Sonia Pressman Fuentes
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Sonia Pressman Fuentes July 12, 2013; August 17, 2013; October 19, 2013; December 19, 2013; January 31, 2014; March 22, 2014 Recommended Transcript of Interview with Sonia Pressman Fuentes (July 12, 2013; Aug. Citation 17, 2013; Oct. 19, 2013; Dec. 19, 2013; Jan. 31, 2014; Mar. 22, 2014), https://abawtp.law.stanford.edu/exhibits/show/sonia-pressman-fuentes. Attribution The American Bar Association is the copyright owner or licensee for this collection. Citations, quotations, and use of materials in this collection made under fair use must acknowledge their source as the American Bar Association. Terms of Use This oral history is part of the American Bar Association Women Trailblazers in the Law Project, a project initiated by the ABA Commission on Women in the Profession and sponsored by the ABA Senior Lawyers Division. This is a collaborative research project between the American Bar Association and the American Bar Foundation. Reprinted with permission from the American Bar Association. All rights reserved. Contact Please contact the Robert Crown Law Library at Information [email protected] with questions about the ABA Women Trailblazers Project. Questions regarding copyright use and permissions should be directed to the American Bar Association Office of General Counsel, 321 N Clark St., Chicago, IL 60654-7598; 312-988-5214. ABA Senior Lawyers Division Women Trailblazers in the Law ORAL HISTORY of SONIA PRESSMAN FUENTES Interviewer: Liz Alpert Dates of Interviews: July 12, 2013 August 17, 2013 October 19, 2013 December 19, 2013 January 31, 2014 . March 22, 2014 ORAL HISTORY OF SONIA PRESSMAN FUENTES ON BEHALF OF WOMEN TRAILBLAZERS IN THE LAW A PROJECT OF THE AMERICAN BAR ASSOCIATION SENIOR LA WYERS DIVISION BY LIZ ALPERT FIRST INTERVIEW JULY 12, 2013 Ms. Alpert: Hi. This is Liz Alpert and I am here today talking with Sonia Pressman Fuentes, and we are going to be discussing her role in the second wave of the women's movement. And today is July 12, 2013, and Sonia, you have a really interesting story about how you and your family came to this country. Can you tell me a little bit about it? Ms. Fuentes: Well, my parents were Polish Jews who lived in a shtetl, or village, in Poland called Pili ca by the Poles and Piltz by its Jewish residents. And they got married in 1913; my father had already gone to Germany when he was fourteen- years-old to find a way to make a better living, and he returned to Poland to visit his mother. That would have been in 1912, and a matchmaker who was a cousin of my mother's introduced them. And my father went back to Germany, and they corresponded, and they got married in 1913, and returned immediately to Germany-not Berlin at that time. And a year later, my brother, Hermann, was born in Neu-Isenberg, a suburb of Frankfurt am Main. And in 1928 I was born in Berlin. Ms. Alpert: Okay. Talking about your parents meeting through a matchmaker, isn't there a funny story about what happened on their wedding day? 6764420lv2 Ms. Fuentes: Well, there is, if you want to go back into that. Would you like me to tell that story? Ms. Alpert: It's a great story. Ms. Fuentes: Well, it goes back. I have to go back a little further. My mother, as I said, lived in this shtetl called Piltz with her mother and father, but she lost her mother when my mother was ten-years-old. And sometime thereafter her father, whose name was something like Jacob Moshe-Dombek was his last name, or Moshe Itzhak Dombek, something like that-her father remarried. And he married a woman with a daughter of her own. And this woman had really no use for my mother .. And so my mother went to live with her wealthy uncle and his wife and children in Warsaw. And she grew up in Warsaw. Now before my father was born his mother was in the mikvah, that's a place where Orthodox Jewish women go monthly to cleanse themselves after their periods, not that I believe they need to cleanse themselves but that's the ritual. It's like a bath or a pool. And before my father was born, his mother and another woman were in this mikvah, and they were both talking about being pregnant. And they agreed that if one had a son and the other one had a daughter, those two would get married when they became adults. And my paternal grandmother indeed did have a son, my father, and the other woman did have a daughter, so it was my paternal grandmother's idea-her name was Udel Ulmer-that my father would marry that woman. Well, then when my father was introduced to my mother and then went back to Germany .... Now, I said they corresponded, but my father didn't know how to read or write, but he got friends of his to send these beautiful picture postcards to my mother. 2 They had all these picture postcards of a man and a woman. I have some of them still in my albums, in a romantic scene. And on the back my father would have somebody write a romantic note to my mother. So then when they decided to get married, my father's mother was very much against it because she wanted him to marry this other woman. In addition to that, my mother was something like a year older than my father. She was also thin, which was not a plus among Jews in those days. And she had freckles which was also not a plus. So, my father's mother said to him-she was opposed to his marrying my mother-and she said to him, "I just read that a young woman with the same name, Hinda, in Warsaw, gave birth to twins." She said, "How do you know it isn't this Hinda that you are planning to marry? And what do you know about her? She grew up in Warsaw. What do you know about her?" And she didn't want my father to marry my mother. So, this confused my father. But my father said one night he went to bed, and he had this dream that my mother's dead mother came to him in the dream and said to him "Marry my daughter. She will make you a good wife and you will be happy," and this kind of thing. And he said he woke up from that dream determined that he was going to go through with it·and not listen to his mother. Ms. Alpert: Something like Fiddler on the Roof Ms. Fuentes: Exactly, right. And that he was going to marry my mother. So, meanwhile my mother, growing up in Warsaw with this wealthy uncle, .... He had given her some money for a dowry because in those days the girls among Jews certainly the girls had dowries. And the uncle had given her money for a dowry. And she had this cousin who was a gambler. And he asked her to lend 3 him money and that he would, of course, repay it. And she foolishly lent him the money that she had for her dowry, and he lost it gambling and had no way to repay it. So, she was petrified because she was about to get married, needed a dowry, and didn't have it. She didn't know what to do and didn't say anything. So, my father comes to the wedding and he is talking to the uncle, and the uncle keeps putting his hand in his pocket. And every time my father thought he was going to come out with the dowry, but he would come out with nothing, or he would come out with a handkerchief or with a watch. And, finally, my father asked what happened with the dowry, and he was told that there wasn't any dowry because my mother had lent it to this cousin, and he lost it gambling. So, my father felt that he had been tricked, and he remembered his mother's words, and he said, "My mother was dght. ..." So, he took off-he ran away. This is right before the wedding. And all the townspeople started to run after him because my mother was an orphan in that l she didn't have a mother, and an orphan had a certain kind of a place, and you weren't supposed to take advantage of them. And they felt that my father was shaming my mother in front of the entire community. So, they all ran after him. And my father was wearing a top hat, and one man running after him had a cane, and he caught up with my father and it was a collapsible-they had these collapsible top hats-and he hit my father on that hat and the hat collapsed and my father stopped. And they all made my father go back and marry my mother. But when they were under the chuppah (that's the wedding canopy), my father said to my mother, "I am marrying you now 4 because I have to; these people are forcing me. But my mother was right, and I am not remaining with you, and I am going back to Germany tomorrow. By myself." So, my mother said to herself she is just going to have to kill herself-what is she going to do? So, that's how they got married. And after the wedding they went to some-I don't know what it was, some kind of a building where they were to stay overnight.