Louis Goorey
This interview for the Columbus Jewish Historical Society is being recorded on October 21st, 2015 as part of the Columbus Jewish Historical Society Oral History Project. The interview is being recorded at the home of Louis Goorey, 3375 Tremont Road, Unit 205, Upper Arlington, Ohio, 43221.
INTERVIEWER: My name is Jason Crabill and I am interviewing Dr. Louis Goorey. Alright, Dr. Goorey, can you say and spell your full name for the record?
GOOREY: Sure, my name is Louis Joseph Roseberry Goorey. Louis L-o-u-i-s Joseph J-o-s-e-p-h Roseberry R-o-s-e-b-e-r-r-y Goorey G-o-o-r-e-y.
INTERVIEWER: And Dr. Goorey, what do your friends call you?
GOOREY: Lou.
INTERVIEWER: Very good and do you have a Hebrew name?
GOOREY: I’m pretty sure I do and I think it’s Laban.
INTERVIEWER: Ok, alright.
GOOREY: I’m not a hundred percent sure of that but I think it is.
INTERVIEWER: Very good and who were you named for?
GOOREY: I was named for my two grandfathers. My mother’s father was Louis Goldfischer and he spelled it G-o-l-d-f-i-s-c-h-e-r. My mother then shortened it to Fisher and dropped the “c”. So, Louis Goldfischer was her father and I never knew him. He died before I was born. My father’s father, my paternal grandfather was Joseph Roseberry so I was named Louis Joseph Roseberry when I was born. They called me “Louie Joe,” or my grandfather called me “Louie Joe” and my dad didn’t like that so I got the nickname “L J” which I never liked but when I got old enough to complain about it I became Lou.
INTERVIEWER: Okay and so who were your mother and father? We were talking earlier and it’s a little complicated but…
GOOREY: Well, my mother was Estelle Fisher and she was born in New York. I know in her history she says 1900 but I happen to be a member of the Sons of the American Revolution through my father and in looking back in the history I understand they did a very complete job of doing the census in 1900 because that was a key year and my mother was one of, there were five girls and then three boys and her two older sisters were born either in Austria or Hungary whichever was more politically correct when she was talking about it and in the 1900 Census in New York City there was a Fischer or Goldfischer and as I said parents often lied about their own ages but they never lied about their children’s ages, so there was a Yetta who was born in Austria and she had an, her older sister was Henrietta so we figured that was Yetta. She had a sister that she came to Columbus to live with, Augusta, and she was also born in Austria and then there was Esther and Esther was born in 1896 so we figured that was, she changed it to Estelle and the reason she chose 1900, she needed a passport one time and she wrote to New York City to get a passport and she didn’t like the one so she just liked 1900 as an even year. The other thing that was significant about that, my father Newman Winget – W-i-n-g-e-t, Roseberry – was born in 1904 so only being four years older than he was wasn’t as bad as being eight years older, I think. I don’t know. I ‘m being a little tongue in cheek but anyway my father Newman Winget Roseberry was born, I believe, in Madison County. He lived in Rosedale, Ohio, went to Ohio State University, got a degree as a teacher but he grew up being a farmer and he did a lot of farming also, my father died when I was – I don’t know how much to ramble on here, but my father died when I was seven and then a couple years later my mother remarried and she married Albert Samuel Goorey. He was originally from Russia or from the Ukraine, Baku, Russia. His name was actually Gurovitch and he came to Canada, worked for the Marconi Company. I think he came to the United States in about, err…came to Canada in about 1917. He got a degree in engineering from I believe it was the University of Manitoba, and, but he worked as a linotypist, especially during the Depression. He ended up in Charleston, West Virginia and West Virginians didn’t care much for Gurovitches so he shortened his name to Goorey and so that’s how it became Goorey. He had several brothers. One of them… and by the way, Gurovitch I think was the Russian translation for Horowitz which is maybe the German city from which they came. That’s about all I know of him. He had a brother who lived in New York City, actually, in Brooklyn in Bensonhurst who was the, either, I think, the publisher of the Jewish newspaper there in Brooklyn and he had another brother who was a violinist and played in the Toronto Symphony. During World War II, my stepfather worked at Curtiss-Wright using his engineering degree, but for the most part he worked for the [E&R/E-R?] Printing Company setting type. He was very active in a typographical union and then fighting the Taft Hartley Law.
My mother, when she came to Columbus, her mother died and there were, her two older sisters were married. Actually she always maintained she was the youngest of five girls but we think she was really the third of five girls, so there were anyway five girls and then three boys so, she came to Columbus where [Gus?] had married Abe Nassau and she did some secretarial work and then they started the Nassau Beauty Salon and she managed that and actually might say in her history but helped found the, what’s the group that does…uh, the hairdresser…one of the other beauticians, anyway, she helped found that board in the mid-thirties.
INTERVIEWER: And she moved to Ohio in 1915? Is that correct?
GOOREY: Well, I don’t know, around then.
INTERVIEWER: From New York.
GOOREY: From New York City, yes.
INTERVIEWER: And you mentioned that your father died when you were seven.
GOOREY: Right. He died in 1940, June 21st. He was born July 17th, Nineteen Four, and died June 21st, 1940.
INTERVIEWER: Okay. My next question was going to be when were you born?
GOOREY: I was born September 29th, 1932. The Nassaus had moved to Minneapolis – St Paul and they were married up there either ‘30 or ’31, so anyway….
INTERVIEWER: And so, you were born in Columbus?
GOOREY: Grant Hospital, Columbus, Ohio, delivered by Dr. B.W – Benjamin W. Abramson.
INTERVIEWER: Okay, and how many brothers and sisters do you have?
GOOREY: I have one sister, Lynn Ruth, that was named for my mother’s mother. Her name was Lana Rayzel, Lynn Ruth, and then Albert had four boys. Three of them were older and did not live with us but the youngest was my age and did live with us for several years until he joined the army when he was about seventeen.
INTERVIEWER: And did they live in Columbus? Did they stay in Columbus?
GOOREY: No, my sister lives in California and actually, I don’t think, I’m not sure any of the boys are still alive. I saw Eugene. He came through here about four or five years ago and he lived in the Los Angeles area.
INTERVIEWER: And your sister – is she older sister or younger sister?
GOOREY: She is six years younger than I.
INTERVIEWER: What was it like growing up with her? Did you get along?
GOOREY: Well, she was only like seventeen eighteen months old when our father died so I was sort of her father even though I was seven or eight but my mother still had that beauty salon and worked so we had a couple who worked for us. The lady did the housecleaning and did a lot of the cooking and the man helped on the farm but he was an alcoholic and one of the stories I like to tell is when my father died he took me aside and said, “Well we’re the men around her now,” and I knew we were in deep doo doo because, because he was not very reliable. I knew that at seven and anyway…
INTERVIEWER: So, your mother worked.
GOOREY: Yes.
INTERVIEWER: Was that unusual?
GOOREY: Oh, I think it was very unusual.
INTERVIEWER: So, what was that like growing up because it sounds like both your mother and father and stepfather were working when you were growing up?
GOOREY: Well, neither my father nor my… my stepfather died in I’m trying to remember, 1953 maybe, and neither of them had insurance so, it was a good thing she did work. My stepfather being of European mentality was not happy that she worked so she did get out of the beauty shop business she had opened. After we were married we moved to the east side and she had a beauty shop near Kelton and Livingston and anyway she had to go back to work after Albert died and she ended up going in to life insurance and she always told the stories about how her husbands had died and she had to raise essentially two children and that was a challenge, but she did it, so, how was it growing up? Well, we had someone who was working at the house. It wasn’t always a couple. Sometimes it was just a lady who did the cooking and cleaning and washing and ironing.
INTERVIEWER: You said this. I didn’t hear. When did your stepfather pass away?
GOOREY: I think it was in 1953. I graduated from high school in 1950, went to summer school so got through pre-med in three years and I know that he knew that I was accepted o medical school but he was not alive when I went to medical school which was I started in ’53.
INTERVIEWER: We’ll go back to med school here in a little bit. Was… did you grow up in a Jewish household?
GOOREY: My, my mother sang. My mother had a gorgeous voice and she sang in a lot of choirs around town. She had met my father through… and then in order to be active singing she sang in a lot of churches and Jewish choirs. She sang in the King Avenue Methodist Church choir where my father’s older sister sang and that’s how she met him. She always said she went into labor over the High Holy Days with me ‘cause it was September 29th, 1932. I don’t know how the Jewish holidays fell then but that’s when she went into labor. We were not particularly religious. An interesting, I think, an interesting story and one of the things which really set the tone for my Jewish life was my stepfather wanted to honor the fact that my father was not Jewish and he had a friend he worked with at [E&R/E-R?] Printing Company who was a member of the Hope Lutheran Church on East Livingston Avenue so, he thought that we ought to go to Sunday School there. Both his son and I, we went there and had parts in the Christmas play and you know, did all that. His friend was my Sunday School teacher and one Sunday morning his friend said, “I only ever knew one Jewish person in my life who wasn’t lazy and that was someone I was in the Navy with.” So, I went home and told my stepfather, “I don’t think he’s a very good friend of yours and I don’t want to go back there.” So, from then I went to Temple Israel where I was confirmed and I tried to take Hebrew. I didn’t really do a very good job, but my Confirmation thing, I memorized the Ten Commandments in Hebrew. I don’t know how. It was Gibberish/Jibberish, you know, right.
INTERVIEWER: Thank you for sharing that. So, as you went, I don’t know that you said when, so, when, how old were you when you…?
GOOREY: When this happened? Probably around nine.
INTERVIEWER: …when you went to Temple Israel?
GOOREY: Right.
INTERVIEWER: And, so, did you do religious education through high school or did it end? Did you have a bar mitzvah?
GOOREY: I didn’t have they didn’t do bar mitzvah there. We had Confirmations. What were we, fifteen maybe? We had two interim rabbis that year that I was confirmed but Rabbi Folkman came the next year. His oldest son Judah and I were in the same year in school. We didn’t go to the same schools but we were the same age and he had a high school class that I think went for two or three more years and I did that. What a great man, just fabulous. Did you know him?
INTERVIEWER: I did not know him. My mother did.
GOOREY: Your mother knew him, yeah. These kids used to, I’ve got here, listening here, my two daughters are Susan Petrak and Sharon Starr and I think, at least Sharon, you said when he’d come in you thought it was G-d entering.
Sharon: Yeah, they used to play G-d is in his Holy Temple so as a child we would sing G-d is in His Holy Temple and down they would walk down the aisle so I knew that was G-d.
INTERVIEWER: Makes sense.
Sharon: It made perfect sense and I think somebody filled me in correctly when I was what, twenty five/thirty?
GOOREY: Well, he was great. Bessie, his wife was, they were a great couple.
INTERVIEWER: Do you have any memories that are actually with them that come to mind?
GOOREY: Well, when we had our high school graduation, he, there were, I don’t remember how many was in the high school but anyway, he said I’m going to give you, each of you individually a special blessing and it’s private just for you and I don’t know that I really ever shared it but he put his hands on our heads and his particular blessing for me was “Know thyself” and “Unto thine own self be true.” You know, he talked about everything in high school. He talked about dating and marriage and said “A man’s courting area is the distance he can travel after dinner,” and he talked about “When you get married make sure you don’t have any health problems because you’re going to have enough problems in the first year so you don’t want to have to deal with it.” He just gave all kind of advice like that. You [probably know he went on to get a PhD in sociology. His son went to pre-med. Judah went to pre-med at Ohio State. I don’t know if you have any history on him but what a brilliant, brilliant guy. They were, Judah and a fella by the name of Sanford Hepps whose parents owned Hepps Delicatessen, when they were sophomores in high school, at Bexley High School, had a science project of keeping a rat heart alive for a several days, very bright, very bright guy. I don’t know how much you know about him. That’s another whole story.
INTERVIEWER: So, I want to look back. We’ve sort of worked our way in to high school and I wanted to make sure that we talk about your secular school, your secular education growing up because you mentioned before the recording the University School and I’m interested to know what role that played in your life, how you ended up going, what the University School was, how you ended up going and what it meant to you.
GOOREY: The University School started in about 1932 I think, about the year I was born. The reason that I went there…we lived at the time, it was a farm. It was a twenty-three acre farm on Wilson Road. It’s now the exchange for Interstate 70 and Wilson Road but that’s where we lived and there were rural schools there and my father being in education knew about University School and wanted me to go there. So, I went there the first three years and then he died and we moved into the city and it wasn’t expensive, probably $25 a quarter if that much, but anyway, we really couldn’t afford that at the time so, in the fourth grade I went to Fairwood Elementary and interesting, another interesting sideline with University School, the rabbi at Hillel Foundation at the time was Rabbi Levenger and his son had gone and they were good friends with my mother, as I said my mother sang in the choir there and they were friends with both my parents, his son joined the, was it the Lincoln Brigade during the Spanish Civil War and went to Spain and was killed in Spain in the Spanish Civil War. That was Rabbi Levenger’s son… and then we went to Fairwood Avenue Elementary School. My mother was very active in PTA and all the plays and everything they did, but she wanted me to, well, she wanted me to go to medical school which is why I went to medical school, but not to get ahead of it, she had me try out for the Columbus Boychoir School and I got accepted to that and I went there for sixth, seventh, eighth, and ninth grades. We traveled. It was a school. We traveled around Ohio a lot, somewhat around the country. ‘Course it was during the War and there was gas rationing. We did some radio shows, we sang at the…we were sponsored by the Broad Street Presbyterian Church and at that time Herbert Huffman was the director and conductor of the choir at Broad Street Presbyterian Church. He was the conductor of the Columbus Boychoir School. His wife Mary played the organ there but he also directed the choir and his wife Mary played the organ at the Bryden Road Temple.
INTERVIEWER: So that is a pretty unorthodox education growing up.
GOOREY: I guess. Right. Right.
INTERVIEWER: We’ve got a lot more to cover but I’m interested do you feel that had an impact on your life as an adult as you sort of went through?
GOOREY: Well, the Columbus Boychoir School gave us sort of a self -confidence that I don’t know we would have had. I suppose everybody has something that gives them that but that was very instrumental. I don’t know what much more to say about it. Well, I will say we had a summer camp at Lake Chautauqua in New York and enjoyed that. In fact Nancy and I, my wife who just recently passed, we went back there several time by ourselves or with Harvey and Jane Minton. Harvey Minton and his brother John were about two years behind me at both Columbus Boychoir School and University School and we’ve been friends a long time. We would go back. One of the very touching moments was in 1945, we’d go up there about six weeks, the last two weeks of July or most of July and then August but in 1945 they kept us an extra couple days because it was V-J Day and they have an eight thousand seat amphitheater at Chautauqua and we were there when the Chautauqua Symphony, the New York whatever Military Unit was there and then our Columbus Boychoir participating in the VJ Day Celebration.
INTERVIEWER: I’ve been in that amphitheater at the Chautauqua Institute.
GOOREY: Have you?
INTERVIEWER: It’s amazing.
GOOREY: Right.
INTERVIEWER: I can only imagine what it must have been like to sing on that stage. Incredible. So, you were in High School, no you were in Middle School during the War?
GOOREY: Right, pretty much. Right.
INTERVIEWER: And then you said you graduated in 1953.
GOOREY: Yeah, I wanted…I graduated high school in 1950. I, when it came time to live on the east side, and we didn’t live in Bexley, we were on the literally, on the wrong side of the tracks from Bexley. We were on Oak Street and my mother kind of wanted me to go to Columbus Academy and I said, “You know I I’ve been to an all-boys school now for four years and I’d like to go where there’s some girls and find out what they’re all about.” So, that’s when I went back to University School. That was kind of fun, too, because all the, a lot of the students who were there had known me as Louis Roseberry and when I went back as Louis Goorey they had no idea I was the same person.
INTERVIEWER: Interesting.
S: When did you, you accelerated a few years in school…?
GOOREY: Well, I gained a half a year at Fairwood, but then I went back so I actually, but being born in September I started early so I got out of high school when I was seventeen.
INTERVIEWER: And then from University High School you went to Ohio State? Is that correct?
GOOREY: I went to Ohio State University pre-med and then medical school.
INTERVIEWER: So, it was, you knew from an early age you were going to go to medical school.
GOOREY: Oh, no, no I didn’t know. I mean, I had a lot of different things I thought I might do. I wanted, actually, at one time thought I wanted to be a veterinarian because growing up on a farm you know, the animals were sick and that looked like a nice profession. I thought I wanted to be something to do with journalism, but I tell people I went to medical school because my mother wanted me to and there’s a good friend of ours, I mentioned George Paulson to you. He’s a neurologist. He’s a head of neurology at…he had a professor at Yale who said, “Just because your mother wants you to go to medical there’s no reason not to,” so I guess that helped her, I guess.
INTERVIEWER: So, it was preordained in her mind perhaps.
GOOREY: Right. By the way, none of the things, we had a meeting I think, it was last summer where Toby {Brierf} had several of the physicians there and we talked about a you know, how do we feel being Jewish and in a medical school. They did have a quota. They did have a quota and my mother… there was a doctor EJ Gordon who was an internist, I believe, and on the faculty at Ohio State and in private practice, but I know she talked to him about giving me a recommendation and I think he, I don’t know what he said or what he did, but obviously I did get in to medical school.
INTERVIEWER: So, my question was going to be about being Jewish at Ohio State in the Fifties. What did…was it ever an issue? Did it feel…did you…?
GOOREY: You know, I don’t know that it did. As I said, whoever the admissions office was, we heard there was this quota but I don’t think I felt that from the other students. It was interesting though, they put me at a cadaver table and all four of us were Jewish – Doc Klein, Leonard Katz, Ted Goldfarb and myself.
S: The quota being they would only accept so many not that they wanted to accept so many.
GOOREY: That’s true.
INTERVIEWER: It’s good to clarify. Very interesting. So, in your undergrad experience at Ohio State, was it ever…were you a part, did you engage in the Jewish community at Ohio State in the Fifties? Was it ever…?
GOOREY: Well, I was a member of Tau Epsilon Phi fraternity which was a Jewish fraternity but when you’re in pre-med, you’re studying and I had a couple extra jobs. I was trying to work in the agronomy lab. I think the only time that I really felt that people made me uncomfortable and didn’t like Jewish people was…first of all I mentioned this Hope Lutheran Church experience which was traumatic and then in the Columbus Boychoir School, we had, there were not many Jewish boys in that school and being affiliated with the Broad Street Presbyterian Church, I don’t want to say that the Presbyterians were prejudiced because they certainly were not although when you read the Easter story it was “the Jews killed Christ,” but a lot of the students would make the comments not knowing that I was Jewish and again, you probably, I hope you feel this was, one of the big things for the State of Israel, is everybody says “how can the Jews just do nothing, Hitler and they’re being killed and they’re not fighting…” By the way Albert Goorey was very active in raising funds before the State of Israel was formed and it supposedly was for medical supplies but I heard a lot about the Irgun and the Stern Gang if you know what they were, so that was, 1945,6,7, in there.
INTERVIEWER: Sure, so, let me ask a different way because I think I asked did you have any issues with being Jewish. Was being Jewish, was that part of your experience, I mean in the schools you were talking about how there weren’t many Jews, but in growing up and going to school and then in college, was it a part of your identity. I mean, did you feel, was it a part of who you were, was it an active part of who you were?
GOOREY: Well, I think it was. You know, I thought, it’s kind of difficult to put it this way but I think that I wanted to defend being Jewish because there were several people, not specific individuals but people were sort of accusatory about, oh well, you’re Jewish and that’s not, you’re not a first class citizen or whatever.
INTERVIEWER: I mean, you graduated from high school and went to college at a pretty important time for Jews, the [?] world in America and the founding of Israel in 1948, did all of that happening in the world, did that…
GOOREY: Well, I think, with the State of Israel, nobody expected Israel to be able to survive, especially, I know that my stepfather hated the British. They were sort of…the bad people were there. They thought that when the British pulled out the Jews would all be pushed in to the sea. That was a very prideful moment because they got their state.
S: You talked about being active with, you were involved with Tau Epsilon. What did they do? What kind of activities did you do?
GOOREY: It was mostly social. I did not live there. I mean, they would have liked to have people live there, but again, living in town is a lot less expensive than living in a fraternity house. We have, You mentioned you are affiliated with Temple Israel. There are several members of Tau Epsilon Phi, I don’t know if you know that, at Temple Israel – Marv Goldman,is that right? the optometrist,
S: I should know this. It’s not Goldman it’s…Green?…go ahead.
GOOREY: Bernie Speyer, in fact, Bernie Speyer was my Big Brother in Tau Eplison Phi. Sol Shaman who was very active in Temple Israel was the one who got me in to Tau Eplison Phi.
INTERVIEWER: These are all contemporaries of yours?
GOOREY: Well, Sol Shaman (sp?) was older. He would have been old enough to be my father. He had a daughter who was about my sister’s age.
INTERVIEWER: So, you graduated from pre-med, when did you graduate from pre-med?
GOOREY: Well, I went to summer school. I finished high school in 1950, started at Ohio State in the fall of 1950. One of the exciting things that year was the Snow Bowl, and went to summer school, so, in eleven quarters I had my degree and I applied to medical school, and got accepted to medical school in 1953. I graduated from there in 1957 and interned at Mt. Carmel Hospital, did a residency at Columbus Children’s Hospital which is now Nationwide Insurance Hospital, started in practice in 1960 in the north end of Columbus.
S: When did you meet Mom?
GOOREY: I met…I think Bernie Speyer set us up on a blind date. It was a New Year’s Eve. She was a sophomore I think at Bexley High School. Two years younger than I.
INTERVIEWER: You met when you were in high school?
GOOREY: No, she was in high school. I was in pre-med.
INTERVIEWER: Okay.
S: So, she would have been a junior.
GOOREY: Okay.
INTERVIEWER: And there’s sort of a couple things going here on in your life. One, you’re going through med school. When did you get married?
GOOREY: 1954.
INTERVIEWER: So, that’s right after you graduated…
GOOREY: My second year in medical school.
INTERVIEWER: Alright, and then after you graduated, you were living in Columbus after you graduated medical school. You did your residency and you lived… where did you liv e in Columbus?
GOOREY: For a while we lived at one of those apartments…
S: The Beverly Manor.
GOOREY: The Beverly Manor Apartments.
S: They tore those down now.
GOOREY: Did they? But then we bought a house from Ernest Fritsche at the corner of Zettler and Kirkwood and if you painted the house yourself, it wouldn’t cost as much so we did some finishing things around the house. That’s where we lived while I was a resident and at that time I was also the school physician, well, after I graduated from my residency I was a school physician at University School. I had both of these girls registered there. Susie actually went there for three years but when it was time for her to go to school they had decided they were going to close it and that’s another story, but that’s why we moved to Worthington because they had a great school system and because it was a very ecumenical community. You know, it’s sort of a funny feeling, but in addition to having people pick on you because you’re Jewish, I have to say I didn’t feel totally accepted by the Jewish people because my father was not Jewish so, it’s sort of a double edged sword.
INTERVIEWER: And I did not ask you this so I’m going to ask you now, what was your wife’s name?
GOOREY: Marty Rose Rosenfield. I think you have an oral history on her.
INTERVIEWER: We do, we do, and when were your daughters born?
GOOREY: Well, let’s see. We were married in 1954 and one of them was born about a year later, 1955 and then two years later 1957 like three or four days before I graduated, both June.
INTERVIEWER: And so, you…there’s some things happening…
GOOREY: Oh, there always are, right?
INTERVIEWER: So, you graduated from medical school and did your residency and entered pediatric medicine.
GOOREY: I did my internship at Mt Carmel for a year and then did a two year residency in Columbus at Children’s Hospital.
INTERVIEWER: And then?
GOOREY: I went in to practice. I was draft eligible but the draft board said, “If you sign up now we’ll take you in a year,” and I just said, “If you want me in a year, come get me. I’m going into practice.” I covered for a lot of physicians, mostly Jewish physicians. I covered for Sam Edelman. He used to make [?] baby house calls. Did you ever hear of him?
INTERVIEWER: I heard of him…
GOOREY: …and Milton Levitin was another Jewish pediatrician on the east side but there was a pediatrician by the name of Minor Seymour who had three or four offices around town and his partner at the time had a heart attack and so, he asked me to join him and when a year went by and the Service hadn’t come for me and I joined him and we started a practice and formed a professional corporation called Associate Pediatrics which is still in existence.
INTERVIEWER: Alright so, so, how long were you in practice?
GOOREY: I was in practice ‘til 1997, about thirty-eight years, thirty-seven and a half, thirty-eight years. When I went to, I had an office by myself first just south of Worthington and Bob Nicklaus had a drug store there and, that’s Jack Nicklaus’s uncle, and I went to him and said, “How do I get to be known? and he said, “Well, you join the Jaycees and by the way Walt Holbrook is president of the Jaycees,” and that started me in a lot of community involvement but it was all for trying to get known, you know, referrals from physicians and referrals from them.
INTERVIEWER: And were you at Associate Pediatric your whole career?
GOOREY: Well, I practiced by myself for I don’t know what, two or three years and then we, Dr. Seymour and I just covered for one another. Then we took another, a third doctor in, I’ve got to say in around, that would have been ’68,’69, maybe ’70 and that’s when we started Associate Pediatrics. There were some advantages to becoming a professional corporation at that time.
INTERVIEWER: And you mentioned before we started recording your involvement with the Medical Heritage Center. When did that…
GOOREY: Well, I really have to talk about I got involved with…there’s no politics worse than medical politics and I tried to stay away from that for a while and we’ll circle back to community involvement I hope, but anyway when Nancy and I were married, she got me involved again in the Masons and I’m a member of the Masons and she got me, she was very active in the Alliance which is like the Auxiliary so, I became president of the Columbus…well, it was Academy of Medicine and then the Columbus Medical Association and the year I was president was a hundred, hundred and fifty…but anyway…
INTERVIEWER: So, just to document, when did you, you mentioned after you got married to Nancy, when did you get married?
GOOREY: 1980.
INTERVIEWER: And then when did you…
GOOREY: Well I was president of Columbus Medical Association in 1993 and that was the anniversary and I’m not going to remember whether it was the hundredth or hundred fiftieth anniversary of the founding of the Columbus Medical Socie…Academy of Medicine and thought that we ought to…you know, there’s a split in the medical community, ‘town and gown’ and one day you’re a resident at University Hospital or Children’s which was affiliated with University and you’re able to do everything and the next day you’re out in the world and all of a sudden you’re not capable of doing all the things you did the day before and people feel very bitter about that. Physicians feel very bitter about that so I was trying to, in some ways, marry ‘town and gown’ but that was also about the time that we were, the Columbus Medical Association was being taken over by United Health Care. We had had a physicians’ insurance group or health insurance group started by the physicians called PHP or Physicians Health Plan and they got like forty-four million dollars on the sale to United Health Care so, it really expanded the Columbus Medial Association Foundation and with that they had an empty fifth floor at Pryor Library at Ohio State University and that’s…we got a contribution from the Columbus Medical Association Foundation from University Hospital at Ohio State University and then started the Medical Heritage Center.
INTERVIEWER: And what was the Medical Heritage Center founded to do?
GOOREY: Boy, I should have that right on the top of my head and the tip of my tongue because I can’t tell you how long we spent working on a mission statement and I can’t even remember the wording, but it was to promote the history of medicine in all of the institutions in Central Ohio and the relationship with actually the rest of the medical communities around the United States and the world.
INTERVIEWER: So, clearly you mentioned the split between ‘town and gown’ and trying to bridge that gap. You helped to found the Medical Heritage Center so, clearly this was important to you.
GOOREY: Absolutely.
INTERVIEWER: Why? Why was this important to you specifically? Why did you take on this?
GOOREY: You know, some people are our own worst enemies and everybody can do it but physicians in particular, and we didn’t need bickering and fighting among various physician groups. We had enough people picking on us – attorneys and government, so just thought it was important that physicians try and get along with each other.
INTERVIEWER: Very good. So, you practiced medicine until the mid-nineties.
GOOREY: Late nineties, ’97.
INTERVIEWER: And then I know you were involved in Worthington quite a bit.
GOOREY: Right. Well, one of the neat things about the Children’s Hospital was those of us in private practice at the time and one of the reasons I stayed in Columbus was because if you went to Philadelphia or New York City or Los Angeles, you can practice pediatrics out in the community or you can teach at the hospital but you couldn’t do both. Here you can do both and we spent, we – Dr. Seymour, Dr. [Daudiley?] and I, we spent two months a year on service at Children’s Hospital, making rounds every day and on weekends with the house staff and a group of medical students. They’ve gotten away from that now and maybe that’s better medicine but that was, that was really very interesting and it wasn’t very remunerative but it was still very interesting. We talked about Bob Nicklaus and saying “Join the Jaycees.” I got involved in the Jaycees and, more involved than probably I should have, but anyway I got to be a State President and a National Vice President and would have run for National President except for two things – I didn’t have anybody covering for me and I went to Chicago to talk to the American Medical Association about wouldn’t it be great if they had a physician that had all this experience with the political life of the Jaycees and could I get a job in the Washington office and they said, “Oh, no, we have attorneys who do that. We don’t’ have physicians who do that,” so, I decided then that I wasn’t’ going to run for president of the Jaycees and they said, “Well, get involved in your community,” and that’s when I got on the board in Worthington on the Municipal…I’m sorry on the…
S: Zoning…
GOOREY: …Board of Zoning Appeals and I was on that a couple years and then ran for Council and was on City Council for forty years, was president, I don’t know, for about fourteen years or so and got my name on the building on the City Hall. You’ve seen that.
GOOREY: Yes.
GOOREY: Okay.
INTERVIEWER: Pretty impressive.
GOOREY: Well, it was impressive and so, that’s how I got involved in that. I had another sort of ‘Are you Jewish or not?’ thing, Marty’s uncle, Sam Hartman who was a tailor in the Lincoln Leveque Tower but on the bottom floor was a member of Magnolia Lodge and the Masons and he didn’t ask me to join but he stimulated me to want to join the Masons and I did that in 1960 and got the first three degrees that you get there and then he said, “ If you want to go on, you want to tell them you’re a member of the Bryden Road Church not the Bryden Road Temple.” I said “You know, I don’t think want to do that,” but I also had a part-time job at North American Aviation at the time and there was a night superintendent out there at the time by the name of Otto [Dugner?] who was very active in the Masons and knew I was very active in the Masons and he said, “Now you’re going to go on aren’t you?” and I said, “Well, I understand they really don’t want Jewish people to do that. ” “Oh, no,” he said, “that’s not true but let me check, “ about two or three weeks later he comes back and said, “I think you’re right.” So, anyway I sort of dropped out of being very active in the Masons. We had eleven hundred members in Magnolia Lodge at the time and then when I married Nancy her brother who had sort of shunned the Masons but he had gone to a Masonic funeral where they had a Masonic service and he wanted to join and it was really a whole different situation in 1980 than it was in the early 1960’s so, I got George Miller in my Lodge and they said , “ Now if you’re going to bring him in you’re going to have to get active and by that time we had about four hundred members and they promised Nancy that it would only be one night a month and it turned out to be more than that, but I got in line at the Lodge, became a Master, became a District Deputy Grand master, did that and then have a Thirty-third Degree, well, got the other degrees in Masonry and the Scottish Right and because of all that activity I got a Thirty-third Degree in the early nineties or something like that, mid –nineties.
INTERVIEWER: Amazing.
S: Did they have any problem with you being Jewish at the time?
GOOREY: No, no, although one thing, one of my good friends, in fact a fella who was a Thirty Third Degree Mason, he wanted me to join, it was some Scottish Brigade or something of Masons, and I’m talking about in 2005 or 6, and Owen Johnson who was my medical director at United Health Care who’d been one of my students said, “They really don’t take Jewish people in that particular group,” so, there’s, it’s still a little bit there.
INTERVIEWER: So, I have to ask, you’re a pediatric physician, you’re a City Council member for, you said…
GOOREY: Forty years.
INTERVIEWER: Forty years, involved in the Jaycees and the Masons and you’re raising two daughters…
GOOREY: Their mother raised them.
S: We were hatched.
GOOREY: No, they were great and you know, I used to make house calls when I started in practice and that, sometimes during, especially during flu season I wouldn’t get done until two or three in the morning and it was, it was tough.
INTERVIEWER: So, actually…oh,
S: It was also during the years, when fathers, I mean, like now fathers are very active in their children’s lives but back then, I mean it wasn’t unusual that, I mean it was like the Madmen years. I mean, it wasn’t like you were neglective, you just…
INTERVIEWER: Sure. Well, so, I wanted to look back to sort of the family, you know, the family, the personal side of all this, we talked about your professional work, although we touched a little bit about the social stuff and we can come back to that if there were more things, that even more things if you have time, but can you talk a little bit about, about what it was like raising, raising the two girls and it would have been the Sixties and Seventies?
GOOREY: Well, one of the things which was really, I don’t want, almost going to say sacred but, was our vacations. We were campers and I do think we had a lot of good times on vacations. We went to Nova Scotia and I don’t know where all we went, but we went a lot of places.
S: Florida a lot, Canada, Michigan…
GOOREY: Oh that’s right, Ipperwash.
S: Lexington, Ipperwash, Florida every spring or winter…
GOOREY: Yeah, right.
S: …but not Miami. When you interviewed Mom she talked about the Jews in Columbus and all going to Miami but we did not go to Miami. That was, we found…
GOOREY: No, we went to Jackson Beach.
S: Fort St. Lucy, right.
GOOREY: Fort St. Lucy, and what year was that have been? That would have been, that would have been in the Seventies.
S: I was in high school. I would say that was early Seventies.
GOOREY: But I went to the Chamber of Commerce there and they said that one of the neat things about this we don’t’ have all the Jews from New York up this far north.
S: Right.
GOOREY: So, I didn’t’ tell ‘em they had ‘em from Ohio.
INTERVIEWER: So, they’re sitting right here but I’m going to ask you, was it important to raise them Jewish, was it…
GOOREY: Oh yes, right.
INTERVIEWER: Can you talk a little bit it, about that?
GOOREY: Well, we had them go to Temple Israel. We had them Confirmed. They didn’t have bat mitzvahs even when you were, guys were in school.
S: We were Consecrated and Confirmed at Temple Israel.
GOOREY: Right, but yes, it was, it was important to have them Jewish and you know one of the, I thought it was important to marry a Jewish girl the first time and when that didn’t work out for both of us, why, you know…but, the kids were already raised so, but, I thought that was an important thing to have. That identity was important.
S: But we weren’t really active in Temple Israel either. I mean, we weren’t [?] member. I wasn’t a member of YFTL. We lived in Worthington and so…
S: I was in YFTL for a year or two but it was just too hard.
S: Yeah, but while, I mean, so, when I think about being Jewish in our family, I think about it being as a family at home. I mean it was…
GOOREY: Well, Marty’s parents were not particularly religious and again my mother sang, still you know, up ‘til in her seventies and eighties sang in Temple Israel Choir. She sang at Tifereth Israel Choir so, and I really think I got your mother involved in teaching. One of the things my mother did, she may have talked about, in the 1950’s we had a lot of Jewish immigrants coming from Europe here and she would great them at the train station and try and relate with them and get them involved. One of the things I remember doing, was teaching, and I don’t remember what kind, what the class was called, but it was at the Jewish Center and it wasn’t just for Jewish immigrants it was, but it was teaching English and it was teaching customs at the Jewish Center and again my mother got me involved in that. There was one Greek guy there who couldn’t’ speak a word of English and it was very frustrating because I couldn’t get anything across, I couldn’t communicate with him at all. He owned a restaurant over in downtown in Columbus and then over on, in Little Italy, San Margarita, but anyway, Marty’s father loved going to Cincinnati across the river in Newport. There was gambling there, crap table and there was good, well known…
S: Like a casino?
GOOREY: Yeah, but there was a, good entertainment there, but anyway, so, I had a pair of dice that he’d had and I had them in my pocket and I was so frustrated. It’s kind of like Colonel Quigg or Captain Quigg. I was sort of shaking those dice and this Greek guy said, “Oh, deece, deece” and that was the first word that we got to know each other, the “deece,” the dice.
INTERVIEWER: So, were you, so, what did you said that being Jewish was more of a family thing with the girls growing up. Did you keep a Jewish home in any sense?
GOOREY: Well, we didn’t keep kosher but we celebrated the Jewish holidays. We probably celebrated some Christian holidays too but …
S: We did, but that was the 1960’s. Everybody had a Christmas tree.
S: We also lived in Worthington, you know, and so all our friends were Christian.
GOOREY: Well, I mentioned Worthington being ecumenical. They had a great school system. When I was in high school and even when probably when we were looking at getting houses, Upper Arlington was for White Anglo-Saxon Protestants, period.
S: And both you and Mom were from the Bexley area, and both wanted to move out, is that right?
GOOREY: Well, I, she wasn’t really from Bexley. I don’t know. I really did, yes, I mean Bexley to me was kind of confining. As I said, I don’t know how she felt with her…she was in a high school sorority and then a sorority at Ohio State, but I did not really feel part of that Jewish community.
INTERVIEWER: Again, you were involved with the Jaycees, and with the Masons and all of these other things. Were you involved in the Jewish social life at the Jewish Center? Were you in any of those sorts of…? I’m thinking my grandfather was in a bowling league.
GOOREY: No, I didn’t bowl. No, but our social lives was mostly the Jaycees for a lot of years and we went to…they had an all-state every other month and state convention and a national convention. After I got done with that I’d had enough of all those organizations and then my senior partner Minor Seymour who was a member of the Whitehall-Bexley Rotary Club said, ”We’re going to start a club in Dublin-Worthington and you’re gonna’ join it and his friend was the John Pryor that the Pryor Library was named for. John Pryor was the dean of them Medical School. He had a son, Jack Pryor, who sold insurance and was a pilot for Lake Central Airlines, whatever that airline was, who wanted to be in Rotary, so I was a charter member of the Dublin-Worthington Rotary Club. Jack Pryor was their charter president. Two months after we organized he moved to La Jolla, California and I was the president for the rest of the year. I said, “I’m not doing it two years. This is it.” That was that.
INTERVIEWER: And you were able to only keep it…not do two years?
GOOREY: Oh, yeah, no I did not do it two years. A fella by the name of Jerry Ketchum (sp?) who was the CEO of Anthem Blue Cross-Blue Shield…though they still have a potty in my honor, a pot, metal pot that they pass around and collect fines every week at the Dublin-Worthington Rotary Club .
INTERVIEWER: That’s quite an honor.
GOOREY: Yeah, right.
INTERVIEWER: So, when did you and your first wife get divorced?
GOOREY: In 1980. Well, it was, we were estranged several years before that. It was final…
S: ’79? ’80.
GOOREY: Huh? Was it?
S: [Eric?] was born in ’78 and you were married a year after [?] e was born.
S: You were married the year before I was married. I was married in ’80.
INTERVIEWER: Just trying to get the timeline and then you said you married Nancy in 1980?
GOOREY: …in 1980 also.
GOOREY: Another thing we were very interested in, that just reminds me, was the state planning for health education in Ohio. During World War II, forty percent of the youth in the United States were unfit for military service because of physical reasons.
INTERVIEWER: How many, what was that?
GOOREY: Forty, four zero. The Kellogg Foundation gave out several grants and Ohio got one of ten grants that they had. One of the pediatricians involved was a Dr. Tom Shafer. Tom Shafer had been the school physician at University School when I went there and he was also in charge of the Newborn Nursery at University Hospital when I was there, and I did work at the Juvenile Diagnostic Center for a while and he was a medical director there, but anyway, he was in this State Planning for Health Education and Ohio State also had a committee called ACHES– Advisory Committee for Health Education Services and Nancy was on that representing dentistry and Tom Shafer was kind of easing me to replace him in pediatrics and Nancy and I did not like each other at all. Well, she’d get release time. She taught at Ohio State, you know, so she could take off and go over thee and I had to cancel out on office hours, you know an afternoon of office hours and so I wanted to get things over with and they were doing very by-the-book, so anyway we, at the first we really didn’t like each other but that’s where we met.
INTERVIEWER: So, at what point did you start liking each other? How did the relationship evolve into…
GOOREY: Well, I don’t know that you want to…
S: That was last year? No. That’s up to you, Daddy.
GOOREY: We, well, I guess. I don’t know how to say it very well.
S: Well, you were on a committee together and…
GOOREY: Yeah, right. Then we ended up working some together. This committee put teams together from various school districts and it was made up of all the universities in Ohio that gave a degree in Health Education and made up of all of the state departments that had anything to do with health like the Ohio Department of Health, the Ohio Department of Education, the Ohio Department of Mental Health, and all of the professional groups and we would bring teams together like ten each year down to Lake Hope and have them discuss what some of their problems were in their own school districts and how they were going to solve them, so, you know, through working with various programs and the various teams with different schools, why, Nancy and I got to know each other.
INTERVIEWER: So, there’s one other thing that we haven’t talked about that I want to make sure we talk about, which is your involvement with the National Prayer Breakfast. Can you explain/ You mentioned that before we started recording.
GOOREY: Well, I did mention it. That also sort of came out of the Jaycees.
INTERVIEWER: When did that begin?
GOOREY: When did the National…
INTERVIEWER: When did your involvement begin?
GOOREY: Well, I was a State President in 1965, ‘66 and a National Vice President in ‘66, ’67 and at that point in time, the International Christian Leadership decided that they wanted to – I hate the word “reach out” but, they wanted to work with volunteer groups and they had a fellow from Ann Arbor, Michigan, who was assigned to Ohio and he and I got to be friends, and they invited al l of the State Presidents and then the National Committee like the National Vice President and President to the National Prayer Breakfast which started back with Eisenhower and when we were done with that they said, “You know we really don’t have anybody in Ohio that’s inviting people to the National Prayer Breakfast,” so, I probably started doing that in the Seventies, maybe late Sixties but probably in the Seventies and I don’t know that I did it every year but then I know once Nancy and I were married I did it every year. I asked about going back and we’ve done it every year since and I get a quota from Ohio. I can take… invite ten people to go and plus four for [auxiliary ?] and a lot of people wonder why does this Jewish boy get involved in the National Prayer Breakfast. Well, what sold me on it, you know, everybody wants to say, “Are you a Jew for Jesus?” and “No, I’m not that.” and some people are turned off that I’m not but the teachings of Jesus Christ, if everybody would abide by those, it would be a much better world and that’s one of the central themes of the whole National Prayer Breakfast, not that they’re perfect. They’re not, but anyway…
INTERVIEWER: Very ecumenical of you. That’s an interesting perspective. It’s very ecumenical of you I said.
GOOREY: Well, yeah, but I have an ecumenical background, as a matter of fact.
INTERVIEWER: So, I was going to ask you what that means to you. Why is that so important to you to be involved in that? You’ve mentioned sort of the principles of Jesus but being involved…
GOOREY: …the teachings.
INTERVIEWER: …the teachings, but being involved with that, with that organization, well, it’s not an organization, but…
GOOREY: Well, let me give you another example. Tomorrow morning we’re having, I don’t know how many, but it’s the Worthington Marriage Prayer Breakfast and it’s bringing people from a lot of, not just Christian , there’ll be Muslim there, Jews…In fact, I’m doing a reading from Torah but another one of the things behind prayer groups. The Prayer Breakfast is one thing but there are a lot of prayer groups around the country and it started in the US House and the US Senate and people who violently disagree over a lot of things can get together and agree about the teachings of Jesus Christ and so, it builds better understanding and friendship which is two of the goals of Rotary, but it builds that among people. We started the Worthington Prayer Breakfast, I think, around ’68, 1968, when there was a particularly contentious school issue that school board raised and the idea of the start-up was to get people who didn’t like each other to get together and find that they did have some common ground and that they could get the respect of one another.
INTERVIEWER: Do you think that the Jewish, I was going to ask does being Jewish give you some sort of advantage but I don’t mean that?
S: Does it give you a different perspective?
INTERVIEWER: Does it give you…yeah, that’s fair. Is there anything special about being Jewish and coming to this that you think is important?
GOOREY: Well, I think that a lot of people who didn’t know someone who is Jewish have come to respect me and we have, actually, we have three other Jewish members in this group. One is Bonnie Michael is the new president of Council, belongs to Beth Shalom,. I think it is. Do you know her?
INTERVIEWER: I don’t know her.
GOOREY: Okay. Another one is Dave Breslin and his wife. Dave was on the Worthington School Board and he is an attorney, so, we have at least four Jewish members on this group of about twenty people and at least the ones who come say, “You don’t have to believe in Jesus Christ to get to heaven,” and that’s very important to them so, I think that that’s [?].
S: Well, is there any part of your… I mean, your father was Methodist. Your…does it kind of connect the dots for you. Is that…?
GOOREY: I don’t know that.
S: Oh, okay.
GOOREY: I don’t know that I’d say that. I mean, my father was very supportive of my mother …
S: Great.
GOOREY: …and he had at least one brother of his three brothers and a father who was pretty bigoted and didn’t want to accept the Jewish lady who he married.
S: But we’re talking the 1930’s.
GOOREY: Yeah, so?
S: I know. I mean, I’m not forgiving it I’m just…
GOOREY: I know.
INTERVIEWER: So, I’m going to ask what may be, we’re sort of wrapping up, what may be a difficult question but I’m going to give you the opportunity. I know that your wife recently passed away.
GOOREY: Right.
INTERVIEWER: Is there anything that you…what would you want someone who is reading this or hearing this oral history of your life to know about her?
GOOREY: About her? Well, she was a wonderful lady. She was primarily Episcopalian but in later years she did not have a church affiliation. She went to Temple Israel a lot with me. She enjoyed the services especially Rabbi Folkman. She knew him but she said, “You’re not gonna’ …I’m not converting to Judaism and that’s not what I want to do,” but she was Director… she was a dentist, she was Director of the Dental Hygiene Program. She took the dental hygiene curriculum from being a arts dental hygiene or education, dental hygiene, to a four year curriculum over the protestations of her dean who was not really supportive. You’ve heard that,. She was very, very involved in health education in whatever, it was dentist but she wanted the whole, all the aspects of medical disciplines involved. She started what’s called a Council on Health Information that had representatives of all of the colleges at Ohio state having anything to do with health like veterinary, pharmacology, optometry, dentistry obviously, medicine, and their professional organizations and we did several, she did, she was the driving force, did several videos that was on the information, Public Information Channel about holiday hazards, about nursing homes. She had two particular t things that she was very passionate about. One was mouth guards for athletic teams, required for football and, I think, for hockey, not required for basketball, but she would get the dentists in Franklin County organized to go to various high schools and do impressions from the basketball players. She tried to get it adopted as a requirement nationally and never quite got that but, that was one of the two things she was very passionate about. The other was spit tobacco or smokeless tobacco. We did a video on a kid from over near Dayton who was a high school athlete [?] who got mouth cancer. Are you familiar with that or no? No. Got mouth cancer and died of that before he graduated from high school. Then they asked her to be on the Worthington Arts Council. One of the…there were a lot of things she helped me with in Worthington. They have hanging baskets, flower baskets. That was her idea. She got them from Sherry Lucks (sp?) who lived in Bexley and did them for for Bexley for… but one of the…Worthington is surrounded geographically. They can’t expand so one of the things I used to say was, “Since we can’t grow out we gotta’ grow deep,” and a performing and visual arts center was something we didn’t have and people had talked about it for years. They asked her to be on the Worthington Arts Council I think, because I was on the Worthington City Council and they thought that might help, but anyway they talked about trying to get an arts center and nobody would raise the money. She had no experience in fundraising but she raised the six million dollars. It went from two million to six million to convert that old high school. Have you ever been? Have you seen it? It’s on West Dublin-Granville Road.
INTERVIEWER: I’ve seen it but I’ve never been in it.
GOOREY: So, Ivan Gilbert, we met with Ivan Gilbert. You know who I’m talking about? Ivan’s father was Gilbert’s Shoe Store and he went to medical school. Ivan went to medical school at Ohio State went to Boston to do his internship, got tuberculosis, came back and never practiced medicine. That was another reason why Jewish boys should not go to Ohio State University College of Medicine because they take a spot for other people and then don’t practice medicine, but anyway, Ivan was a big help. He said, “You gotta’ go to John H. McConnell,” so, she got John H. McConnell to contribute a million dollars. So anyway, she really raised the money for that.
S: She was funny, loved wine and talking about that and taking grandkids…
GOOREY: Oh yeah, but I know she did it for me. She didn’t do it for the community and a lot of people know that. She did it for me.
INTERVIEWER: Thank you for sharing that.
GOOREY: Right.
INTERVIEWER: So, as we wrap up, we’ve been talking for almost an hour and a half, I’ve got two, two questions. They’re sort of be an end to the conversation. Two questions. One is what does being Jewish mean to you at this point?
GOOREY: What does being Jewish mean to you? Uh, you know it means, this was the name of the book that that Hope Lutheran [?] It means that we’re one of G-d’s chosen people. G-d saved me from being chosen because we weren’t chosen because we’re special. The people who go to this Friday Morning Prayer Groups, we’re chosen because it’s really hard duty to spread the word to everyone else that there is just one G-d. So, I think that’s an obligation that I have. I wish I knew more about all the…Judaism, but it’s almost endless. I think that’s the main thing.
INTERVIEWER: And then…
S: You know what? I guess what I’ve heard you say in the past is because Grandma sang. When I see, I see you smile when you hear like Ein Keloneinu or you know , the Jewish music that’s familiar, not so much the ones we’re hearing right now. That’s a whole ‘nother discussion.
S: I think you’re finding comfort in that.
GOOREY: Well, that’s for sure. One of the very considerate things Nancy did was die right before the High Holy Days and then, yeah, that was a lot of comfort even though I know that she didn’t want to belong there, and she did not want a religious memorial service. We had a celebration really and we did some spiritual things. She said her favorite prayer was the Lord’s Prayer which I’ve known a long time and I kept repeating it to her when she couldn’t’ say it when she had a trachea tube down her. I think Rabbi Folkman said every Jewish person is supposed to die reciting the Shema and it was sort of the same kind of thing for her.
S: I was going to say I think you find comfort in your Judaism.
GOOREY: Yeah, I think you’re right.
S: It’s kind of the smell of home cooking, kind of, the smell of comfort.
GOOREY: Yeah.
INTERVIEWER: So, you said something earlier on in the conversation that Rabbi Folkman’s prayer to you and it was “To thine own self be true.”
GOOREY: “Know thyself,” and “Unto thine own self be true.” Yeah.
INTERVIEWER: And after everything we’ve talked about, and all of the choices you’ve made, the things that you’ve done, I keep thinking about those words and it strikes me that you remember them so well, and I was wondering if you have any final sort of reflections on….
GOOREY: Well, it’s interesting you ask that. One of our good friends, one of Nancy’s good friends, or two of them really, were Dr. and Dr. Warren and Frances Harding. Their middle daughter was the other girl in Nancy’s dental school class, two, two girls, so, she was sort of a ground breaker like my mother was. Anyway, Dr. Frances was… her daughter went to Cincinnati, met a German guy and then moved to Germany so Carolyn Harding put Nancy in charge of looking after her mother and father here and Warren died, I don’t know, in the mid to late seventies, but one of their friends was on Worthington City Council with me and he must have told her because when Nancy mentioned to her that she had met me, really, she said he says, “Oh, G-d.” So, yeah it’s [?] I’m more upset about Nancy gone, I’m sorrier than anything else and I’m sorry to be, but…
S: You’re fine.
GOOREY: Yeah, it was… I didn’t really care what other people thought.
S: You were kind of known for that on Council, too. You just always spoke up, and people didn’t always like what you said but you were going to say what needed to be said, and what you really felt.
GOOREY: Right. That’s true. You agree with that?
S: I do and it’s your best quality. I mean it really is. It defines you.
GOOREY: Yeah. Okay?
S: I’m okay.
INTERVIEWER: So, to wrap up is there anything, you know, is there anything that we haven’t talked about or that you were thinking, anything you want to make sure is said?
GOOREY: Boy, I don’t know. I thought I thought of everything. I’m sure I’ll think of something, but I don’t….I think we…
S: Chapter two or three.
S: No, chapter two?
GOOREY: Chapter two.
INTERVIEWER: How about this? Is there anything you’d like to s ay to future generations who may be listening to this in fifty or a hundred years, any sage advice based on your experience, your experiences?
GOOREY: Well, I guess if I could give everybody the same blessing Rabbi Folkman gave me that’s what I’d do. That’s what I’d do, yeah, you, know? Don’t do things because the crowd is doing it.
INTERVIEWER: I think that’s an incredible way to wrap up. We have something that I need to say to finish up which is on behalf of the Columbus Jewish Historical Society, I want to thank you for contributing to the Oral History Project. This concludes the interview.
GOOREY: Okay. Thank you.
Transcribed by Linda Kalette Schottenstein