Jewish Heritage Collection: Oral history interview with Zerline Levy Williams Richmond, Arthur V. Williams, and Betty Williams Gendelman

OralHistoryResource

Jewish Heritage Collection: Oral history interview with Zerline Levy Williams Richmond, Arthur V. Williams, and Betty Williams Gendelman

Jewish Heritage Collection: Oral history interview with Zerline Levy Williams Richmond, Arthur V. Williams, and Betty Williams Gendelman

1996

https://lcdl.library.cofc.edu/lcdl/catalog/lcdl:11801

Visiting Charleston from her home in Cincinnati, Ohio, to celebrate her 98th birthday, Zerline Levy Williams Richmond answers questions as do her children Arthur Victorius Williams, Jr. and Betty Williams Gendelman, along with several unidentified people. Amid snatches of inaudible conversation when several people speak at once, Richmond tells of her parents, her father Gabriel Levy who emigrated from Paris and her mother Fannie Florence Kahn who was born in Florence, SC. They married ca. 1898, and had five daughters by the time he died of tuberculosis in Summerville, South Carolina, where Richmond was born. The young widow, as she told her children, had periodic visits from her dead husband who guided her. She became the first female rice broker in the Charleston, SC, area and raised her daughters as members of Kahal Kadosh Beth Elohim Synagogue. Through social events there, she met Arthur V. Williams, Sr., whose family included a set of remarkable aunts who ran a kindergarten on George Street. They were married ca. 1916 and had two children, present in the interview. Their father Arthur Williams, Sr. was active in civic and Temple affairs, helped deliver the Jewish vote to various mayors, and helped immigrant Jews settle in Charleston, while nevertheless belonging to the Reform Charleston Jewish set of people, who (according to the interviewees) were "snobs" about Jews of lower social ranking. At the death of her husband, Richmond later became an insurance agent, the first in the area, and was quite successful; she later married Sam Richmond, left Charleston, and eventually settled with her daughter in Cincinnati, Ohio.

Sound recording : 1 sound cassette : analog.Sound recording : 1 sound cassette : digital.Transcript : 38 p. ; 28 cm.

eng, Latn

College of Charleston, Marlene and Nathan Addlestone Library