The Columbus Jewish Historical Society

Barry and Annette Turner

This is Richard Golden reading from notes regarding the interview with Barry and Annette Turner on June 3, 2014.  Please note that today it is June 18, 2014 and I’m reading from my notes because our initial tape was not clear.  This interview with Barry and Annette Turner is being recorded for the Columbus Jewish Historical Society on June 3, 2014.  We were originally at Barry and Annette’s home.  The purpose of this interview is people wanting to know about Columbus, Ohio Jewish families, a lot of great people that should be talked about who have stories to tell.

Barry Turner was born in 1933 in Detroit, Michigan.  His father was a pharmacist.  He apparently moved to Columbus, Ohio when Barry was in the second grade.  Barry went to Livingston Avenue school.  He finished Bexley High school, was a graduate.  Barry was also a good swimmer.  He told me that he liked swimming and was a diving and swimming coach at the Jewish Center.  At college, Ohio State University, he did a business education program and then he enlisted into the Navy.  He and Annette were married.  Annette was a youngster Barry said he stole her from the cradle.  That was a cute event.  Anyway, I’m sorry that the initial situation with Barry and Annette was not clear.  They were married in 1956.  Barry was in the Navy and they were living in Boston for a year.  He had enlisted in the Navy.  Barry’s father was a registered pharmacist and also ran several taverns here in the Columbus area.  His son Steven is in Portsmouth, Ohio,  an electrician with General Telephone, and he had another son, Daniel,  born in Los Angeles.  Barry worked with IBM in Los Angles for two years, in an equipment and sales situation and he has a good story to tell about some of the problems with the early voting machines, the election machines.  There was a problems with a little piece of paper that  got

stuck and Barry was involved with trying to correct that.  He was with IBM  in 1968, also with them in Los Angeles, then he came back to Columbus and he worked with Microfiche cards and projected the balloting of voting machines.  We’ll stop here.   At this time we’re going to put Barry back on the tape.  He’ll talk to us.  So let’s listen to Barry.

Interviewer:  …friends from that neighborhood in Columbus when you first came here?

Barry:  I really don’t remember the elementary school people.  That school is a blur.  In high school I begin to remember people.

Interviewer:  Who were some of your friends in high school?  Where did you go to high school?

Barry:  I went to Bexley high school.  My best friend was Mark Calk who’s no longer from the city.

Interviewer:  Who was that?

Barry:  Mark Calk

Interviewer:  Mark Calk and he’s no longer here in this area?

Barry:  He’s in Denver now.  I’m sorry, Dallas.

Interviewer:  Mark Calk is now in Dallas, Okay.  Who were some of your girl friends in high school?

Barry:  I dated a lot of girls.  One of them was Barbara Krakoff She’s no longer with us, I guess.

The names will come to me.

Interviewer:  That’s alright I can’t remember.  My girl friends don’t want to remember me either.  That’s okay.  I understand you liked swimming.  You were a good swimmer.

Barry:  Yeah, I enjoyed swimming and I enjoyed diving, particularly.   I was a life guard at the Jewish Center, one of the original ones, and I was a swimming teacher and  a diving coach.  I got into that pretty heavily at that stage of my life.

Interviewer:  That was during your high school years, is that correct?

Barry:  High school and the first two years in college.

Interviewer:  Where did you go to college, Barry?

Barry:  Ohio State.

Interviewer:  Okay, we have Barry Turner.  He’s now in a college mode.  He’s at Ohio State.  Told me that he majored in Economics and Labor Relations.  So that would be like a double major.  Did you graduate from Ohio State?

Barry:  Yes I did.

Interviewer:  You graduated from Ohio State. What year was that, Barry?

Barry:  1955.

Interviewer:  In 1955, December, Barry was a graduate of Ohio State University.  Okay we’re back

after adjusting the tape.  Today is the 14th of August, it’s a Thursday afternoon.  We’re stretching this tape out.  We started in June and here it is in August.  We’re sitting in Barry’s living room now and we’re going to go — At this point in the tape Barry is graduated from Ohio State University.  He is romancing Annette.  What was Annette’s maiden name?

Barry:  Shusterman.

Interviewer:  Annette Shusterman and her dad was a dentist.  Barry says that he robbed the cradle.  She must have been a knockout because she’s still a nice looking lady.  Don’t tell her I said so.

What year were you and Annette married?

Barry:  1956

Interviewer:  Barry and Annette were married in 1956, here in Columbus, Ohio, at what synagogue?

Barry:  Temple Israel.

Interviewer:  They were married at Temple Israel.  Who was your rabbi Barry?

Barry:  Folkman.

Interviewer:   Rabbi Jerome Folkman married you.   How long were you living in Columbus after your marriage?

Barry:   We were living in Columbus about a year after I got out of college.  There was draft at that time.  I didn’t want to be a foot soldier, that’s what we were.

Interviewer:   Barry and Annette lived in their early married years here in Columbus, Ohio and there was a draft coming on and Barry didn’t want to be a foot soldier,  I don’t blame him, so he joined the Navy.  What year did you join the Navy?.  You and Annette were married at this time.

Barry:  I joined the Navy in 1954.

Interviewer:   Barry became an enlisted Navy recruit in 1954.  Where did you take your boot camp?

Barry:  Great Lakes Naval Training Station in Chicago.

Interviewer:  Barry went to the Great Lakes Naval Training Station in  the Chicago area.  Was Annette with you at the time or did she have to stay home?.

Barry:  She stayed home..

Interviewer:  She stayed in Columbus, Ohio and you were taking your boot camp and you were without your wife.   How many weeks or months of boot camp did you have?

Barry:  Four weeks of boot camp.

Interviewer:  Four weeks of boot camp in the Chicago Great Lakes area.

Barry:  That was the requirement of every Naval Reserve.

Interviewer:  That was United States Naval Reserve.  If you know Barry, if you see him, I’m looking at him right now.  We have lunch together every Thursday at the Giant Eagle group, our Romeo’s Group.  Barry sits at the end he has a good meal, a good sense of humor and a great smile on his face and every once and a while he’ll have a few crumbs on the table.  We have a good time with Barry.  So we’re going to leave it here and we want to thank the Columbus Jewish Historical Society.  We’re going to close it now on the 14th of August, 2014

We’ll be back again.  Adios.  We’ll pick up again to continue with Barry Turner. Bye, Bye.

Today it is September 12, 2014.  It’s about 2.42 p.m. and we are in Barry and Annette Turner’s home.  We are continuing his discussion with Barry Turner and we left off where Barry was telling us about the fact that he was diagnosed with Disease in 1997.  Barry might want to talk a little bit about that now. Is that okay Barry, just a brief thing about how it came about?

Barry:  Thank you Dick.  I hope that anyone who is listening to this can understand what I’m saying.  One of the side effects of  is a rough voice.  I have a double whammy; I only have one vocal chord working.  ??  In 1997 I began to have symptoms.  I didn’t know at that time what they were, but they were all the symptoms of Disease.

Interviewer:  Okay Barry, you said all the symptoms.  Let’s hear what they were.

Barry:  The symptoms being tremors, falling, locking up of your gate, things of that nature, all typical natures.  After a while they got to be bad enough I finally went to the doctor and he diagnosed the and we went forward from there.  I’m fortunate in that I have inordinately slow progressing.  Some are faster than others, no two are the same.  But we’ll get thru this too, we got thru everything else.

Interviewer:  Okay, Barry I’m hearing that you were on top of this as soon as you could and you’re dealing with it as you see the best that you can.  I’d like to add on this date, September 12, 2014.

Barry and I just returned from Katzingers Delicatessen where we enjoyed all the things we shouldn’t be eating.  We had dill pickles.  We had corn beef with mustard, soda pop, and cabbage and coleslaw.  We’re having one nice afternoon.  Don’t tell our doctors that we did this.  We’re having a good time.  Barry, just a few questions, okay?  When you were learning to cope with this situation, was there any special type of exercise that you and your doctors thought would be good for you?

Barry:  There are exercises that can be very beneficial.  The one main factor overriding everything is known, and it’s one of the only things known about , is that the more you exercise, the more you fight the disease.  The more you work at it, the better it gets.  Any number of resources for exercise are readily available to any Parkinson’s patient through the Parkinson Foundation or other organizations..

Interviewer:  Okay, we’re going to close up here.  Some time in the near future hopefully we will get Annette, Barry’s better half,  to say a few words about her position with this part of our history on Jewish families and how they deal with things in our community and how love has kept things going and family life.  So we’ll look forward to listening to Annette in the next session, right now.  Here we go.  We’ve got Barry and Annette Turner of Columbus, Ohio.

Barry and Annette have been married for a couple of years, right?

Annette:  About 57 years.

Interviewer:  Already we’ve got an argument, 57-58 years of married life for Barry and Annette Turner. Annette tell us what was your maiden name?

Annette:  My maiden name was Annette Shusterman.  My father was a dentist in Columbus for many, many years.  Dr. Canowitz was in the same office with him and they were like brothers.

Interviewer:  So this was a dental practice in Columbus, Ohio.

Annette:  A dental and a doctor’s office.

Interviewer:  There was a physician, Dr. Canowitz and Dr.?

Annette:  Donald Shusterman.

Interviewer:  Don Shusterman, I remember him very well.  He was a good dentist.  How old were you when you were married to Barry?

Annette:   I was 18.

Interviewer:  When is your birthday?

Annette:  July 16, 1937.

Interviewer:  Barry, I’ll bet she was a good looking bride.

Barry:  Absolutely.

Interviewer:  In your early marriage, where did you live?

Annette:  We lived in an apartment on Ruhl Avenue.  A lot of our friends lived there.  We met a lot of nice people and it was just great.

Interviewer:  Barry, how old were you when you were married to this young lady?

Barry:  I was 22.

Interviewer:  You said the other day that you robbed the cradle.

Barry:  That’s what I was accused of.

Interviewer:   I think you’ve done very well.

Barry: She didn’t tell you the other places we lived.

Interviewer:  Where else did you live?

Annette:   We moved 11 times in 13 years.  Isn’t that unbelievable?  We lived in Boston.  We lived in Cambridge, Ohio.  We lived in San Diego.  We lived in L.A., Portsmouth, Ohio, and Columbus.

Interviewer:  Intermittently, you would visit your families in Columbus.   Where did you go to school?  Where did you start school and what was your educational history in Columbus, Annette?

Annette:  I started the fifth grade at Bexley and I graduated from Bexley, in 1955.  I had been to other school because my father liked to roam around.  He’d buy something, sell it, and we actually ended up on Waggoner Road

Interviewer:  That’s way out, Waggoner Road, way out East.

Annette:  In those years it was way out. You know where Meier’s is now out there?  Right across the street is where we lived.

Interviewer:  You raised a family in these married years.  Tell us about your children.

Annette:    Our oldest daughter is?  She has two children and they are well on their way to being adults.  They are wonderful boys and then we have a son that lives in Columbus, Steve.  My daughter’s name is Tracey.  Steve is getting married this Sunday to an absolutely fabulous young lady.  She calls me mom already.  Then we have a son that lives in California.

Interviewer:  His name is?

Annette:  Dan, Dan Turner.  They are wonderful children, loving and kind and thoughtful.  Sometimes they drive me crazy, especially when my daughter says, “You know, mom.”  I say, “Yes, I know.”

Interviewer:  You raised a family and they are spread around in the country.

Annette:  Yes, they are.

Interviewer:  I’m going to bring something up here.  Barry, when were you first diagnosed with your Parkinson’s situation?

Barry:  The first time I was aware of it was October, 1998.

Interviewer:  October, 1998.  I’m sure you’ve been handling it as a team all these years.  Annette, can we go into this a little bit?  Is it okay?  We want to find out the history of how families deal with these things.  What would you like to share now about that?

Annette:  We’ve always been a couple that depends on each other.  If I’m ill, he takes care of me.  If he’s ill, I take care of him.  It’s always been that way.

Interviewer:  This teamwork is strong.  I can see it in your home life.  I can see the fact that you’ve got your spirits up and it’s not easy.  We’re going to leave it there.  Is that okay?  We want the Jewish community of Franklin County, in the state of Ohio, to know that families deal with things that a lot of others aren’t aware of.  It’s a strength.  What can you add to that, Barry?

Barry:  If you’re a person like me who to get along needs help.   I do get help from an organization. The primary help comes from that.

Interviewer:  And that is your primary help?

Barry:  Oh yes.  I find that I’m not always easy to get along with.  I do a lot of apologizing.  You’ve got to learn to take the hard times with the good times.  You’ve got to rely on your partner.  Annette and I have been partners for 58 years so I think she’s a pretty good partner.  I’ll keep her.

Interviewer:  You’re both keeps for each other.  I think we’ve covered what we want to do for the Columbus Jewish Historical Society.  There are other families that have other situations which we are interviewing.  This is an honor for me to sit in your home, at your table and see the success and the love.  I know that Barry eats lunch with us on Thursdays at our old gentlemens’ retirement club, The Romeos, and he doesn’t like anyone to help, he’s independent.  He can handle his own self, even though I don’t like the way he eats chili con carne because I’m not supposed to have it and I watch him eating it and he likes it.  We’re going to stop here.  Again,

many, many thanks to the Turners, to Barry and Annette and to their family.   We just want to pick up a little more here before we finally close out the Turner conversation.  Barry just brought a beautiful picture of the Turner family and the Shusterman family and we’re going to talk about that in a little bit, okay?  This is in your back yard, Barry,

Annette:  This was our 50th wedding anniversary.

Interviewer:  What year was that now?

Barry:  The picture was taken in 2004.

Interviewer:  We’re pointing out the picture now.

Annette:   This is Barry’s mother.  Her name was Augusta Turner.  She was born in Russia.

Interviewer:  How old was she when the picture was taken in the back yard.

Barry:  Almost 100 years old.

Interviewer:  Almost 100 years old, beautiful, beautiful lady.  I’m going to tell you Barry.  You resemble your mother’s smile.

Annette:  Definitely.  This is our daughter, Tracey and this is her husband, Ethan Frankel. This is their oldest son, Aaron Frankel.  This is her youngest son, Max Frankel.  They’re wonderful children.

Interviewer:   These are your daughter’s sons,, your grandsons?

Annette:  Yes they are.  They’re wonderful young men.  They both have wonderful jobs.  This young man is an assistant to the governor of Connecticut.  His name is Aaron.

Barry:   Max Frankel the manager of a large apartment complex.

Interviewer:  This is your son and your grandson.  That’s Dan Turner who lives in Los Angeles.

Barry:  That’s our son Steve who lives in Columbus and these are his two children.  He resembles me.

Interviewer:  These are your grandchildren then?  We’re looking at some marvelous pictures and beautiful children.  Now the young lady is…..

Annette:   That’s Jessica Turner.  She graduated from Ohio University, Cum Laude.  This is Zack Turner.  Now we can go on.  This is my other half here.

Interviewer:  Barry looks good.  Barry you have your mother’s smile.  Look at that, what a resemblance.  Barry you’re a good-looking guy.  You still are.  This is a beautiful picture.  This is what you call “simcha.”  Thanks for sharing this.  We’re going to close now.

 

***Transcribed by Rose Luttinger***