Sarah Morrison

RUTGERS, THE STATE UNIVERSITY OF NEW JERSEY NEW BRUNSWICK AN INTERVIEW WITH MARK S. MORRISON FOR THE RUTGERS ORAL HISTORY ARCHIVES WORLD WAR II * KOREAN WAR * VIETNAM WAR * COLD WAR INTERVIEW CONDUCTED BY SANDRA STEWART HOLYOAK and SARAH MORRISON NEW BRUNSWICK, NEW JERSEY SEPTEMBER 23, 2009 TRANSCRIPT BY DOMINGO DUARTE Sarah Morrison: This begins an interview with Mark S. Morrison, Rutgers College Class of 1964, on September 23, 2009, New Brunswick, New Jersey. Also present are Sarah Morrison and Sandra Stewart Holyoak. [Editor's Note: Sarah Morrison is Mark S. Morrison's daughter.] Sandra Stewart Holyoak: Thank you very much for coming. I would like to begin the interview by asking you to tell me where and when you were born. Mark S. Morrison: I was born in Manhattan, in New York City, Jewish Memorial Hospital, March 10, 1942. The hospital has since become a condominium, I understand. SH: You started it off right. MM: One of the great mysteries in the family, which I never understood, my parents lived in New Brunswick, it was wartime, yet, they got in a car, Mom and Dad, and went to Manhattan for my mother to give birth. SH: Was there family living close by, perhaps? MM: I don't really know, don't know. The hospital's all the way up in Manhattan, is near Columbia University. It was there. As I say, it's a condo [now]. SH: Tell us about your father, his name and a bit about his family background, if you would. MM: Yes, my father's name, Jacob Morrison. He had one brother and, if I can count my aunts, I think four aunts [sisters]. They were immigrants from Russia, from … what's called Belarus today. I found out, very late in life, which Sarah is aware of, of course, that my great- grandfather, great-great-grandfather, my father's grandfather, was a very famous Hasidic rabbi. So, the roots are from Russia. My Uncle Sam, my father's brother, saw to the immigration of the family. My father came over in 1904. The purpose of … SM: The paper says 1900. MM: No, Daddy was born in 1900. SH: He came over when he was four then. MM: Was four, and the family left to escape encryption [conscription], if that's the right word, from the Russian-Japanese War, because anybody that was going to go in, my grandfather and my uncle, weren't going to come out. [Editor's Note: The Russo-Japanese War started in February 1904 and lasted until September 1905.] SH: Did you say your father's father came here first? MM: … No, my uncle. Uncle Sam had relatives on [this side]. The family name is (Tomorrison?). It was Anglicized at Ellis Island, as were several hundred thousand, a couple of million, more people. There were relatives called the (Sykings?) who lived in lower New York 2 State, and they were the sponsors to bring Uncle Sam over. He then went back and brought my father, my aunts and himself, and my grandfather and my grandmother, to the country. They immigrated through Boston. So, it's been somewhat hard to identify the exact boat. … What was also unusual for Russian-American people of the Jewish faith, Russian people of the Jewish faith, [is that] they wound up in Brooklyn, in Greenpoint, and my father grew up and went to [William Cullen] Bryant High School in Brooklyn [Queens?]. SH: What was your grandfather's trade? How did he provide for the family? MM: Yes, Grandpa Frank was a housepainter, and he also served as what we call the shamash, the caretaker of the synagogue in Greenpoint. I don't think he was paid for that, but he was a housepainter. SH: Did your father remember any stories of the immigration and what they went through? MM: He never mentioned them to me. He was four, and I believe the boat was the Bremen, but I don't think he told me that. … I have one document which has every … passenger name for our family, in Cyrillic, which I've gotten partially translated. That's the old Russian language, I guess. So, I … don't have anything specific to tell you that … he told me. SH: How did they manage to get out of Russia? MM: The Bremen would have sailed, I assume, from Germany, and the Russian-Polish border was very fluid in those days, to say the least, if Poland even existed in 1904. So, somehow they got out and made transport to the boat. [Editor's Note: Poland, which had lost its independence in 1795 after being partitioned by the Prussian, Russian and Austro-Hungarian Empires, would not regain its independence until 1918.] SH: I was just curious if they had any family stories that went along with that. MM: I don't have any to tell you, no. SH: How many brothers and sisters did your father have? MM: Aunt Rose, Aunt (Tessie?), Aunt (Sadie?), Aunt Marsha, he had four. Did I skip anybody? four sisters and one brother. SH: I assume your father was the youngest. MM: … He would have been, I think. The oldest … SM: Aunt Anna. MM: Aunt Anna was oldest? SM: No, she was the youngest. 3 MM: She was the youngest, and I think Daddy was, I think, possibly the oldest--maybe Uncle Sam was older. SM: I remember you saying he was the baby of the family. MM: Okay, I'll have to [check]. I can get those dates very easily. SH: Okay, I was just curious as to where he fit in. MM: Yes, yes. SH: Were there any stories that your father told of what it was like to learn English? Was it something he picked up very easily? MM: What's fascinating, since you asked that, is my grandmother on my mother's [side]--well, three grandparents were deceased before I was born. My grandmother from on my mother's side spoke fluent Yiddish and very little English. My parents, when they visited Grandma "Bubbie," [an affectionate term for grandmother], spoke Yiddish. My father, in the house, both my parents, spoke English, even though, … as you get to my mother's side, … because I'm first generation, they were both immigrants. The Yiddish wasn't present … on my father's side, in the house, and he was fluent in English. SH: We have instances of people who were forbidden to speak their native language and required their children speak only English. MM: Right. I don't think that was the case here. … Conversely, I find it very unusual, since you're bringing these questions up, … that he didn't speak Yiddish to his sisters or his brother. SH: Because they were busy getting Americanized, as they called it, that kind of thing. MM: Yes. SH: Did everyone become naturalized citizens? MM: I believe so. I have my father's paper, and I don't specifically have my aunt's documents, but I believe so, and I think I have Uncle Sam's also. SM: You do. MM: Yes. SH: Did your father go on to school or to a trade school? MM: He went to--look, two things. I have some early possessions in the vault. One is a PSAL, Public Schools Athletic League, relay, track relay, medal. … My father was a very, very quiet, 4 unlike myself, quiet man, and his modesty and my mother's modesty [affected what was] transmitted to me. He never really told me anything, but the medal was there. He went to a school for awhile called Eton, E-T-O-N, Prep, for about a year. This was, I think, after the issue of going off to Europe, because of the war, went away. Beyond that, he didn't have any, what we would call today, a higher level of education. SH: What did he wind up doing for a profession? MM: He was what we would term, and it's really a derogatory term, so, I use it with that caution, blue-collar. He had a series of, call it clerical positions, but, for a long period of time, worked … as a superintendent of my Uncle Sam's, call it a factory, which was first in Long Island City, and then, we quickly transitioned to Milltown, in New Jersey, where he moved it. Uncle Sam had patents on compact frames for women, … or compact holders and pocketbook frames, right. During the war, he turned out bullets, and it was called (Metalfield?). … A few years ago, when I was gainfully unemployed, I had plenty of time to go to Milltown City Hall to see if I could trace down the actual patents that are in Washington. … The answer came back that he didn't own the building. This is, if you know Milltown's Washington Avenue, that huge building across from City Hall, which is now condos, was owned by Michelin Tire Company. It was their factory. SH: That was their big industry there. MM: Right, yes. So, when the factory moved, he moved with Uncle Sam, met my mother. This is, now, we've jumped up from 1918, in high school, to the late 1930s, but, in-between time, he was with his family. They'd moved from Greenpoint to Riverside Drive in Manhattan. Then, they moved up to Amsterdam Avenue, in around 155th Street. I found my father's synagogue, which is now a church, a few years ago at Amsterdam and 157th. My father was a New York Giants baseball fan, because Coogan's Bluff was two blocks away.

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