Donald Worly
Interviewer: The date is November 1st, 2023. This is Bill Cohen from the Columbus Jewish Historical Society and I’m at the home of Donald Worly in Liberty Township, not far from Powell, Ohio and we’re going to interview him about his life and his experiences. Don, maybe we could start with your parents. Give us the names of your parents and where were they from?
Worly: My father grew up in Delaware, Ohio. He lived here and graduated from high school, local high school Delaware Willis. His name is Alvin Worly, and he had several businesses that he owned and operated for many years: Worly Plumbing Supply, Worly Steel and Supply Company which was also known as Worly Recycling, and my mother was Yetta Feingerts Worly.
Interviewer: Spell her, spell her maiden name.
Worly: F-e-i-n-g-e-r-t-s. She grew up in New Orleans, Louisiana, and she, at a very young age, she met my father, and she had an uncle in Columbus, and she used to come up to visit her aunt and uncle every so often and I think, probably when she was about seventeen, she met my father and they ended up marrying the next year, and they decided to live in Delaware, Ohio, at the time.
Interviewer: Now, they were both born in the United States.
Worly: Yes.
Interviewer: How about their parents? Do you know anything about them?
Worly: Yes. Both of my grandparents, grandfathers, actually, were from Kiev. We always thought it was Russia and Ukraine was Russia at the time. Jacob Worly was from Kiev. Actually, my grandfather on the maternal side, whose name was Jacob Feingerts, and Jacob Feingerts wasn’t from Kiev. It was one of the coastal cities in Ukraine, but I was also from Ukraine, so it’s ironic that even in Ohio I always thought of them as being from Russia. They’re actually from Ukraine and, I’m sure, they would be proud of what’s happening today. Ukraine asking for their independence, not asking but demanding that it continue, so…
Interviewer: Anything else about grandparents you can tell us?
Worly: Just that, I never knew my maternal grandfather. He passed away when I was about two years old. I think, he had seen me maybe once and that was about it. My maternal grandmother lived in New Orleans for many years. She had three children including my mother. My mother was the youngest child. Her two older children died untimely deaths. My uncle died in a plane crash when he was about 48. My aunt, Ella Feingerts, had ended up coming to Columbus. She met somebody from Columbus, actually from New Jersey, I think, but he, they ended up living in Columbus for many years, and actually from Delaware for many years, and she became ill with cancer and died in her early forties. So, but my Grandmother Feingerts lived until she was 95. My grandmother Worly, Sarah Worly, whose maiden name was Friedman, Sarah, she lived until she was 97, I believe, and both of my grandmothers ended up living at the Heritage House near the Jewish Center.
Interviewer: They lived there.
Worly: Towards the end. Yes.
Interviewer: You said your parents lived in Delaware, Ohio, and…
Worly: Yes, but right before I was born, they moved to Bexley.
Interviewer: Right when you were born.
Worly: The year, actually, almost a month before I was born, they moved to Bexley. They moved to North Merkle Road.
Interviewer: And the year that you were born was…?
Worly: 1951.
Interviewer: 1951. Do your parents, ever talk to you about what it was like to be Jewish living in Delaware, Ohio, not particularly known as a Jewish haven at that time? Did they tell you anything about that?
Worly: Several things. My grandfather, Jacob Worly, had a business, scrap metal business. It was catty-corner from St. Mary’s Church, and, at the time, the church still stands today.
Interviewer: This was in Delaware.
Worly: This was in Delaware. I’ve always heard the story that one of his best friends was Father O’Brien, who was the priest at the church, and they always had a wonderful relationship, got along really well. So, my, there was a fairly tight-knit Jewish community in Delaware. There were probably, my guess, at least a half a dozen Jewish people. There was a gentleman by the name of Harry Frank who I got to know over the years, who was a classmate of my father’s in school. The People’s Store, was a, kind of a general merchandise store. It was operated by a Vogel family, I believe, and also there was a Merel Kauffman, who I got to know later, and there were several other families that lived here. An interesting story, my wife and I moved to, we got married when we were very young, 1971. We were both 20 years old. Four years later we moved to Delaware. We lived in a beautiful neighborhood called Wesleyan Woods at the time, and we made really good friends with another Jewish family there, and the reason we got acquainted was because my wife had put out the Hanukah menorah and they knocked on the door and said, “Hello,” and so, we became very close through the years. Their names were the Schrams, Doug and Janis, and the kids knew each other pretty well, so, that was kind of neat. I don’t believe my father ever really, he never told me anything about feeling treated poorly because he was Jewish at all. The one thing that I noticed when we moved there, when we began raising our family with our children, is, I think, when our oldest child went to kindergarten, they had school pictures on Rosh Hashanah. Well, you know, it was unfortunate so he wasn’t included, but we notified the school and they were very kind and didn’t do that again, didn’t schedule it the same day. I had always felt very comfortable in Delaware. I was, I ran for City Council and was elected to City Council. We had a City Manager form of government, so, I was an at-large councilman. There were only three at-large councilmen, and one of the other at-large councilmen was also a Jewish woman, so, two of the three at-large government officials, and they were the only ones that were elected by the community, were Jewish, and later, I ended up serving as a, as mayor for two years while I was on City Council and, you know, never felt discriminated against or anything. Delaware was an open, open community and, you know, very comfortable.
Interviewer: This was in the 1980’s?
Worly: This was actually, I was elected mayor in 1981 and served until 1983, but I was elected to City Council in 1977, so…
Interviewer: That’s when at some point two out of the three at-large council members were Jewish.
Worly: Correct.
Interviewer: The, that issue never came up.
Worly: Right, and it never. No. Never. Never. You know, we were elected because, you know, for the same reason that candidates get elected, I guess, you know, the community was supportive of our candidacies, so that was it.
Interviewer: Let’s go back to the 40s just for a second and we’ll kind of try to go a little chronologically here. So, your parents living in Delaware, felt no discrimination and they felt, they liked the small community of Jews that were there. You mentioned a few. So, most of these Jews were in some way in business? Shop owners?
Worly: Um, yes. I believe so. My parents would have moved here, they were married in 1947 so it was probably 1947. My father had served in the Army during World War II, and, I believe, he was honorably discharged from the Army in 1946 and shortly, thereafter, he met my mother, as I indicated, who was from New Orleans. I think it was probably a little more difficult for my mother for several reasons. Number one, just the transition you can imagine just moving from New Orleans to a small community like Delaware, let alone the religions factor, you know. There was a big adjustment for her, plus the fact she was only 18 years old when she got married, so, she was really young, so, they had, my older brother. He was born here in Delaware. He was born here in 1948 at the local hospital, Grady Memorial. As I indicated, I was born later, just after my parents had moved to Columbus and I was born at Grant Hospital.
Interviewer: So, it was 1951, right after, right around the time you were born that they moved from Delaware, Ohio, to Bexley, and…
Worly: Right.
Interviewer: …you said North Merkle. What was the address?
Worly: Ninety, and my father had had the home built and it still stands today. We were lucky enough last year, so, to go through the home and it brought back a lot of really good memories, and still a lot of Jewish people living in the neighborhood.
Interviewer: Did he ever, did you ever talk with your dad or you mom about why they chose Bexley?
Worly: Well, I think the natural reason would be to, they were raising children and they wanted Jewish, the children to be raised in a Jewish community. I think that probably was it because, at the time, my father had a business in Delaware and he didn’t have a business in Columbus at all, even though later he did, but at that time he didn’t so, he made the sacrifice to move away because he knew, he felt it was important for his children to be raised with other Jewish children.
Interviewer: So, he, he commuted to Delaware virtually every work day from Bexley?
Worly: Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes, usually six days a week also, so…
Interviewer: And what are your memories of them? The 1950’s was when you were, was basically your childhood in Bexley. What are your memories there?
Worly: Wonderful neighborhood. I went to Maryland School. Maryland School was almost, was relatively new. I think it was built around 1950/51, so, wonderful school. We walked to school from North Merkle Road. We had a group in the neighborhood. We had a lot of Jewish families that lived in our neighborhood, so, you know, we walked together to school. We lived next door to the Massers, Mark Masser and his brother Roger and then also to the Topoloskys, Randy Topolosky and he had two sisters also, Sue and Joni, you know, and obviously we’re life-long friends with them, but uh, wonderful memories of the 1950’s going to Maryland School.
Interviewer: How did – Bexley was probably home to more Jews than any other neighborhood but Jews still were not a majority in Bexley – how did the Jews and non-Jews get-together in your elementary school years?
Worly: I, frankly, never really made any distinction. My friends were my friends. I had probably as many non-Jewish friends as Jewish friends and that was never an issue. I always was pretty active in sports and so, that was kind of a natural grouping of like-minded people. I will tell you to this day, I am still friendly with some of those people, particularly the people I later met when I went to high school in Bexley, but people that I played high school football with and just who were in our class. We typically try to meet, don’t always get it done, but we try to meet once a month or so for lunch or drinks or something like that. We all kind of feel like we’re 16 or 17 years old again, but big, big mixture of both Jewish and non-Jewish and I’ve never had an issue.
Interviewer: You were members of a synagogue.
Worly: We were members of Agudas Achim and that had been a family synagogue. My grandfather and grandmother who lived in Delaware, they still would come to Columbus to go to shul at Agudas Achim and I believe, they were in the old, the old, synagogue in the Donaldson Street or somewhere like that. I think they were. I’m not really certain but, remember, my father was born in 1924, so my grandparents were living in Delaware throughout all of that, so through the 1920’s, they would have visited, you know, come to Columbus for synagogue. One additional thing about my grandfather, Jacob Worly, was that he grew up as I indicated in Kiev, and he was drafted into the Russian army and this was probably just after the turn of the century, 1903,1905, somewhere in that vicinity. He didn’t want to serve in the Russian army. The story goes, although he never told me this, but the story goes, is that he shot himself in the foot so he would be able to get discharged from the army and later he emigrated to the United States. He ended up going to Lancaster and he had other family members in Lancaster, the Moeller Family. I believe, not exactly sure how they were related but they, both my grandfather and that family were in the scrap-metal business. My grandfather felt that Lancaster was too small of a town to support that, that much in that area of business and so, that’s why he ended up moving to Delaware. Why he chose Delaware, I’m not really certain. My grandfather died when I was 12 years old so he didn’t live to see my bar mitzvah, but he was a wonderful gentleman. The story about Jacob Worly is that he knew seven different languages, having grown up in Russia, and he self-taught everything. He didn’t, he taught himself how to type. He used to always, he would write speeches out when we had Passover seder and he and his wife, my grandmother, would host our Passover seder. He would actually read his typewritten greetings to everybody sitting down. He was a wonderful gentleman. I wish I had gotten to know my maternal grandfather but unfortunately, as I indicated, I was too young.
Interviewer: Did you ever learn why it was that the scrap-metal business had so many Jews?
Worly: And having been part of the scrap-metal business for over 30 years, I think I have some ideas. There was no Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, so if Jews tried to get jobs in factories, at least maybe throughout this area, maybe they couldn’t get jobs, so, they had to be entrepreneurs one way or the other, and it just so happened that the scrap-metal business was, while it was predominantly Jewish, you could, I remember I used to belong to a national organization and I could look up the scrap-metal business in Fargo, North Dakota, and it would be a guy named Cohen or something. I mean, you know, it was absolutely incredible. The only place, I believe, I think, in the Northeast was a little bit Italian spiced in with Jews, but I think almost all the scrap dealers in the Columbus area were Jewish.
Interviewer: This was in the days before we used the term “recycling.”
Worly: Right. Right.
Interviewer: It was basically recycling.
Worly: It was recycling, absolutely. Right. And so, I operated the business after I graduated from college in 1971, and operated the business until 2004 and at that time, I ended up, I had already, I had gone to law school at night, went to Capital University in the mid-1980’s, graduated in 1989. I was trying to practice law and run a scrap-metal business at the same time, and at the time, we had four children so, it was pretty difficult so, ended up selling the business. We still owned the property on which the business sat, so we leased the property to the buyers amongst others and so, that’s what we’ve done but I operated the business for 33 years.
Interviewer: And that is located in Delaware.
Worly: In Delaware. It’s still there at 65 London Road is where it is.
Interviewer: Now, the Worly name, many of us know the name associated with Worly Plumbing.
Worly: Right.
Interviewer: So, that was a totally separate business that your father ran.
Worly: Totally separate business that my father ran that business, right.
Interviewer: Tell us about that.
Worly: Well, I believe, in the scrap-metal business, I think, sometimes they would get items purchased in the scrap yard, that were as good as new in some cases, and so they would end up, I think, gradually at some point he decided to get involved in Worly Plumbing. It was a little bit before my time. I worked at Worly Plumbing as a youngster when I was 12 or so and throughout the high school, and then worked at the scrap yard also in Delaware, so, you know, I was involved with both businesses, but…
Interviewer: Now, where is, where was, where is Worly Plumbing located?
Worly: Worly Plumbing is operated by my brother Jay right now, and we still have a location in Delaware at 54 East Harrison Street. My brother now has a location off of 71 South in Columbus. I think he’s got one in Cincinnati and one in Chillicothe now, also.
Interviewer: So, that, that was your brother, Jay is your brother and that’s basically has been his full-time job.
Worly: Right. Right. Right. Right. Right, and we had two, several recycling locations in Columbus also. We were, just off of, near the airport, the Columbus Airport and we had kind of a satellite location there and then also one up on Sinclair Road off of Morse Road.
Interviewer: Let’s go back to your childhood somewhat. You said the Jews and the non-Jews got along well as far as you could tell.
Worly: Yes.
Interviewer: Now high school. I know, I don’t know if you can tell us anything about this. Some parents said to their children, their teen-age children, ‘Now you cannot date non-Jews.’ Did that issue ever come up?
Worly: My parents always told me that and I never really followed it. I dated whoever I happened to like so that was, it never affected me one way or the other.
Interviewer: You’re saying you disobeyed your parents.
Worly: I disobeyed my parents and they never really forbid me from doing it. They just told me that that’s what they wanted to do. It probably came more from my mother, but, so, but I, it never really affected me that much.
Interviewer: Did your mother ever explain why she took that stance?
Worly: Oh, I knew why, without her saying anything. You know, I know she wanted me to have someday have Jewish children and raise Jewish children and that was important and, you know, later there was a time in life when I had a girlfriend that I met after high school, in high school and then after high school who was from out of the area and, you know, I probably discontinued our relationship simply because I was afraid where it might lead and I did want to marry someone who was Jewish.
Interviewer: She was not Jewish.
Worly: She was not Jewish.
Interviewer: And you ended the relationship.
Worly: I ended the relationship because, right, right, but I met my lovely wife, Mindy. Mindy and I met in, of all places, Mindy’s from Dayton, Ohio, and we both attended school at Tulane in New Orleans and, Mindy actually went to the, at that, in those days it was called Sophie Newcomb. It was a girls, kind of a girls’ sister college of Tulane although we took a lot of classes together. It, basically, it felt like Tulane to me. Anyway, but we met there when we were freshman, and you know, ended up getting married when we were 20. We finished two years of college at Tulane. We were married so when we realized that we were going to have to pay tuition we decided that it might be a good idea to go back home and live in Columbus and go to Ohio State, so we both ended up finishing up at Ohio State.
Interviewer: And Mindy’s maiden name?
Worly: Barrar, B-a-r-r-a-r. Her father had a carpet business, a floor covering business in Dayton for many years and was a wonderful gentleman and her mother was from Springfield. Her mother just passed away, unfortunately at the age of 95, but they lived, mostly in Dayton throughout their lives.
Interviewer: So, this is story of Jewish merchants although you’ve gone beyond that to be a lawyer and also a government official…
Worly: Right.
Interviewer: …but the family history is a lot of Jewish merchants.
Worly: Right. Right.
Interviewer: Anything, you went to Agudas Achim. You were bar mitzvahed.
Worly: I was bar mitzvahed.
Interviewer: Any memories of that?
Worly: Just that they had, we had a wonderful teacher, a guy named Bernard Solomon, who, I don’t even know what his official position was. He was also a Hebrew School teacher, but he was my bar mitzvah instructor and I probably could have been bar mitzvahed when I was ten because I, you know, knew the, all of their prayers very well. We used to conduct what they called Junior Congregation downstairs in the basement at Agudas Achim on Saturdays and then, I think, we would go up to the main synagogue towards the end but we conducted our own services. We took out the Torahs, you know, and you know, just did the regular service and he instructed us and taught us how to do that. Another really big influence was my grandfather, Jacob Worly , because after shul on Saturdays, we would walk from the shul to his home. At the time then, they had moved to Bexley also when my parents did and they lived on North Roosevelt, so it was just a simple walk right across the, Broad Street.
Interviewer: So, you grew up in an Orthodox family, Orthodox synagogue…
Worly: …except it was considered an Orthodox synagogue but we never kept kosher. We weren’t really shomer Shabbos. I went to shul Saturday probably at least up until the bar mitzvah age but probably didn’t continue after that. As you know, and as most people in the community are aware, today Agudas Achim is really a Conservative synagogue. Even in those days, it wasn’t a strictly Orthodox synagogue, never really had a mechitza. They was a separate area where men would sit, where women would sit but then there was a big area where everybody would sit. So, you know, but wonderful. We had a rabbi who will always serve as my idea of what a rabbi should be, Rabbi Samuel Rubinstein, a wonderful gentleman, very learned. He was more than a rabbi. He was a teacher. He was a moral instructor and he was just wonderful. I was part of the old Minyanaires program at Agudas Achim as a child. My aunt, my Aunt Ella, my mother’s sister, also was very active in that program. She used to bring her family. At that time her family was living in Delaware and they would schlepp the kids and everybody to get to Minyanaires by 8:30 on Sunday morning, so, you know, it was a beautiful program and it helped to also give us a foundation in Judaism.
Interviewer: Back in the 60s, 70s, 50s, there used to be a lot of Jewish kids who, yes, they went to Sunday School, yes, they went to Hebrew School, but they really, they didn’t like it at all. It sounds like you were different. You, you, you found this enriching.
Worly: Well, I did and, you know, maybe I might have complained a lot at the time. When I was growing up, we went to Hebrew School. The Hebrew School was at the Columbus Jewish Center and there was a bus used to pick us up at our homes after school. We’d go home from school and a bus would pick us up and take us to the Jewish Center for Hebrew School. Mr. Solomon was one of the teachers as I explained. I remember the principal was a guy named Daniel Harrison. I don’t remember all of my other teachers but I went four days a week probably until my bar mitzvah year, so, you know, it was pretty intensive and, you know, I’m proud of my Hebrew Jewish background.
Interviewer: Any other memories of the Jewish Center?
Worly: Well, I kind of grew up in the Jewish Center, played basketball in the Jewish Center leagues and stuff. My children and grandchildren later did, so, that was kind of neat.
Interviewer: Was this back in the day when they had the bowling alley?
Worly: Yeah. I remember the bowling alley. I remember, specifically, I would bowl with a friend on Sundays and then my mom signed me up for some God-awful dance thing in the afternoon and I had to go to the dance thing but I would bowl with a friend of mine, actually, I think it was Bobby Levy, and we would bowl in the bowling alley.
Interviewer: Bobby…
Worly: Levy?
Interviewer: Bobby Levy.
Worly: Uh-huh, who grew up in Bexley, in Columbus. Anyway, but, then we’d have to go to this dance thing and I wasn’t really that interested in that. I was probably 5th or 6th grade, something like that.
Interviewer: Is this where they taught you to do the waltz and the box step and…
Worly: Right. I think so. Yeah, but it didn’t really, it didn’t really stick with me.
Interviewer: Did they teach the jitter-bug?
Worly: I don’t even remember. I really don’t.
Interviewer: You’re blotting out.
Worly: I really don’t. One of the things I specifically remember about Rabbi Rubinstein is in 1973, the Yom Kippur War began. We were in shul for Yom Kippur, and, of course, at that time there was no CNN. There was no 24-hour news cycle. The rabbi announced to us over the bima what had happened, and it’s one of the deepest, emotional experiences of my life, you know, realizing that the very existence of Israel was in danger. Since, I need to tell you we have four children and one of the things I remember doing with my children when they were little, is I would play with the kids in the bed. This was when we had our two oldest children, Kimberly and Brett, and we would always pretend that we were doing the Jerusalem Olympics, and they would, I would pretend that they were in a swim meet in the Jerusalem Olympics and they would get up. We’d stack the pillows and then they would dive into the bed and so, even then we were discussing Israel and the importance, and my thought behind the Jerusalem Olympics, I think I always used the year 1996, and I thought, by golly, by then there’s going to be peace in Israel and the world can gather in Jerusalem and we can celebrate peace together. So, it just so happens that one of those children has emigrated to Israel, lives in Israel now, lives in a small town called [Manof?] which is 30 miles from the Lebanese border. She’s a, her name’s Kimberly. She’s a law school graduate from Michigan Law School, undergrad Columbia, but she wanted to emigrate to Israel for many, many years. She’s met a boy in Israel, who’s a wonderful guy. My son-in-law’s just a wonderful guy and they have three beautiful children and they’re living there now. She’s a veteran of the IDF, and, obviously, he is, too, and he’s subject to being called up, you know, possibly. I don’t know if it’s going to happen, it hasn’t yet this time, although he has been called before.
Interviewer: And we’re talking just two weeks after the Hamas attack on Israel…
Worly: Right.
Interviewer: …and now there’s pretty full-scale war between Israel and Hamas.
Worly: Right. Right.
Interviewer: But your daughter is safe.
Worly: I think she feels safe. Again, she lives in the north, about 30 miles from the Lebanese border. The children’s school was cancelled in the beginning for several weeks but they’ve resumed school, so, their plan, they had thought about coming back to the States for a while and they had actually purchased tickets but they decided that, no, they needed to be there for their country, so, she has a job as a – they had lived in Pittsburgh for three years because my son-in-law did a post-doctorate in computer science at Carnegie-Mellon, so the kids are somewhat Americanized a little bit anyway. They certainly are prolific at speaking English and all that and they, you know, almost came back to the States but they’ve decided, at least, for now, not, not to do that.
Interviewer: And your daughter, is she an Israeli citizen and…?
Worly: Oh yeah.
Interviewer: …U.S.?
Worly: Yes, and so are the children. My son-in-law is not an American citizen but he’s an Israeli citizen. Yes, and they’re wonderful people. We have other children. We have Brett, is now 47 and he lives in Bexley. Brett is an ob-gyn. His wife, Tamar Gohr’s, parents were Israeli and they have four wonderful children. Should I name the children?
Interviewer: Sure.
Worly: Ari is fifteen. Matan is going to be twelve in just two weeks. We have Talia. Talia, I believe, is nine, and then we have Yael who is a little girl and she just turned five. And then we have another child, Todd, and Todd lives in Bexley with his daughter, Meira, M-e-i-r-a, and Meira is five. Todd is a, works, Todd’s got a law school degree from Case-Western Reserve but never wanted to practice law. Todd played college football for a small college, Division III, at the College of Wooster, never really got it out of his system so, he still works in the football industry. He’s a scout for the NFL Players Association and a scout for Canadian Football League [?]. And then our fourth child, our little one, Alissa, the little one, she’s 37. She’s a psychologist. She lives in Philadelphia with her husband Elliott Jared and they have two children and just found out she’s pregnant with her third, so, we’re going to have eleven grandchildren, hopefully God-willing sometime next spring.
Interviewer: So, your family, looking back two or three generations, has progressed from almost being drafted into the Czar’s army and then becoming merchants and now becoming in some cases professionals…
Worly: Right. Right. Right.
Interviewer: …and also some Israeli connections.
Worly: Right. Absolutely. Absolutely, and all of our grandchildren, up to now anyway, of the ten that I have, have some Jewish names, first names, so, that’s kind of interesting.
Interviewer: I forgot to ask. Do you yourself, do you know, do you have a Hebrew name?
Worly: I’m Dov. Dov. Dov, which means, I believe, it kind of means peace, a little bit, a little bit like shalom, but anyway, Dov Gedalia is my middle name.
Interviewer: We talked a little bit about the Jewish Center and activities you did there.
Worly: Oh, one additional thing I should tell you. We have, for probably the last 25 years or so, the Jewish Center has awarded High School Athletes of the Year and typically there’s a male Athlete of the Year and a female Athlete of the Year. We happened to have two of our children were named Athletes of the Year – Kimberly who attended Columbus Academy, graduated from Columbus Academy, played three sports in high school, and then our son Todd who played football and basketball, ended up graduating from Bexley also, so.
Interviewer: Now you, yourself, you said you were on the Bexley football team?
Worly: Yes. Yes. Yes.
Interviewer: What position?
Worly: I was offensive guard and linebacker and defensive end, and played most of the games for my last two, I played almost the entire game for my last two years in high school. Our coach was, we had two coaches, but my last two years in high school the coach was Jim Click. My chemistry teacher was Carlton Smith who they named the stadium after, and he was a wonderful gentleman. He was a great guy and feel myself privileged to have been able to know him, but, I enjoyed my football experiences, would have played for Ohio state except that I never got a call from Woody Hayes, so, if I had, it wouldn’t have taken any persuasion at all. I would have done that, but I obviously wasn’t talented enough to do that.
Interviewer: We talked about your high school years, how about college? What are your, any Jewish memories that…
Worly: Well, we went to Tulane the first two years and we had pretty good memories. There’s a substantial Jewish community at Tulane and so that worked out well, and the last two years when we went to Ohio State, my wife and I were married and we lived off campus, so, even though we went to campus every day, we didn’t live on campus so, it was a little bit less of that college experience. We certainly enjoyed the sports, the basketball and football, that particularly at that time but…
Interviewer: Now, Tulane,
Worly: Yes.
Interviewer: is in the South.
Worly: New Orleans. That’s right. Yes.
Interviewer: That’s about as far south as you can get…
Worly: Yes.
Interviewer: …and you were there in the 70s.
Worly: We were there, started in 1969, Fall of 1969.
Interviewer: Did you ever experience any, any anti-Semitism?
Worly: No, I heard one of the athletes made a sarcastic comment about being a Jew-lane instead of Tulane and that didn’t go over very well with me. I actually was going to go out for football my freshman year in the Spring. I had decided to do it and I was lifting weights and getting bigger and stronger and was raring to go and then kind of a freak accident. I broke a bone in my hand, couldn’t lift weights for several months and just gradually kind of lost, lost interest at that time, but it was a great experience at Tulane. I enjoyed it very much and loved the academics and also enjoyed Ohio State when we came back home.
Interviewer: Now you got married what year?
Worly: 1971.
Interviewer: You were married in ’71 and is, did you move at some point then after college, did you move to Delaware? That’s when you moved to Delaware?
Worly: We moved to Delaware. We lived in Bexley for about three years and then in 1974, we moved to Delaware.
Interviewer: And you moved, now earlier your family had moved from Delaware to Bexley because of the Jewish atmosphere…
Worly: Right
Interviewer: …fellow students and so forth. You, kind of as an adult, started in Bexley but moved up to Delaware, for business reasons, or…
Worly: For business reasons. I felt like if I operated my business in Delaware that that’s where I should be, and I did that and we probably would have stayed except for the fact in 1985, and at the time I was still on City Council, but, in Delaware, but I decided that I wanted to go to law school and the law school was in, near Bexley. It was in Columbus on South Front Street at the time. It was Capital University, and Mindy, my wife Mindy, thought she was going to be working downtown Columbus and she was attending Ohio State Law School, so, we decided in 1985, that it was best to move to Bexley at that time, and that’s when we made the decision and we lived in Bexley and raised our children for the most part. The children, the two older children, began school in Delaware Schools and, but we ended up moving before the other children went to school.
Interviewer: So, then you were back in Bexley…
Worly: Back in Bexley.
Interviewer: …for your children’s childhood.
Worly: Right.
Interviewer: And where was that?
Worly: They went to, began at Maryland Avenue School, which is where I had gone to school, and had a wonderful time and did very well. Then, gradually, my wife wanted the kids to get a little better education, so we sent some of the kids, we began sending some of the kids to Columbus Academy and the two older children ended up graduating. Todd decided to transfer back to Bexley in after his sophomore year in high school. They had fired the football coach at Columbus Academy, who he really loved a lot, and he decided that, you know, and some of his other friends had transferred out of Columbus Academy, so he finished his last two years at Bexley and Alissa followed and graduated from Bexley. Alissa was captain of her field hockey team in high school, captain of her swim team and also ran track. Todd played football and basketball. Kim, as I indicated, she was, she played, at Columbus Academy, she played on the State Championship field hockey team. She also ran track, qualified for the State of Ohio Track Tournament and also played basketball. She was captain of her basketball team, captain of, I believe, track and basketball in high school.
Interviewer: Now, decades ago, decades ago, correct me if I’m wrong, I’m pretty sure, Academy, and Columbus School for Girls probably, didn’t have Jews as students, but at some point, barriers dropped…
Worly: Well, actually…
Interviewer: …and sounds like your children had a wonderful experience.
Worly: They had a really good experience at Columbus Academy, and actually, I had a friend, a good friend of mine, a Jewish friend of mine went to Columbus Academy and this would have been through the 60s, Mike Frank. Mike Frank has since moved away. I think Mike lives in Wilmington, North Carolina today, but I know his father was in the menswear business. Marvin’s Menswear. Perhaps a lot of people would remember that. I think he had campus clothing stores throughout the Midwest at the time, but, so, Mike, Mike went there in high school, so I don’t, I never heard of anything anti-Semitic at Columbus Academy.
Interviewer: So, you and your family, during your children’s childhood, you were in Bexley and at what point then, now we’re here, close to Powell, how long have you been here?
Worly: Well, what happened was, is I’ve always maintained my office in Delaware, and I had mixed feelings about moving from Delaware because I love Delaware and I always have, and so, when all of our children were grown and moved out of the home, you know, my wife, I think, decided it was time to find a new home. Instead of, like most people do when their children grow up, they usually get a little smaller home and all of that stuff, my wife decided that we need a bigger home because we need to have enough bedrooms for when the kids come home to visit with their families, they have, they feel like they have some privacy and they can stay at our house and so that’s what we did and we found this home in Powell and we’ve lived here, I believe, since 2009, so, fourteen years now. It’s a wonderful neighborhood. We’re the only Jewish family here that I’m aware of but there’s some minorities, particularly some Asian families here. There’s a Black family lives right across the street from us, but next door we have neighbors believe it or not from the Republic of China, well, actually just China, not even Republic of China, I think, is Taiwan, isn’t it?
Interviewer: But you’re saying your neighbors are from Mainland China.
Worly: Mainland China, and they live right next door, so that’s kind of neat, so we have somewhat of a diverse neighborhood.
Interviewer: So, in your childhood, you lived in Bexley, and you knew that almost all the Jews in the Columbus area lived in Bexley…
Worly: Right.
Interviewer: …or Berwick or Eastmoor..
Worly: Right.
Interviewer: …and over the decades, Jews have started to move out into many other areas and your presence here near Powell, is probably as far away as you can get geographically from Bexley. Maybe New Albany is also far. What are your thoughts about the dispersal somewhat of Jews.
Worly: Well, I think it’s nice that Jews feel comfortable that they can live where they want. One thing I probably should mention. When we were living in Delaware, and our oldest child, it became time for him to go to Hebrew School, we actually drove him down to Beth Tikvah and, even though we weren’t members there, they had a Hebrew School there so, we made that effort and that’s when he began his Jewish education. I think we did that probably for a couple years, but, you know, everybody has to decide for themselves as to what they, you know, how they’re comfortable, and, but it’s, it’s great that Jews have the opportunities. Being, it was interesting, when we bought our first house in Bexley, in 1985, there was still a restrictive covenant on our deed, that I don’t believe restricted Jewish people from owning but did restrict Black people and we asked our attorney, who was a wonderful gentleman, a friend of mine from high school. I had not yet gone to law school or I think I had just started, but he handled the closing for us. The name was Ralph Pariser who, I’m sure, many in the community would remember very fondly, but, you know, Ralph explained to me there’s this restrictive covenant there and no longer has any effect at all since the Civil Rights Act was passed, and, but I was amazed to see that there, so.
Interviewer: But your story is one that shows that you can be observant in your Judaism. You can be proud of your Judaism, and you, and you don’t need to necessarily live in Bexley, Eastmoor and Berwick. You can live now anywhere.
Worly: Right. You probably noticed, I kind of heard when you rang the doorbell, we have a flag out front…
Interviewer: Israeli flag.
Worly: …in honor of the country of Israel, right. Yes, and you know, I’m certainly not, I’m very proud to have that flag there.
Interviewer: Anything else that you want to tell people about your life, especially with Jewish links, anything that’s important for people to know?
Worly: Not necessarily. Been a life-long runner. Still running and so, enjoyed doing that for many years, but, as far as Jewish links, we’re proud our son, one of our sons lives in Bexley, shomer Shabbos and he and his four children walk to shul Saturday mornings from their home in Bexley and they keep kosher within their home. Not all of our children do. Probably one of my least religious children is my daughter who lives in Israel, but they celebrate Jewish holidays along with everybody else in the country but they hardly ever go to formal synagogue services at all and I don’t think they have a membership at any of the synagogues, but they have, I believe, where they live in their community [Manof?] they have a small little place where the neighborhood gathers to pray but I don’t know that they ever really attend that much. Kids, her kids are very bilingual and, you know, it’s great.
Interviewer: Are you optimistic as you look to the future about the Columbus Jewish community?
Worly: The Columbus Jewish community is wonderful. It’s interesting that it’s much smaller than Cleveland’s Jewish community and, you know, I realize that, and in some ways, I do have concerns. I know that, as just as an example, Jewish community has been in Columbus for probably several hundred years, at least, and even today, there’s roughly 20,000 or so, I think, that live in the metro area, something like that. Well, there’s about 60,000 Somalis that live in the Columbus area and I don’t think most, and I don’t think most people even realize that, but, you know, that’s the way it is, so the demographics are shifting and hopefully it will continue to be a welcoming place. It certainly looks that way now and I’m very happy to be around, you know, in the Columbus area.
Interviewer: As we conclude our interview, would you have any, any words of wisdom for the younger generations of Jews here in Columbus?
Worly: Just, you know, hold your children near and dear. They grow up much too fast. Sometimes you think they’ll always be little, but you can trust me, they aren’t, you know and you know, teach them the values that you’re comfortable with, Jewish values but also human values, and they’ll carry that on and, as I indicated, we have 10 grandchildren now and 11, and each one’s a wonderful story in himself and wonderful children, and they’re going to grow up to be wonderful adults and then they’re going to perpetuate, you know, our Jewish community whether it’s local or throughout the world.
Interviewer: Okay, well with those words, we’ll end our interview here with Don Worly on November 1st, 2023 and I’m Bill Cohen for the Columbus Jewish Historical Society.
Transcribed by Linda Kalette Schottenstein 1-8-2024