlist -- doctors and nurses because they're used to dealing with -- with bodies.

FERNHEIMER: Bodies.

COOPER: So it wasn't until the summer of 1990 that we were able to take care of our first body. Which we did. By that time, we had a group of men for the tahara, a group of women for the tahara, and, uh, a lineup of people who were willing to sit with the bodies. And they weren't all doctors. It turns out 00:47:00that that's a fallacy. It really doesn't matter. The most enheartening thing about it is, that it is a good thing to do. And it was the response of the people. Uh, we never got a "I'm too tired," or "I don't feel like it." If anybody didn't come to do it, they had a very good reason for not doing it. And it made them feel good to perform this service. You know, it's one of the services that they can't repay you for --

FERNHEIMER: Right.

COOPER: -- so that's what makes it so important. And since that time, uh, we don't record a number, but we take care of anybody in the whole community who wishes to have that service done.

FERNHEIMER: So that's one of the organizations that spans across the synagogue and the temple here in Lexington?

COOPER: It's a synagogue function, but we will --

FERNHEIMER: Prepare anybody.

COOPER: -- service anybody in the community. We've done, uh, actually I can only think of one temple member. We did a -- a prisoner at the Federal Correction Institute who died and wanted to get shipped back to Israel. And we performed that tahara on this person. Uh, but most -- they're all shul people. Men or women, and uh, it is a most, uh, serious business, and I'm really pleased that it's going on. My son is now one of the co-chairs of the men's tahara, and, and that pleases me.

FERNHEIMER: What's involved in the tahara process for folks who aren't familiar with that, within the Jewish ritual?

COOPER: You bathe the body, and then you purify the body with water. Just run 00:49:00a steady stream of water -- a certain amount, which is specified. And then we dress the body in, uh, shrouds. The clothes that the high priest would wear. And then we put the body in the casket. Close the lid. And except for family members who wish to see him, for all practical purposes, it's closed. Sealed. We have three rules. You -- you must have a kosher casket, which means all wood, no metal. You've got to agree to the shroud. And you cannot have a public viewing of the body.

FERNHEIMER: And the shroud, it's all white, right?

COOPER: Excuse me?

FERNHEIMER: It's all white?

COOPER: Yes. Linen.

FERNHEIMER: Yeah. Um, and is this the -- the c-- the committee that does this, 00:50:00the burial society, is it connected to the Spinoza Burial Society that was initially part of the --

COOPER: No.

FERNHEIMER: Okay.

COOPER: It is not. The Spinoza Society runs the cemetery.

FERNHEIMER: Okay.

COOPER: And if you want to read some fascinating stuff, Mike Aideys (??) has a report of the Spinoza Society. The first cemetery that was bought and used was where, on Tate's Creek, where Morton Junior High is now?

FERNHEIMER: Mm-hmm.

COOPER: That was the Jewish cemetery. And it turns out that they decided, after several years, it was too far from the center of town for the horse and buggy to take a coffin in the winter time. And that's when they made 00:51:00arrangements to, uh, buy land from the Lexington Cemetery. They bought the first plot, which is now totally full. And then they bought a second lot, which is filled up. Most all of the people involved in the beginning lot, I could say all of them, were temple members. Because they were here first. The -- the, uh, Reform Jews from Germany and -- started the temple Adath Israel years before the Ohabei Zion crowd showed up. So they're mostly, uh, people who, uh, belonged to the temple. And Mike has a report of the -- of that burial society. I don't think it was called Spinoza then. It is now. And it -- the committee is temple and synagogue members combined.

FERNHEIMER: Both. Hmm. That's fascinating.

COOPER: Yeah, it's separate from the chevra kadisha.

FERNHEIMER: Um, I'm going to come back to the family stuff again. I know we keep going back and forth between community and family, but I know that they're very interconnected in a lot of ways. Um, what supports and challenges did you find trying to raise Jewish children in Lexington during the '50s, and the s-- from the '50s to the '70s while you were here? Of course this rings a very special note with me now, but.

COOPER: That's right. Well, this being the Bible Belt, the schools had no knowledge, or maybe interest, in doing anything different than Christmas and Easter. And I know the parents had a lot of trouble trying to introduce something for their children in the schools. I remember Harriet schlepping to 00:53:00school with a menorah every Hanukah to talk to the class about Hanukah, which everybody thought was the Jewish Christmas. And, um, functions, like the PTA or graduation, there were always prayers that, uh, are biased in one direction, uh, which you don't seem to be able to get -- get rid of, or get away from. And, uh, it's hard to instill a -- a universal feeling into these people. This is the Bible Belt, and, and it's what they're used to doing. And -- it used to make me very upset, and I've taken a -- a different tack. I -- I can't afford to get all that worked up anymore. I don't have any children there. Um, and 00:54:00I'm leaving it up to other people to try to get around that. I don't think you saw anything in the papers about Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur. Pesach. It just don't exist.

FERNHEIMER: So, you don't think things have -- I guess, let me try and ask a question instead of making a statement here. Um. Would you say things have changed at all, now, compared to when you were raising children?

COOPER: Oh, I think they have. I think we have the Federation now, which we didn't have then. And we have a -- I forgot what it's called. A community action, or community something group. And it's their charge to go to the school boards and tell them what days are the holidays -- the important holidays for the year. And I -- I think that has changed. And I think there are more kids 00:55:00in school now than there were when my kids were going.

FERNHEIMER: Jewish kids, you mean?

COOPER: Mm-hmm. Jewish kids.

FERNHEIMER: Um. Can you tell me a little bit about the social events at OZ -- that took place at OZS in the '50s and '70s? I'm told there was a Yom Kippur ball?

COOPER: Isn't that amazing? I find trouble wrapping my head around that too. But after break the fast, we'd take our kids home with a babysitter. We had hired a band. And we'd go back to the shul and dance. And I can't --

FERNHEIMER: After having just broken the fast? I'm impressed.

COOPER: I am too, actually. There were several couples. Eddie and Ann Stein were the -- were the precipitators. And then Franklin and Marilyn Moslik, and Harriet and, and I were in the forefront of that. And we would do that. A-- and kids today shake their head. They just can't believe we did that. But we 00:56:00did that. Um.

FERNHEIMER: What kind of music was it? What kind of band?

COOPER: Oh, it was four, five piece band. Um, and we decorated the hall. The real decoration was our matzos ball after Pesach. And, uh, we did that too. And then we had a theater group.

FERNHEIMER: Wow.

COOPER: S-- the Center Players. And we put on a -- several plays. One of them was My Fair Sadie, and uh, actually, we had to run an extra week because more people wanted to see it than we could seat.

FERNHEIMER: When was this?

COOPER: Sixties.

FERNHEIMER: The '60s.

COOPER: And the early s-- maybe early '70s, yeah. We did Anything Goes, and we did, uh, well Marilyn wrote A Gold We Got, as something like Camelot, but it was Gold We Got. And we had a good time putting on plays. This was a synagogue 00:57:00function, not a community function. And it was, uh, it was fun.

FERNHEIMER: Wow. What a different kind of -- I can't even imagine that now. I mean I guess I can, but it's so different from, uh --

COOPER: It is. But -- and I don't know why we were so different than kids today. Yes, I guess I do. The wives work today, and, and they didn't back then. They had all the time. Not that they were busy with kids and family. Of course, I'm not demeaning that. But, uh, they didn't have jobs. The men worked, and the women did other things. But we enjoyed getting together and -- and doing those things. I can't imagine it happening today either. It would be 00:58:00nice if we had a theater group again, or just did a play, would be interesting.

FERNHEIMER: Yeah. So you -- that's some of the things that have changed in the Jewish community during the time that you've been here. Are there some other things that you might want to discuss? I don't know if there are community practices, or different rabbis, or relations --

COOPER: Well --

FERNHEIMER: -- between the synagogue and the temple? I've just given you a whole slew of things.

COOPER: I think one of the strengths of this community is the fact that we have a shul, and we have a temple. People who come here aren't forced into a -- an institution that they don't really want to belong to.

FERNHEIMER: Mm-hmm.

COOPER: They do have a choice. And now, we have a Chabad. A Chabad rabbi has moved to town, and I think that's a good -- a good move. Now, maybe some Orthodox people would consider accepting employment here in, in Lexington. We 00:59:00-- we never had that before. So I think that's a strength of the community. I think the education committees of the two shul and temple are trying to at least get the older kids together so they can know each other.

FERNHEIMER: Mm.

COOPER: It's a shame to have them grow up and -- and not know who the other kids are. There aren't that many around. So, that depends a lot on who the rabbis are, as to how much they want to share. And I think we're fortunate now that we both have rabbis that would be interested in that kind of, uh, arrangement. So maybe it will change even more than it has in the past.

FERNHEIMER: What about Federation? You were around when Federation was formed, right? Because it -- it --

COOPER: Oh, yeah.

FERNHEIMER: It wasn't always here.

COOPER: No, it wasn't.

FERNHEIMER: Um, do you want to ta--

COOPER: And it started with Camp Shalom.

FERNHEIMER: Tell me a little bit about that. I've heard a lot about Camp Shalom and these kind of -- not -- kind of as an aside on another conversation, so I want to hear a little bit more about that.

COOPER: Well, we had a bunch of kids here, and uh, we thought it would be a good idea at the time.

FERNHEIMER: When was this? This was in the '60s or in the '70s?

COOPER: It had to been in the '70s. I'm not good at that, but, uh --

FERNHEIMER: We'll check. We'll check. I know that they had -- there was some plaques up at Federation. I can look at the dates.

COOPER: Interestingly enough, the woman who was the first head of the Camp Shalom is the mother of the new rabbi at the temple.

FERNHEIMER: That's what I've heard -- been told. Her name --

COOPER: Carol Wirtschafter was a driving force in, in, uh, creation of, uh, 01:01:00Camp Shalom, and the first director. And, um, the women ran it, and then we got them -- out of that came the, the Federation. And we used to have, uh, forum speakers come, and uh, speak in the community, uh, under the auspices of the Federation.

FERNHEIMER: So Federation grew out of the formation of -- of Camp Shalom? How -- how did that --

COOPER: No, it just -- was -- at the same time. We just got that going, and then, uh, decided that maybe there were other things we want to do, other than that. So we needed money for Shalom, and needed money for, um, the forum series, and so forth, so we formed the Federation. And, uh, it's still going. 01:02:00Of course, we had volunteer workers then. And now we, we pay professional people to run it.

FERNHEIMER: Yeah. So when it -- when it first formed, it was the Central Kentucky -- tell me. Do you remember the name?

COOPER: No.

FERNHEIMER: A different name. I'll look it up. Um. Another question, sort of back in the idea of these social circles. I know that -- I mean, just hearing you talk about these balls that you guys put on, um, makes it think that there were very strong social connections for you here in this community. Maybe, um, can you help me think out loud about the differences you experienced moving in -- in the circles? You sort of mentioned this before. The folks from New York who came down, and couldn't take it, and so they moved back. And the folks who were born here, and, and grew up here, and stayed here, and the sort of Jewish 01:03:00community members who came in, and out, and maybe moved on. Um, what -- what was the difference between those different kinds of Jewish social circles here in town?

COOPER: Well, I told you. My experience growing up has been everybody came from a shtetl somewhere. I'm the first generation born in this country, and most everybody I knew was the first born in this country. To come here and find fifth and sixth generation Americans, that bewildered me. I couldn't imagine -- couldn't imagine that. But there were. There were people who'd been here for a long time. And that was strange for me. But, um, the community was ready to accept us. We had no trouble. Either the temple or the shul, and, and, uh, I 01:04:00did not notice any -- anything worth talking about. We had some very good friends at the temple, and uh, I'm sure they had friends other than us at -- at the synagogue. But, uh, I -- I don't know what I can tell you that would be enlightening.

FERNHEIMER: Okay. Um. What -- was there -- were there Yiddish speakers? Did you guys speak Yiddish ever at synagogue, or at temple, or in the shops when you were here in the early years?

COOPER: Um, no. Uh, the older guys, when I came here, all spoke Yiddish. And then they were dying off. Um. Rafi Finkel, of course, is a Yiddish scholar. I 01:05:00never knew there was a Yiddish grammar until he told me that. I didn't know that. I thought people just picked it up and spoke it. Oscar Haber was another one. A Holocaust survivor. And I used to take him places, and I loved talking to him in, in Yiddish, because the first thing you lose is vocabulary. And until you hear it and get the rhythm, you've kind of lost. But, speaking with him, uh, helped bring a lot of that back for me. But there isn't a lot of Yiddish spoken here now. There -- there was a Yiddish speaker at the temple who, uh, gave a talk at the shul once, and I'm trying to think of his name. I can't do it. And, uh, he was a scholar like, uh, Rafi, in -- in the Yiddish 01:06:00language. But nobody -- I -- I can't find, uh, Yiddish speakers.

FERNHEIMER: What -- this is moving in a little bit different direction. Um, what was the non-Jewish community's reaction to your Jewishness here in Lexington?

COOPER: Well, a lot of them had never seen one before, or known that they have seen one before, and were fascinated. One of the most successful things we did at the -- at the shul -- and this goes back to the '60s. In the circle where I live, there were enough Jewish families that we put together a holiday walking tour, where each home was decorated for a particular holiday. Judy and Sa-- Judy and Stanley Sacks were the first, and they were Rosh Hashanah and Yom 01:07:00Kippur. We were Sukkos and Sukkos Torah. And then there was Hanukah, and then there was Pesach, and then -- at different homes were set up. And then the last home we served tea and cake. And that was highly successful. We got busloads of people from churches who came to do the tour.

FERNHEIMER: So this was a tour that your neighborhood community put on for the non-Jewish community as an educational --

COOPER: Mm-hmm.

FERNHEIMER: -- uh, endeavor?

COOPER: Mm-hmm.

FERNHEIMER: Wow. How many years did you do this?

COOPER: I don't know we did it more than one. But there was some temple people involved, and synagogue people involved. Uh, and it was interesting how it worked out. We had just enough homes to do all the holidays for the year.

FERNHEIMER: What year was this that you did it?

COOPER: The '60s. I'll have to go back and find the year.

FERNHEIMER: And what prompted you to do this, uh, the neighborhood group?

COOPER: What you asked, the question. To introduce the community to who we were.

FERNHEIMER: Huh.

COOPER: And we thought this would be a wonderful way to do it. Um, and they brought busloads of people from churches. We charged a dollar a head, to keep out the riffraff. It was uh, uh, very successful. And still, um, it's a mystery to a lot of people what we do, and how we celebrate holidays, and so forth. But, uh, I have never encountered a serious problem with -- with our neighbors.

FERNHEIMER: Have you had any -- or what have your experiences been with anti-Semitism? Uh.

COOPER: Well, with a name like Cooper, and no distinguishing features, I was 01:09:00privy to a lot of conversations that I would not have heard otherwise. And, um, again, I learned to deal with them in a little less emotional way. But yeah, I witnessed it. At -- in high school, at Easter time, the Catholic kids from the Sacred Heart and other churches used to come looking for us, because -- I was told -- that all of their teachers came from Europe, where there was still that strong anti-Semitism, and they got them fired up at Easter, and they came running out in the street, and uh -- I'm back in Virginia now. And, uh, it -- we didn't want to run into any of them at that time of year.

FERNHEIMER: What would happen? I mean, what were they looking to do?

COOPER: They'd beat you up. That's all. They'd beat you up. Um, and it -- IBM, which was extremely, uh, generous for the holidays and everything -- I had no problem with the company. I ran across a few people in the company who I had unpleasantness with. And, uh, I guess everybody has these experiences, if you take them seriously. So, yeah, I've had my experiences with anti-Semitism, and I think -- I'm afraid -- that, uh, if the economy gets real bad, it'll come back and haunt us again. Over here. Europe is another story. I think, uh, things 01:11:00are going to get worse in Europe.

FERNHEIMER: Is there a particularly vivid incident that stands out in your mind, other than those sort of scary Easter Sundays in Virginia?

COOPER: No, I don't. I -- I'm -- nothing scarred me. Uh, the blacks, interestingly enough. Growing up in Virginia, uh, I took the, uh, Jim Crow laws as Gospel. You know, you -- they would drink in their own fountains. You know, black and white fountains. Come in the back door of theaters and sit in the balcony. And all of that. And, uh, I guess I'm ashamed to say it. I didn't take much thought of that until I was 16 and got my driver's license. And we 01:12:00had a maid -- years, since I was growing up -- who took care of us. And when I got my license, I was going to drive her home one day. And I opened up the front door to the car.

FERNHEIMER: And she was African American, I -- I'm --

COOPER: Yes.

FERNHEIMER: -- gathering?

COOPER: Annie was African American. And she said, "Are you crazy, boy?" I said, "Are you afraid to ride with me?" She said, "You know I can't get in the front seat with you." In Virginia, there was a law. She couldn't ride in the front seat of a car with me. So she had to sit in the back, and I had to drive her home. And then it occurred -- it still bothers me.

FERNHEIMER: Oh, I'm sorry. COOPER: That this is what they put up with. So, I think that hit me more than, uh, anti-Semitism. I -- I can handle that.

FERNHEIMER: And so did that -- after that experience driving Annie home, did -- did that change the way you interacted with her?

COOPER: Yeah, yeah. And I got involved in voting, and all that, and, uh, yeah. It did. I was immune to it before. Didn't affect me one way or another. But it did then.

FERNHEIMER: Yeah. That was a -- I mean, you've seen so many changes in your life.

COOPER: You live long enough, you seem them all.

FERNHEIMER: Um. Yeah. So did you notice that -- I mean, I don't know. I -- this is a kind of off-the-cuff question, but -- here in Lexington, what were the relations like between the Jewish community and the African American community? Or were there intersections, um. You talked about the '50s and the '60s. 01:14:00That's sort of a prime time in American history, when lots of change was happening. Uh, you think about the merchants downtown, um, in a position to either impact some of that change, or, or to not impact.

COOPER: I wasn't. I think the black community here behaved very responsibly. Much more so than, than we did. And, uh, working at IBM, I had friends that I wouldn't have met otherwise. You know, one of the things, when IBM came here, they only had places in Poughkeepsie, and Endicott, New York, and they always had a country club. And when they came here, they couldn't have a country club, because they would have had to let all the employees participate. And in the middle '50s, the blacks weren't allowed in these places. And so IBM had to 01:15:00rethink that whole country club thing.

FERNHEIMER: Uh, because -- because of the customs here in Kentucky?

COOPER: Yeah. Yeah. So instead, they built the park that everybody could go to, but there was no country club like they had in the other two locations. This was their third location other than, uh, Poughkeepsie and Endicott.

FERNHEIMER: So, up north, was everyone allowed to join the country clubs that IBM sponsored? Did they have African American emp-- employees?

COOPER: Oh, yeah. And, oh yes. Yes. And here also. But they couldn't all join the country club here. The blacks couldn't play golf on the golf course, or any of that.

FERNHEIMER: So IBM just side-stepped it by not having one at all?

COOPER: Mm-hmm.

FERNHEIMER: Hmm. Um.

COOPER: Well, that's all they could do. They weren't going to get new laws passed in '55, 6.

FERNHEIMER: Wow. Um. So many different things to cover. I know -- I want to come back a little bit to some of the family stuff. Um, how would you say your -- the Jewishness of you and your family is different from or similar to that of your parents' sense of Jewishness?

COOPER: Oh, well. They came from shtetls. And, um, that was their whole life, because they had no life. And w-- we talk about the blacks over here. The Jews were no better over there in the -- well, they were a lot worse, actually. Lived in ghettos, and, and had no hope of ever getting out of them. And so 01:17:00religion was the big thing in their lives. And like with my father. He -- his father traveled around teaching Hebrew, and, uh, he went -- he had a good education in his cheder, his Hebrew school. Um, and um, my mother's family was also extremely devout. And coming here was a change for them. Far bigger change than my moving here from up north. Uh, they had to adopt to working on Saturdays, which was pretty hard to take. Uh, but they had to do it. And it -- it gave them a lot of -- lot of problems. You could either not do it, or do it 01:18:00and, uh, feel terrible about it, or just give in and do it. But if you own a store -- a grocery store -- you can't close on Saturday. And so my father did -- opened -- and, uh, there was a -- it was quite different. Um. To tell you the truth, though, I think I observe more holidays better than they did. Um, our seders. One of the things when we built our house was the dining room had to open into the living room so we could have a long seder table. And uh, I don't remember seders as full as when we -- we had them. Uh, so we -- we do things better than they did. And I don't know if they were looking out for 01:19:00their kids, to make us more American, or what they were doing, but -- I, um, I think our family was, uh, did well, compared to them, in this country.

FERNHEIMER: In terms of maintaining Jewish identity?

COOPER: Yes.

FERNHEIMER: Does that --

COOPER: Yes. Uh, they didn't have an identity problem over there. I mean, everybody -- they were told who they were. And told what they could do and what they couldn't do. Where they had to live. The Pale of Settlement and all that stuff. Uh. Yeah, I think we do better -- that we did better than they did, as far as observing the holidays.

FERNHEIMER: And, is there a particular holiday that you have a , a, a good memory or a vivid memory of how your family would, uh, celebrate, that you'd like to share?

COOPER: Grow-- growing up, you mean?

FERNHEIMER: Either growing up or the family you've created.

COOPER: To tell you the truth, I, I, I don't, except family get-togethers. There were -- every Sunday, we would either go to their, uh --

FERNHEIMER: Your parents?

COOPER: -- famil-- my -- with my parents. When I was growing up. We'd either go to the house of his sisters and brothers, or they would come to our house. And it was these family gatherings that I have more fond memories of than, than the holidays.

FERNHEIMER: Tell me about one of those that stands out.

COOPER: Well, every Sunday we would go either -- they lived across Elizabeth River in Portsmouth. And we'd go back and forth. And we'd eat all this cholesterol-inducing food.

FERNHEIMER: Like what?

COOPER: Like creamed herring. And, and cream sauce. And, uh, pickled herring. And, uh, blintzes with sour cream, and all milchik meals. But they were loaded 01:21:00with, uh, cholesterol stuff. They were very good. And, uh, I have fond memories of that -- playing with my cousins -- than I do of, uh, of holiday celebrations. And Friday nights, of course, at home. We'd have, uh, roast chicken almost every Friday night, and potatoes in the meal. Uh, and that was -- that was nice.

FERNHEIMER: And what about your children c-- in, in comparison to your sense of Jewishness.

COOPER: Well, interestingly enough, two of my -- my two boys married converts who keep kosher homes. My daughter doesn't. Uh, and I think, uh, I think 01:22:00they'll be a step away than I was with them. It seems to be the way it goes. I would love to see it go up, but I don't have any hopes of that. My, uh, oldest granddaughter just made me a great-granddaddy Wednesday.

FERNHEIMER: Aw, congratulations.

COOPER: Thank you.

FERNHEIMER: Mazel tov.

COOPER: And she's decided to have the kid circumcised in the hospital, which kind of disturbs me, but I can't get involved in that. So I -- I don't think it's going to continue much past my kids, unfortunately.

FERNHEIMER: Why do you think that is?

COOPER: I think they get further away from it. That it doesn't mean as much to 01:23:00them. And they get involved in the general community, and uh, and it just isn't that important.

FERNHEIMER: Yeah. How would you say where you grew up or and have lived your adult life here in Kentucky has affected the way that you think about Judaism or your relationship with Judaism?

COOPER: Growing up in Kentucky, you ques--

FERNHEIMER: I'm sorry. Growing up in Virginia, but living your adult life here in Kentucky. Both places that most people would consider part of the south.

COOPER: Yeah. The nice thing about my growing up, and here I'm going to go counter to -- to intuition. I was happy that the -- the gentiles had no use for us in those days. I mean, I didn't need them. They didn't need me. But I knew 01:24:00every girl from Baltimore to Jacksonville -- Jewish girl. Because we used to go to AZA conventions, and they'd all come, because we didn't go to proms. We -- we didn't have any reason to go to proms. We didn't date anybody else. We just dated each other, and then times when there were so few, you would grab an opportunity. ACA had, uh -- are you familiar with the AZA?

FERNHEIMER: AZA is Aleph Zadik Aleph, right?

COOPER: Yeah, and it's --

FERNHEIMER: And it's a Jewish fraternal organization?

COOPER: Yeah. High school. And, and we used to have parties. And we'd go from Baltimore down to -- to, uh, well, maybe not Jacksonville, but Charleston. And, um, I thought it was great. I -- I didn't need anything more than that. So that worked fine for me. Now, it doesn't matter. It doesn't seem to be that 01:25:00important to be with your own pe-- and maybe that's a good thing. I -- I don't happen to think so, but I don't run the world.

FERNHEIMER: Is that how you met Harriet? Did you meet her through AZA?

COOPER: No. How I met Harriet was different than that.

FERNHEIMER: If you feel comfortable, I would love to hear it. If you don't feel comfortable, I understand.

COOPER: Well, if we have time, I'll be happy to tell you about it.

FERNHEIMER: We've got some time.

COOPER: Harriet and I went to school 12 miles apart for three years and never met.

FERNHEIMER: In Virginia?

COOPER: Never met. 'Til my senior year. She went to Radford, which was down the road from Virginia Tech. And my senior year, we were both out with someone, and my date introduced me to Harriet. And I knew her date, because he was from 01:26:00Tech. And then I graduated. I got a job with Dupont. Dupont sent me to their nylon plant in Martinsville, Virginia. Which happened to be where Harriet lived. The first day -- this is July of 1950. So I walk down the street into Globman's Department Store, and I recognized her working behind the jewelry counter. She was home for the summer from school. This -- she was a year behind me. And she was working at the department store. And I saw her and I remembered meeting her, which surprised her, because I'm not very good at that. And this was July of '50. And we started hanging around together. And we only had a month, because in August I was back in the Navy. And the Navy sent me to 01:27:00the Naval Air Station in Norfolk. And uh, that was it. And then on homecoming weekend in October, I, uh, I got a three-day leave and drove to her school, and took her to Blacksburg, where Tech was. And we spent the weekend at the -- my homecoming, uh, 1950. And then I went back in the Navy, and uh, I don't think I saw her again. The Navy sent me out to California, and on the way back, in May, I stopped at her school and have her a ring. And we were married in August. That's how that happened.

FERNHEIMER: That's a nice story.

COOPER: So I never knew her until I went to work in Martinsville for one month. 01:28:00So we didn't spend much time together before we got married.

FERNHEIMER: And how long were you married?

COOPER: Sixty-three years. So it worked. Very well, actually.

FERNHEIMER: Yeah. That's a nice story.

COOPER: Yeah, I think about it a lot.

FERNHEIMER: Yeah. Was there anything else that I haven't asked you that you would like to share that you think would be important to talk about in terms of anything, really. In terms of your --

COOPER: Well, you --

FERNHEIMER: -- involvement with word processing, or the Jewish community, or, um, anything.

COOPER: You seem to have covered it quite well.

FERNHEIMER: Um, we've still got a little bit of time, so I wanted to ask you that.

COOPER: Well, ask me a question.

FERNHEIMER: Is there anything that you would offer as advice to Jewish students here at UK, or Jewish students -- Jewish -- Jewish people here in Kentucky, now, 01:29:00the next generation, uh?

COOPER: S--

FERNHEIMER: Advice, or caveats, or, I don't know.

COOPER: Well, I don't either. I -- I -- I think this is a wonderful place to bring up a family. Um, what I missed here was water. Growing up in, uh, Tidewater, Virginia, we had the ocean, the bay, the river, and here all we got's this little pond behind my house. And, um, I miss -- I miss that. But as -- other than that, this is a -- it's a very nice community to grow up in. I'm happy. I'm glad I didn't pursue any other, uh. I had a chance to move with IBM somewhere else. And it could have been a good move, professionally. And I 01:30:00chose not to do it. And I have no regrets about not doing it. Um, I was asked to go back up north to the headquarters, and I would not ask Harriet to move back up north. She just did not care for it at all. So that sort of cemented my position with the company, and, uh, with this place. It's good that I didn't go anywhere. My mother came and lived her for four years. She died here, at our house, in '68. Um. I think it's only going to get better because we'll have more people at the medical center, and uh, uh it's just going to be a 01:31:00better place. I think the two rabbis are getting along beautifully. I -- it's a very nice Chabad rabbi who showed up, so I think that's going to enhance the community. So I'm looking forward to, uh, things getting better.

FERNHEIMER: What do you think some of the challenges the Jewish community will face in the future, uh, might be, or are?

COOPER: Well, I think -- more than this community, you mean? Israel is going to be in deep -- more trouble -- unless they can settle something down. You know, it's interesting that most of the turmoil going over there now has nothing to do with Israel. It's Syria, and ISIS, and these other people who are fighting each other, and, and Israel's out of the picture. But I -- I think Israel's in -- in, uh, in danger. And I -- and I hope they're going to be smart 01:32:00enough to side -- side-step it. I think, uh, Europe is going to -- to turn again. With all the Muslims coming in, it got to be not good for the Jewish population. I mean, 800,000 more in, uh, Germany, um, and they're having trouble in Germany already. And even surprisingly Scandinavia is having trouble. It, um, is not a good -- not a good scene. And I -- and I don't know what we can do --

FERNHEIMER: "We" -- who's --

COOPER: -- to make it any better.

FERNHEIMER: Who's the "we" there?

COOPER: The rest of the -- of the Jewish community in -- around the world. I don't know what we can do to make it better, unless help all of them go to Israel, uh, leave. I know a lot of them have left France and gone, and I don't 01:33:00understand how people can go back to Germany, but apparently they have quite a Jewish population in Germany.

FERNHEIMER: Yeah.

COOPER: And, um, I think things are not going to get better for them over there. I don't see them getting worse over here. I think we're -- established ourselves quite, quite well. And, uh --

FERNHEIMER: Here in the U.S. broadly, or here specifically in --

COOPER: U.S. --

FERNHEIMER: -- Kentucky?

COOPER: U.S. U.S. Kentucky's a different story. We -- we're -- we're not a blip on the radar here at all. You get outside of Louisville and Lexington, and there's nothing. There's nothing Jewish outside of Louisville and Lexington. We've got the only synagogues between Huntington, and Louisville, and 01:34:00Cincinnati, and Knoxville.

FERNHEIMER: There are synagogues. They're just not all operating.

COOPER: Well, they're not. I guess that's what I'm talking about. But I think in -- in the country, uh, we've got people in good positions, and they're behaving responsibly, and we've got nothing to -- to be ashamed of.

FERNHEIMER: Uh, and you're talking -- the "we" there is the Jewish-American community?

COOPER: Yeah. Yes.

FERNHEIMER: All right. Well, if you -- if there's nothing else you'd like to add, Leon, I just want to thank you for spending an afternoon with me, uh --

COOPER: Well --

FERNHEIMER: -- talking about a lot of different things. And I hope it will be okay. I might have some students who want to follow-up with you about some of the things we talked about, and we said, "Oh, I can't remember the date," or this or that. Uh, if that would be okay.

COOPER: I'm not going anywhere. I'll be here.

FERNHEIMER: That'd be great. So.

COOPER: Okay.

FERNHEIMER: Well, thank you.

COOPER: Well, thank you. I hope your project goes well.

FERNHEIMER: I -- we do, too. I -- this is a great contribution, so I really appreciate it. I knew I'd forget something. I'm glad we're able to get back on here. Leon, can you tell me if Cooper was shortened, and if -- if so, when? And by whom?

COOPER: My father wasn't the first in his family to come over here. He had, uh, two sisters and a brother. And they shortened the name from Kyperstein to Cooper. He had an uncle in Philadelphia who kept Kyperstein. But when he came over, um, he came over as, uh, Cooper. My mother's family name was Abramovitz.

FERNHEIMER: How did they get from Abramovitz to --

COOPER: A -- Aframowitz.

FERNHEIMER: Aframowitz to Rudman?

COOPER: Oh, no. Not my -- I'm talking about my mother, not my wife.

FERNHEIMER: Oh, I'm sorry.

COOPER: My mother.

FERNHEIMER: And did they shorten that, also?

COOPER: To Aframe. A-F-R-A-M-E.

FERNHEIMER: Okay.

COOPER: And their -- that became Aframe. And, uh, Kyperstein became, uh, Cooper. The last people to come over on my father's side was his mother. My only grandparent to come over. And his two younger sisters. They came over as Kyperstein.

FERNHEIMER: And how was Kyperstein spelled? Was it with a "C" also?

COOPER: It was a Cyrillic spelling. K-Y-P-E-R. You know, that sort of thing. I happened to go to the Department of Interior where they have a floor full of, uh, reels of, uh, microfiche. Of every ship that ever landed. And everybody 01:37:00that was ever on it. And one of my aunts wrote a story of coming over here, and they had the second sailing of the Aquitania. So I went there, and I said, "Do you have a tape of the second sailing of the Aquitania?" And she did. And I put it on the machine, and I crank through, and there's my bubbe and my two aunts. And they came under Kyperstein. Uh, that was interesting. I printed that out. That's the only record I have of my, uh, parents coming over.

FERNHEIMER: Wow. That's pretty cool. And when did you find those records?

COOPER: This had to be back in the '90s.

FERNHEIMER: Wow. Thanks for allowing us to get that on the record.

COOPER: Okay.