The Travis side of the family
Louis Travis, my grandfather, was born in 1879, and died in 1927. He married Bessie Levine. Their children were my dad Philip, born in 1897, Morris, born in 1899, Rose, born in 1901, and Charles, who was born in 1903.
Louis came to the United States from Lithuania in 1903, and in 1905 he sent for his wife and the four children. I never really knew my grandmother or Louis but was very close to my Aunt Rose. I didn’t really know the Travis side of the family as well as the Felsons, except for Aunt Rose. I stopped getting an allowance when I was 12 or 13; but I could always count on Aunt Rose to give me spending money. When I went over there, I always got a quarter.
My father probably started school in the 2nd or 3rd grade, and I don’t know if he went through 6th grade or 8th grade before he left school to start work. He started delivering telegrams for Western Union. He always loved sports but wasn’t allowed to play. He had a baseball glove which he kept at a friend’s house, because his father would not have understood his desire to play.
Morris told me that he and my dad used to walk to school together in Lithuania. He became a pharmacist by going to night school. Charles also became a pharmacist and moved to Lexington, Kentucky. Charles’ daughter Gloria later married my brother Bob, after they were both widowed.
I think the order of the cousins on the Travis side was:
- Bob Travis
- Albert Kaplan (Rose’s son)
- Paul Travis (Morris’ son)
- Louis Kaplan (Rose’s son)
- Alan Travis
- Gloria (Charlie’s daughter)
- Irene Kaplan (Rose’s daughter)
- Bessie Kaplan (Rose’s daughter)
Morris also had a daughter named Beverly, with his second wife.
The Felson side of the family
My mother Sophie (originally named Sonia) was born in Warsaw, Poland. Her mother Esther was the daughter of a rabbi, and the family was very religious. Sophie’s father Sol was a Socialist who probably fled Russia because he was wanted either for the draft or by the police; we don’t know which. Sol was a linguist and spoke a number of languages. Esther stopped being religious because of Sol, who was born Jewish but chose never to practice any religion.
My mother was born in 1901. Irv was probably born in ’02 or ’03. Sol came to the United States before Irv was born, and then sent for Esther, Sophie and Irv.
Sol and Esther had seven additional children, six of whom survived. Sol and Esther’s children were my mother Sophie, then Irv, Louise, Henry (better known as Chippy), and Walter. Between Walter and Ben was Nathan, one who died. After Ben was Edith and finally Leo. My grandmother had a stillborn after Leo; she was pregnant at the same time as my mother was pregnant with my brother Bob.
Sol was a tailor, and I don’t think he was very successful because they were always moving because he couldn’t pay the rent.
When they lived in Newport, Kentucky, they were flooded out occasionally, and my mother described coming back and washing down the walls of their house. My mother, being the oldest, helped raise her siblings because my grandmother was not a well woman; she had had heart problems for some time.
My parents and religion
Phil’s family was Orthodox. So when my parents married, my mother insisted on having a kosher kitchen so that her in-laws could eat at their house. Her mother taught her how to keep kosher. The Felson family was not Orthodox. Some of them became Reform, maybe because of their spouses. I don’t think any of them felt that strongly about religion.
My mother didn’t feel strongly about religion. When she and my father went to synagogue, she wasn’t allowed to sit with him, so she never went. Her attitude toward religion probably had a lot of bearing in my upbringing. Basically after we moved to Avondale I was supposed to go to Hebrew school after regular school. I may have gone for a year or so. There was a 6-year gap between Bob and myself. When he wasn’t bar mitzvahed, I thought, “I don’t have to be bar mitzvahed. I don’t have to go to Hebrew school.” So I stopped going.
So that had an effect on me. They tried sending me to Fineberg Synagogue, and that lasted a short time. I felt that my play time was more important. I made my own decisions. I didn’t get more religion until I married.
My parents and walking
My parents did a lot of walking. They would think nothing of taking Bob and myself — I was probably in a stroller – on a walk from Price Hill to Avondale and back [about 15 miles round trip] in the same day. They liked to walk! My mother did not learn to drive a car until she was fifty. My dad never learned to drive. They went everywhere by the streetcar or the bus. My dad always said: “The bus doesn’t wait for you, you wait for the bus.” Maybe that’s why I always get places a little early.
My dad’s work
My father was in the wholesale dry goods business. He always worked for someone else. Once the person he worked for died, and he told the widow he would stay on until he sold all the stock and liquidated the business. All the other employees left right away to look for other jobs. But my dad felt that if someone employed you and paid you wages, you owed them loyalty.
After that was finished, he went to work for another wholesale dry goods house. At that job, he was a buyer and salesman for men’s furnishings. Clothing was considered suits, and furnishings were underwear, shirts, and shoes — all the working goods. He would never let me wear blue jeans or overalls, because he considered them to be poor peoples’ clothing. To this day I can’t comfortably wear blue jeans. I much prefer khakis.
My dad would get samples of the upcoming styles from the manufacturers, and since they were one of a kind, he couldn’t go out and sell them. So he used to bring them home for me to wear. I was ahead of my time with those clothes, wearing things that weren’t fashionable yet in Cincinnati.
My dad had a fair amount of ambition. We used to tell him: “Dad, if you opened up your own store we could come and work for you” and he’d say, “Yes, I’d have two supervisors who’d put their hands in their pockets, and I’d sweep the floors!”
My mom’s work
My mom worked for the American Israelite as a copy person and an office secretary. She was an exceptional typist and took dictation. She worked at the Israelite for many years.
Later, she went to work for Ben as his secretary. But you have to understand that my mother was the matriarch of the family. She brought up a lot of the younger children. Bennie was the only one who wouldn’t kowtow to her. At his office, she called him Dr. Felson; she’d say, “Whatever you want, Dr. Felson.”
But she was still his older sister. Once she and Ben had an argument because she said that Ben should write something differently, and he didn’t agree. She really didn’t like taking orders from him. So she started working for Dr. Jerry Wiot and the other doctors, and Ben got one of the other women to be his secretary.
(Dr. Jerry Wiot succeeded Ben as head of radiology. Interestingly, I played football with Wiot. He was a year older than me.)
Before my mom worked for Ben, he had a patient who couldn’t speak English. He called my mom in, and she talked with him in Yiddish, and translated what he said. Unfortunately, I never learned Yiddish, because when my parents realized that Bob and I could understand it, they stopped speaking in Yiddish in front of us.
My mom got along fine with the residents and the rest of the staff. She was the one who kept all the residents’ information and their history. If they called up, they talked to her. She really loved her job.
Sophie’s frankness
My cousins once told me they were afraid of my mom; she would say what was on her mind and then it was gone. If she disapproved of something you were doing, she’d let you know it – and didn’t bear any grudges.
It was easy for me, but hard for a lot of people. I was a favorite, but even so, if she thought I was doing something wrong, she’d tell me. She’d tell my cousins that they shouldn’t marry non-Jews; they didn’t necessarily listen to her, but she let them know what she thought. She told my niece Diane, “If you marry a non-Jew it will kill your grandfather.” It didn’t affect Diane; she married a non-Jew anyway, and it didn’t kill anyone.
Playing cards
My mom played bridge, and my dad played gin and pinochle. He was the gambler of the family. Each of them played once a week. My mother played Saturday afternoon, and I think my father Monday nights. My mom was a good bridge player. I would hear the bidding and watch the play, and I learned to play bridge that way.
My mother was a better card player than my dad. She was more conservative than my dad was. He’d bid on an inside straight in poker. He liked to gamble.
In college, I partnered with Mark Widersheine, whom I’d known since the 7th grade, and we represented with University of Cincinnati in bridge competitions.
Teaching my mom to drive
My mom got her driver’s license when I was in college, around 1948. We got a car, and she took lessons. I took her out to Sharonville to get her license. We went out there and the officer said: “Back up and turn around.” She backed up and backed right into the police car! So obviously she was too shaken up to even take the test that time.
The next time she was doing fine, and they told her to parallel park, and she said: “I can’t” and they said, “How are you going to park?” She said, “I have walked all my life, and if I drive to the next block where I can pull in forward, that’s where I’ll park and walk back.” He passed her.
Work around the house
My dad was no use at all in the kitchen – he couldn’t even boil water. He also was no good at fixing things around the house. Mother usually did that, or Bob, who was a good cook.
My parents and my in-laws
My mother made every effort to get along with Jo Anne’s mother, Jean. It may have been hard for her, but she managed to get along with Jean. They were two very positive people. I think my mother just decided to take a back seat rather than interfere.
Whenever we would visit, Dad would push us out and say, “You should spend some time with your mother-in-law.” He didn’t have to worry about that; Jean was demanding enough that we had no choice in the matter.
Jean and Bob were closer to Ben than to my parents. And Bob and Chippy probably knew each other.
Jo Anne says, “When I started dating Alan, there as a cultural divide between the Russian and German Jews. It was a big deal in those days. But when I started dating Alan, my father said, ‘If he is related to Ben Felson, then it’s all OK.’”
The Felson Family 