Flossie Arnold, with the help of her son Norman, recalls her life history. Her parents were from the small shtetl Geberina in Russia; in order to become a person of substance to marry, Isaac Ginsberg left for the diamond mines in South Africa. He made enough money there to come back and marry Pauline. They came to the United States in 1908, a year after their daughter Flossie was born. Pauline Ginsberg had a sister in Charleston, South Carolina, who had married Hyman Bluestein; the Ginsbergs came to Charleston, and stayed briefly with them, leaving quickly because of Bluestein's abusive behavior. They first lived in the rough "Little Mexico" area of Charleston, operating a grocery store on the corner of Hanover and Shepard Streets; all the children worked in the store. Irving and Pauline Ginsberg were eager to be "Americanized." They stopped speaking Yiddish at home to better learn English; Pauline Ginsberg hired an African American teacher to help her. After attending any event, she always came home and asked her children to correct any mistakes she had made. They were Orthodox and attended Brith Sholom Synagogue. Growing up, Flossie Ginsburg attended Courtenay School and then Memminger High School; she met children who told her they were not allowed to play with Jews; her parents always encouraged them to hold themselves to a high standard and be proud of their Jewishness; her father asked his Christian neighbors if they minded them as Jews moving in before they bought a house on Ashley Avenue. Working hard and maintaining a good name, Isaac Ginsberg opened many tobacco, notion and candy stores, eventually keeping his stores open on Saturday, as other Jews in Charleston also began to. While his daughter Flossie was working in her father's store on Meeting Street, she met her future husband, Ben Arnold, who was born in the Austria/Hungary part of Europe and had come with his family to the United States where they lived in New York City. He had left at age 17 for Florida, where after odd jobs, he became apprenticed to a pharmacist. He eventually owned at least two drug stores in the area of Fort Lake and West Palm Beach, Florida. While on a trip to visit his family in New York, he left the Clyde Line Steamer that had docked in Charleston and entered the Ginsberg Store to buy a cigar where he met Flossie. Ben Arnold and Flossie Ginsberg were married in 1928; their son Norman was born in 1929 in Charleston; they moved there in 1930. Charleston was more "civilized" and had a larger Jewish community, issues important to Ben Arnold. He went into business with his father-in-law. The business expanded to include wholesaling and distributing of alcohol as well. To better handle that part of the business, the Arnolds moved to Columbia, S.C., about 1940. In response to questions of the interviewers, neither Flossie nor Norman Arnold recalls having any contemporary knowledge of the Holocaust during World War II. What they learned came after the war.
