Louise Felson Abramson

(1905-1988)

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Biography

Louise Felson Abramson’s Life, As Told by Her Daughters and Husband

Louise Felson was born March 3, 1905, the first child born in the US and the third child of Esther and Solomon. She fell in love with her boyfriend, Leo Pritz at age, 17, primarily because he was a great dancer. She then married him and quit high school. They stayed married for quite a few years but ultimately got a divorce in 1934. She got a job at the Settlement House in Cincinnati, working with a group of children who were Jewish immigrants. Subsequently, she became the secretary for the Director of the Settlement House. When that director was leaving, the Board sought another director; however, the Director said, “well you have the best potential director right here,” So Louise became the Director of the Settlement House.

Subsequently, the Jewish community in Cincinnati decided to establish a Jewish Community Center (JCC). They hired Louise as their first Director, a job she held for many years, Louise was an incredibly dynamic and energetic leader. She worked every night at the JCC and organized the whole Felson family and many in the community as volunteers to help run the Center. When there was a huge influx of German Jewish Families in the 1930 through the 1940s due to World War II, Louise was very instrumental in helping the families integrate into the Cincinnati Jewish Community. [You can read more about this in the letter from Edie to David Abramson.]

Ruth Schmidt, Louise’s closest friend, felt she had found the perfect husband for Louise. David Abramson was from Brooklyn NY but currently working in Cincinnati as a research physician at the May Institute. Ruth introduced them, and their courtship began. David described his meeting with Louise and their courtship, and wedding in his memoir, written at age 97, which is excerpted in part here:

A Bicycle Courtship, Marriage, Honeymoon, and a Child, by David Irwin Abramson, M.D.

After I had been in Cincinnati for about 2 or 3 weeks, I telephoned Ruth Schmidt, the sister of my friend, Mae Friedlander, at Mt. Sinai Hospital in Manhattan. She picked me up at the May Institute and took me to her home, where I met her husband, Milton, and her two young children, an older boy and a girl. We had a very pleasant dinner with much lively conversation. I immediately liked Milton, who was a lawyer in private practice, for his sense of humor and his knowledge of current events. Several weeks later, I called up again, and Ruth picked me up and took me for a ride through Cincinnati. We ended up in a crowded café where the noise was quite intense. Suddenly, Ruth said to me: “I’ve got just the girl for you, and she is in this very room. She has been my best friend for many years.” She then left me to walk to a table some distance away and talk to a young woman sitting with two men. After an interval, both women began walking to where I was sitting. As they reached me, I stood up and Ruth introduced to the young lady whose name, I learned, was Louise Felson. Ruth then informed me that her friend was the director of the Jewish Community Center in Cincinnati. I was quite impressed by the young woman’s vivaciousness, appearance and manner of speech. Before she left to return to her companions, I asked and received her telephone number. After several days had passed, I called her, and we decided to meet on the following Saturday afternoon. Having learned to ride a bicycle only recently, she mentioned that she would like to use it on our date, provided, of course, if I could get one for myself. I said I thought that it was a good idea. I had ridden bicycles for many years but did not own one now. Nevertheless, I was pretty sure that I could borrow one. On the following Saturday, which was a very pleasant, sunny and warm day, Louise came along in her Ford car with her bicycle strung outside, on the back of the vehicle. 

I very much enjoyed the day, and we continued taking trips in Cincinnati and also in the countryside along the Ohio River, generally on the Kentucky side. Our routine consisted of walking the bicycles up the steep hills and then ride down on the other side at full speed. After this exercise continued during the early part of the day into the afternoon, we would then find a place where we could eat our lunch, which Louise had brought with her. It was all very enjoyable and the next Saturday we repeated the experience and continued it until the pleasant days of autumn were gone. 

I was very impressed by Louise and her accomplishments. During our times together, I learned much about her background, and her current work in the Jewish Community Center. It seems that when she was about 18, she began working in the Settlement House located in the poor Jewish section of Cincinnati as a secretary. She remained there for several years, during which period, she had numerous professional contacts with the rich and influential German Jewish businessmen who were interested in performing tasks helpful to the community. One day two of them entered Louise’s office and asked her how she would like to set up a Jewish Community Center in Cincinnati and then run it, since such a service was not available in the city at that time. Of course, Louise was delighted with such a project and asked for more details. She was informed, however, that there was very little money available or expected from the community since the discussion occurred sometime in 1929, the year of the financial panic and the Great Depression that followed. Still Louise, said that she was willing to help initiate such a project. She gave up her safe job at the Settlement House, to gamble on (at the time) a non-existent Jewish Community Center — a move I considered admirable to have made. 

Louise soon learned that she had special talents to persuade people, particularly administrators of institution to cooperate with her in the establishment of a Jewish Community Center. She also found that individuals were willing to contribute their services without financial return, provided that the task they were asked to do was for the community’s good. This applied particularly to the extended members of her family possessing various attributes useful for a community center. Despite the lack of a central building initially, Louise was able to establish several community programs in different facilities throughout the city. For example, she was successful in her appeal to Dr. Liss, the administrator of the Jewish Hospital, to utilize the main auditorium in the Nurses Building for weekly lectures on current events. At the beginning, she used for her office a women’s public toilet in the Wise Reform Temple. When I met Louise, the Community Center was now situated in a rented old 3 story mansion, where all of the facilities carried out by the personnel. Except for the people taking care of the janitorial work, the remainder were volunteers. Louise was receiving a small salary and was using her car on Center business without ever putting in a request for repayment. Despite such a sorry financial situation, Louise was very happy with her job and with the role the Center was beginning to play, primarily among the Jewish Community of Cincinnati. She received very useful advice from two people whose knowledge and understanding she very often sought: The president of the Center, a lawyer whose name I don’t recall, and Dr. Jacob (Jake) Marcus, a professor at Hebrew Union College in Cincinnati. Furthermore, an arrangement had been set up so that many of the rabbinical students rotated through the Jewish Center for 6 months of their last year learning how to deal with the Community — a mutually advantageous plan. Louise had only one goal and it was to make a success of the Center, and she was achieving it. 

As I listened to her story, I vicariously enjoyed all her successes. At the same time, I loved to be with her because of her other virtues and outlook on life. We continued our relationship even through the winter months when we limited our excursions only to hiking in the countryside in Cincinnati, on occasion, crossing to the Kentucky side. We occasionally had our tiffs and would not see each other for weeks but each time, we would begin again. After about two years of such a relationship, one summer day, we rode into a new type of cemetery where all the stones were laid flat on the ground. We got off our bikes to rest. In such an unromantic place, I proposed to Louise, and she accepted. It seemed to us that a cemetery, where others had ended their lives, was a fitting place to begin ours together. And it certainly was that for Louise and me. As our marriage lasted for 48 years, until she died of congestive heart failure in November 1988. 

After the proposal, the next several weeks were busy ones for us. Because my parents were elderly, we decided to hold the ceremony in my brother, Joe’s, office in Brooklyn, on Park Place. Before this occurred, however, Louise had to complete the “Day of Fun” which occurred once a year at the Center on a Sunday. It was a great fund raiser for the Center. Afterward, Louise went to a resort for several days rest and I left for Brooklyn. 

My brother and sister were giving the party jointly and Louise had arranged for one of the rabbis who had passed through the 6 months’ period in the Center and had a job in Manhattan to officiate at the ceremony. The “Chuppa” was opened up in Joe’s office and the ceremony was conducted there. Afterward we went upstairs on the second floor where the catering company supplying all the food had laid out a banquet. There was a long table extending into 2 long rooms covered with food beautifully prepared and ready to be eaten. All the guests were assembled and in a short time had eaten. Aside from my immediate family and Louise’s sister and two female cousins of hers from Indiana, all the other guests were my friends, about 30 in all. We had a hilarious time. 

Three days before the wedding, Louise and I had spent the day in my Uncle Bennie’s summer home in Far Rockaway. Louise had no experience being exposed to the Atlantic Ocean sun, but she was determined to get a sunburn on the beach, and she did — with a vengeance. Before the wedding ceremony, Edith, Louise’s younger sister, helped her get dressed. Edith exclaimed after seeing that Louise’s body was as red as a beet. Louise tried to hide the color with powder but was not very successful. At the same time, there were other aftereffects from prolonged exposure to the sun. After the party, Louise, Edith, and I took a cab to the St. George Hotel in Brooklyn, where I had made reservations for the night. Louise slept very fitfully, and in the morning, I saw the reason. All around her mouth she had developed cold sores (herpes simplex) and she was a mess. Then to complete the tragedy, while I was washing my glasses, the frames broke in my hands. All 3 of us (including Edith) began to think that this was ludicrous and started to laugh hysterically.

This made the next event even funnier. My Uncle Bennie was having his younger daughter married on the next night (Sunday) at a very exclusive and expensive hotel in Manhattan, and only his siblings and their spouses had been invited. I thought I would take this opportunity to introduce my wife to my mother’s family by asking them to join us in the hotel lobby. Louise and I took a cab to the hotel, and I placed her in a dark secluded corner and brought my relatives to her, one by one. I was hoping that no one would be able to see her face in the shadows. 

Early the next morning, we returned to my old neighborhood in Brooklyn to have my glasses fixed. Having accomplished this, we finally left for our honeymoon. The next several weeks were spent in a resort area in Maine bicycling down the hills that were much like those around Cincinnati, except that we were able to visit many picturesque lakes. After several enjoyable weeks, we returned to Cincinnati where Louise resumed her duties at the Jewish Community Center, and I went back to my research at the May Institute. 

Several months before our marriage, Louise had come to the conclusion that the Center could not continue to advance further under her leadership. She conferred with her advisors, the President of the Center and Dr. Jake Marcus.  She persuaded them that it was now necessary to have a trained social worker as director. Subsequently, the Board hired Simon Slesnick as the new director. However, Louise continued to keep her usual hours at the Center despite the fact that she was no longer in charge. I would leave our apartment at 7:00 AM while Louise was asleep. She would go to the Center around 11:00 AM, returning at 6:00 PM for dinner with me, which was prepared by, Virginia, the daughter of Louise’s mother’s maid. After dinner, Louise would shower, dress and leave for the Center where she remained until approximately, 1:00 AM every day. I saw Louise only at dinner and on weekends, a very unusual schedule for newly-weds. This situation persisted for several months until I decided to alter it. Shortly thereafter, Louise gleefully announced that she was pregnant. Our daughter, Julie, entered this world on 1/19/42 feet first! All thoughts of the Center left Louise to be replaced by very strong maternal feelings. Louise had not expected to have a child because she was 36 years old and so she was very happy. Many years later, my sister-in-law, Evelyn met a friend from Cincinnati who remembered vividly the great joy that Louise exhibited as she pushed Julie in her carriage and received the congratulations of the many passersby who stopped to admire the baby. And so, my marriage and my life were now on a steady course.

Their daughter, Beth, was born in 1943 in Springfield, Mo, where David was stationed in the Army. After the war, Louise and David moved to Chicago, where they bought a large house in a working class white and African American suburb of Chicago near the VA hospital where David worked. Having given up her career to raise her children, she became very involved in the Parent-Teachers’ Association, became President of that organization, and drawing on her progressive attitudes, successfully fought to include sex education in the schools.

She was a wonderful mother and committed herself to enriching her children’s lives. She created a “Happy Happy Day” where Louise and her children did something special every Saturday. We would go to Modern Interpretive Dance classes taught by a former dancer of the Martha Graham Dance Company where we would dance together. We saw every Goodman Theater Production and Chicago Symphony Children’s Concert. Louise would also haul huge numbers of books home from the library for us to read. She got special permission to take so many books out at once.

During the summers, from Memorial Day to Labor Day, Louise would move us to Wilson Beach in the Indiana Dunes, a small community of Jewish families on Lake Michigan. Cars couldn’t drive to the cottage because of the sand; instead, at the beginning of the summer, local boys drove us and our belongings to the cottage in an open Model A Ford truck. The cottage was on stilts on the sand, without electricity; water was accessed through a pump and a privy was the only bathroom. Baths were taken and laundry done in Lake Michigan. Water had to be boiled for drinking and chlorinated for other uses because the well was polluted. An ancient upright piano had been brought to the cottage years before by horse and dray; Louise enjoyed playing it by ear which startled us as we didn’t know that she was so musical. She also taught us to cook simple meals such as bean pot for the posse of young girls who hung out with us every day. We don’t remember Louise ever complaining about all this hard work; of course, she loved being in the Dunes. She also demonstrated an adventurous spirit, highlighted by her occasional recruitment of a group of girls and their mothers to go skinny dipping at night in Lake Michigan. It was great fun. We had many wonderful summers on Wilson Beach, and our mother was key to this grand experience. [Read more about family trips to the Dunes]

Although not working after marriage and children, Louise was an active member of her community. She was the Membership Secretary of the Women’s Auxiliary of the University of Illinois School of Medicine. She brought her old organizational skills with her. At her memorial, one of the Women’s Auxiliary members reported that when she first arrived in Chicago, Louise asked her to join the Women’s group. However, she had young children, and she asked Louise if it would be OK if she waited 5 years to join the group. Well, in exactly 5 years, the woman got a phone call from mother and happily joined the group.

Louise was also attracted to interesting architecture; living in Oak Park, IL, she was drawn to the work of Frank Lloyd Wright. She joined the organization that ran Wright’s Home and Studio in Oak Park and, as a volunteer, recruited and scheduled volunteers for the Frank Lloyd Wright Visitor Center for many years. She was replaced by a full-time staff member.

Louise would organize trips to unusual buildings and places in Chicago when visitors came, driving them and talking animatedly as she drove, turning her head to talk to the visitors in the back seat while she drove. But Louise never had an accident when driving. Nevertheless, during one period of her driving, she was stopped by policemen 3 times for speeding. At each stop, she was sure that she had been driving within the speed limit and through her charm and sincerity she talked each of them out of a ticket. However, after the last stop, she became unsure and had the speedometer checked. It turned out that her speedometer was wrong.

One trip around Chicago with a visitor was particularly memorable. She had a visitor from Prague who didn’t speak English, the husband of a medical colleague of David’s. He wanted to see a poor neighborhood, so she took him to a really bad part of Chicago. They got out of the car so the visitor could take pictures. A group of Black kids were hanging about and started getting angry at the man taking pictures, and they started yelling at him. Louise said to a girl with the boys. Honey, he doesn’t speak English and doesn’t understand what they are saying to him. The girl looked at Louise and turned to the boys and told them to cool it and the danger was past.

In conclusion, Louise had an extremely close relationship with her family. Due to Louise’s enthusiastic organizational skills, sometimes the Felson aunts could find her a little bossy, though they were all very fond of her. The girl cousins adored her and called her “Aunt Lu.” She was an important support for a number of them at critical points in their lives.