Born in Charleston, South Carolina, in 1913, Bella Goldman grew up in the downtown area, at the corner of Church and Tradd Streets. She relates how that neighborhood has changed over the years and recalls the Jewish families and businesses in that area and on King Street from below Broad Street to Calhoun Street and in the Radcliffe Street area. A depression in the early 1920s impoverished the family so her father (unnamed) traveled to agricultural parts of the state such as Barnwell and Blackville and sold merchandise to farmers. He was doing well but died suddenly of a blood clot. As a child, she saw her father's body returned to their home and laid out. Mrs. Goldman, the interviewee's mother, opened a grocery store at Beaufain and Charles Street, near the red light district of town, to support the family. She did not realize that the family home near Reid and America Street was mortgaged to former Charleston mayor John P. Grace who did not foreclose or demand payment, in honor of his friendship with Mr. Goldman. As a high school girl, Bella Goldman enjoyed dancing and swimming and other activities. She served as companion to Zipporah Solomons who lived in the Francis Marion Hotel and who later left her estate to the College of Charleston for scholarships. She mentions Purim Balls at Hibernian Hall and other places in town, recounts her memories of the Daughters of Israel Hall on St. Philip Street, teaching Sunday School there and other related topics. She speaks of Jewish merchants on King Street who dishonestly overcharged their African American customers for merchandise and tells how she was instrumental in bringing labor unions to the Charleston waterfront. When illiterate African American workers appealed to her after deaths on the waterfront, she helped compose the letters to New York City union workers who eventually came down to Charleston. Years later, when celebrations over that event took place, she attended the ceremony but her role in the process was never acknowledged.
