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Nestor, Barbara (audio interview #2 of 10)
INTERVIEW DESCRIPTION - This first interview with Barbara Nestor was conducted in her home in south central Los Angeles. It is a general autobiography of her life up to 1930. A small and very vigorous 90 year old, with no obvious mental impairment, she occasionally had difficulty in hearing. Her somewhat slurred speech is a result of poorly fitting dentures. There are occasional interruptions in the recording as a result of mechanical problems. 10/11/1974
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- SUBJECT BIO - Barbara Nestor, the mother of Dorothy Healey (former chair, Southern California District, CPUSA), was a radical activist in her own right. Born in Hungary, she was raised first in St. Louis and then in Denver, Colorado. She became a socialist when she was only sixteen, and joined the Socialist Party in 1915. During WWI, she engaged in anti-war agitation. In 1919, when the Communist Party was formed in the US, she joined. After moving to Oakland, California in 1921 with her husband, Joe Rosenblum, and her children, she maintained a high level of activity, particularly with the International Labor Defense, and often risked arrest. She did not re-join the Communist Party until 1936, five years after she moved to Los Angeles. The interviews about the Los Angeles years detail the kind of rank and file organizing in which she engaged. Nestor's oral history sheds light both on her own thinking and on the influence she had on the development of her children's radicalism. Her interviews also reveal a great deal about her relationship with her daughter, Dorothy Healey and her grandson, Richard, for whom she had primary caretaking responsibilities, especially during the 1950s and the Smith Act trials. TOPICS - family background; parents; education; attitudes towards religion; development of social consciousness; early work experiences;romantic relationships and meeting first husband (Joe Rosenblum); pregnancy, childbirth, birth control, sex and children; development of political consciousness; socialism; IWW; opposition to W;W;I; communal living in Denver; CP; move to California; meeting second husband (Fedya Nestor) and his deportation; travel to Mexico;
- *** File: refbnestor1.mp3 Audio Segments and Topics: (0:00-2:00)... Tape introduction (2:00-12:08)... The tape begins abruptly with a discussion on the topics to be covered throughout the course of the interview. Born in Hungary on September 29, 1884, Nestor immigrated to the United States when she was four years old. Her family settled in St. Louis, Missouri. She discusses her parents' background, with specific information on her father's Orthodox beliefs and how it impacted the family dynamic. She describes her father as a very patriarchal figure who prescribed to Orthodox values that discounted women's status in society. At age eleven, Nestor began reading the Bible and noticed inconsistencies related to the creation of man. She discusses her experiences in St. Louis and the fact that she did not begin going to school until the age of seven. Even then, her education was interrupted quite often when she was required to stay home and care for her siblings. The family moved to Los Angeles when she was eight years old because her father thought the climate would help his eczema. In Los Angeles, the family's economic status declined. In an attempt to raise money for the family, Nestor and her brother peddled glasses on the street. When she was nine years old, the family moved to Denver, Colorado. (12:08-17:15)... Nestor was born in Nhobmehal, a small community in Hungary. The family's primary language was Yiddish and she never learned to speak Hungarian. She claims that her father was useless around the house and that her mother was the primary caretaker of the children and the home. She provides the names of her siblings and their ages at the time the family immigrated to the United States. Her mother did not know how to read or write any English, even though Nestor tried to teach her how to sign her name. When the family arrived in the US, they were quarantined for several days because her youngest brother was very ill. While quarantined, she learned her first English word: "eat." (17:15-22:43)... When the family immigrated to the United States, they lived with her paternal great-great aunt. She recalls that her great aunt's former slaves lived next door and were known to Nestor as Aunt Mary and Uncle Tom. The first words her brother learned to speak in English were "go to hell." Aunt Mary taught Nestor and her siblings how to speak English. While in St. Louis, Nestor became very ill and her parents thought she died after she passed out. She discusses her school years and the constant interruptions because of her mother's frequent childbirths. When Nestor was six, her younger sister died, which led Nestor to question the goodness of God. Even as a child living in an Orthodox household, she did not take religion seriously. She often wished she was not a Jew after observing the vulgar behavior displayed by many of the working-class Jews who visited her home. She aspired to a more refined way of life and thought that their behavior was crude. (22:43-31:56)... When she was eight, Nestor experienced the death of an admired schoolmate, which had quite an impact on her. After her family moved to Los Angeles, she left school and did not attend again until she was ten years old, at which time she went into the third grade. Though she loved her siblings, caring for them since the age of six was quite a burden in her life. She describes the circumstances surrounding the death of her younger brother and the resentment she developed towards her father because of his religious beliefs. She was often in conflict with her father over religion. She attended her first socialist meeting when she was sixteen. When her father confronted her about this, she tried to alleviate his misconception that socialists were atheists. Digressing, she recounts meeting a man in the library who introduced her to the thinking of Robert Green Ingersoll - which confirmed her feelings about God and the inconsistencies within religion. (31:56-40:32)... Nestor attended school until the seventh grade. Her father wanted her to leave school in the sixth grade, but her teacher wrote a letter and persuaded him to let her continue. Her father's insistence that she leave school left her with a deep resentment. He was a very authoritarian man, and all of her brothers left home to escape him. When she was eleven, she began reading and recalls the impact of the book, Ferns and Orange Blossoms by Bertha Clay. Her interest in reading grew into a passion and she read whenever possible. (40:32-44:41)... At thirteen, she went to work for a dressmaker. She worked ten hours a day and earned $2 a week. She also did all of the sewing for the family. Although she wanted to take formal sewing lessons, she could not because of religious restrictions against working on Saturdays. When she was sixteen years old, she worked at the Underhill Overall Factory operating a power sewing machine, but was terminated after only one week because she could not work on Saturdays. At this point, she began sewing dresses for neighbors, earning .25 cents per garment. However, she rarely was paid for her services. (44:41-46:22)... In terms of her life expectations, she expected to marry. She had a romantic interest in the chief of the Fire Department in Denver. However, this relationship went sour when it was rumored he had a shixa (Yiddish term connoting a non-Jewish woman). end of tape *** File: refbnestor2.mp3 (0:00-4:11)... This segment begins with a continued discussion of her romantic involvement with the fire chief and their break-up. The dissolution of this relationship was very disappointing. She describes meeting her first husband, Joe Rosenblum, their courtship, and his family background. He worked as a waiter and supported his parents on his limited salary. They married in 1907 when she was twenty-two years old. (4:11-9:20)... After attending her first socialist meeting at the age of sixteen, she began educating herself about the movement. She read the Little Blue Books published by the Socialist Party, as well as Karl Marx's Communist Manifesto, which became her bible. [Note: the Little Blue Books were actually published by Haldeman and Julius in Gerard, Kansas.] She also participated in picketing during labor strikes and became acquainted with many people active in the IWW. She attended socialist meetings on Sundays, where she met many Wobblies. She discusses her admiration for the IWW and its members. In 1915, after she heard Kate Richards O'Hare, who she describes as a magnificent speaker, Nestor decided to join the Socialist Party. (9:20-15:21)... She describes her husband's personality and attitudes towards religion and radical theories. She believes that the development of his consciousness occurred after they married. Though he was not active, he supported the radical movement. However, he was protective of his involvement and often worried about her activities. Her first exposure to sex came at the age of seventeen when she read a book on nature that described the female reproductive system. She discusses pregnancy and childbirth, indicating that she gave birth to three children in two years and seven months. Though she read birth control literature published by Margaret Sanger, contraceptive methods did not prevent her from getting pregnant. Although she did not talk with other women about sex because it was a taboo subject, a friend referred her to a book by Dr.(Alice) Stockham (a socialist physician), that discussed various kinds of contraceptive methods. As a result of reading the book, she purchased a silk sponge, which was not effective. She and her husband often joked that their third child, Frances, was refined because she "came drained through a fine silk sponge." (15:21-20:33)... In 1915, she joined the Socialist Party. Her husband once asked her to leave the party because people were being arrested for their activities, but she refused. He did attend socialist meetings, but he never joined the party. Initially, most of her activities involved picketing during labor strikes. There were approximately forty people in her group, the majority of whom were women. When the US entered WWI, there was a split in the SP. She recalls a meeting when a man was asked to leave because he was a provocateur of war. She opposed socialists taking up arms during the war because it would not help the fight against capitalism. She digresses regarding her attitudes towards the Russian Revolution. (20:33-26:51)... She discusses the influence of the socialist movement on her children. There were several incidents when she openly expressed her opposition to WWI, and she refused to roll bandages for the Red Cross because she could not support the legal killing of men. The SP held many protest demonstrations against the war. The Palmer Raids of 1919 halted radical activities and resulted in many arrests and deportations. She digresses regarding the Ludlow massacre and her attitudes towards John D. Rockefeller. (26:51-36:52)... In 1919, she joined the Communist Labor Party in Denver. She describes the formation of the group, indicating that George Inteman, the secretary of the SP, was sent to Chicago to negotiate the formation of a chapter in Denver. They later learned that he was a stool pigeon and turned over the names of those in the party. She describes it as a very tumultuous period; in addition to the factionalism within the SP, the Palmer Raids resulted in the arrests of many radicals. During this period, she left the communal living group in Denver. She describes the organization and structure of the commune, indicating that a major problem was the difficulty between her children and the children of another family living within the commune. Though each family rotated cooking and cleaning responsibilities, she did not like cooking and planning meals for the group. Dr. Frances Hannon taught classes on and the theories of communism. (36:52-40:27)... In 1921, she decided to move to California because the climate was better suited to her daughter, Dorothy's, health. Her husband, who had begun working as a traveling food salesman while they were living in Colorado, continued this work in California until his death in 1930. When they first moved to California, they moved around a lot, settling in San Francisco for a short time and then moving to Los Angeles for six months. They then moved back to the Bay area and settled in Oakland. (40:27-43:09)... Three years after Rosenblum's death, she married her second husband, Fedya (Dan) Nestor. She discusses his background and his political beliefs. In 1956, he was deported to Bulgaria. She believes that the only reason he was deported was to punish her daughter, Dorothy Healey, a leader in the CP. She claims that his case was the first in US history where a man was deprived of his social security benefits. (43:09-46:31)... She digresses and talks about a trip to Mexico and meeting a Black man there who told her that being in Mexico was the most freedom he had ever known. While there, she visited Diego Rivera's home. end of tape
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