Recorded at Coronado, California on July 23, 1997
Transcribed by Lois Olsrud, August 1997
I: Interviewer: Melissa Amado, Director, Bloom Southwest Jewish Archives
Z: Zellie Capin, Eighth child and youngest son of Hyman and Dora Capin
Audiocassette Side A
I: Thank you for allowing the Bloom Archives to interview you and use portions of our conversations as audioclips for the Capin family website that is being developed at the moment. First, Mr. Capin, would you please tell us a little about your mother?
Z: Well, that is very difficult although I can tell you a little bit because I was the youngest of eight children and they were quite old when I was growing up, and I --they had-- My mother was born in Lithuania and came over to the United States as a young lady and met my father in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania and married and had five children in Harrisburg. In the early 1900's on account of an asthma type of illness, they moved out West. Of course that was before I was born. I was born in 1914. The first I really remember of my mother is around 1920 when I was 5-6 years old in Nogales. She was very astute, very bright. She raised a very nice family and in her quiet way knew what all of her sons and daughters were doing at all times.
I: What about your father? Describe your father, Hyman Capin.
Z: Hyman Capin was an educated man in Europe in Hebrew and when he came to the United States, I understand that they spoke mostly Hebrew and Yiddish. And he was a very good businessman. He was a type---I would say in those days---a gambler in business. He would take big chances in buying property and opening stores. He kept all of his children together, which was all of us---six boys and two brothers-in-law which made eight. And when we were in Nogales after 1920, he finally got us all together in Nogales, brought them from different parts where they were and started looking for businesses for them. And that's when we started our mercantile business in Nogales. At one time, the six brothers and two brothers-in-law were in business. Of course I didn't go into the business until the 1930's. I worked in the stores as a young boy and still while I was in school. I went to Tucson High School and used to go to Nogales every weekend to work. In fact, my father told me, he says, "I'll buy you a car if you'll go to Nogales every weekend and work." So I grabbed at that and he bought me a new Ford for $595. And I used to go to Nogales every weekend and I would spend it there with one of my relatives and work in the store. Saturday and Sundays, of course in those days we were open part of Sunday and all day Saturday, and then I'd 'come back to Tucson and go back to school on Monday.
I: Now, was the store closed for the Sabbath?
Z: No, we never closed for the Sabbath, although in the early days we did close for one day each of the High Holy days.
I: For Yom Kippur and Rosh Hashanah?
Z: Yes. And outside of that we never closed for any Jewish holidays, although like Passover and other Jewish holidays we would maybe leave the store early, which meant about 6 o'clock instead of 9 o'clock at night.
I: What was your first educational experience in Nogales?.I heard from a little bird..
Z: Well, the first day of school my mother-we lived on Elm Street which was the street that led into town and we had a little house there---and my mother told one of my brothers, "Take Zellie to school." Well, Elm Street School was on a hill behind the Catholic school. And my brother, not knowing too much about our different schools, he dropped me off at the Catholic school. And I went there for four days. On the fourth day my mother, who I mentioned was very astute, and she knew just exactly what questions to ask to keep track of her children---she asked me, "How was school?" And I said---you know at 6 years old what could I say?---I said, "It was very nice. The only thing is, they pray every hour on the hour," which in those days they did. She didn't say a word. But the next day, she took me to school and she saw which I was going to. And I finally ended up at Elm Street School---right behind the Catholic school---the right school. So for many years, a lot of people remember Rackey, who was our Catholic priest in Nogales---Father Rackey. He would invite me to their Knights of Columbus banquet for a number of years and he would always announce, "This is the only Jew that we have had in our schools---that attended our schools in Nogales."
I: What is your favorite memory of your family---when you were young?
Z: Well, that's a hard question because I've had so many good memories. I don't think I've had any favorite memories. But during the time that my father had a tailor shop in Nogales and the 25th infantry was there. I don't know if you know but they were black troops, and of course the troops were segregated in those days. There were over 10,000 troops in Nogales at Camp Stephen D. Little. I have fond memories of that because my father had a lot of good friends in the Army there. Most of the enlisted men were black. Of course, all the officers were white except one officer---the chaplain. Chaplain Carter was his name. He was the highest ranking Black officer in the United States Army at that time. Each troop---they were very fond of my father because he did a lot of favors for the soldiers---each troop every year would fight for him to come to their Thanksgiving dinner or Christmas dinner or different dinners they had. My father would take me and some of my brothers that were available to these dinners. And I have very fond memories of those days with him and my brothers and the very nice soldiers that were stationed there. Especially, I can still remember Chaplain Carter. He used to come up to the house and sit around with my father. And they would gossip for hours at a time.
I: The mainstay of the business for your father in the early years was the military?
Z: Yes, the military. It started with the tailoring business in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. It wasn't military at that time. Then he got into the military part of the tailoring business when he went to El Paso and Columbus, New Mexico. The 10th Cavalry was stationed there. They were black troops also. He was a tailor there and that's where he started with the tailoring business---the military tailoring. Then he went to Nogales. He was the only tailor on the post---as they called it then---in the camp. That was quite a feat to do then because in those days the government gave them the building, gave them lights, gave them heat. So they didn't have any overhead except their employees. At one time my father employed around 40 tailors in Nogales.
I: What would be your most interesting client you've ever had---whether it was in any of the businesses?
Z: Well, one of the most interesting clients that I had was Mario Moreno-(a.k.a.) "Cantifilas." You probably heard that name. He was in the movie, "Around the World in 80 Days." He used to come to Nogales before he became famous. He had a tent show that he would go---come up from Mexico City and he would stop at all the towns. He stopped at Hermosillo, Guaymus, and all the small towns. He'd hit Nogales and they would put up their big tents and they would have different acts there. They had comedians. And he was very famous as a bullfighters---that is a comic bullfighter. I think---I don't know if you ever saw him. But some of the old timers would have seen him in the movies fighting a bull. Maybe the bull would weigh 89 pounds. He was quite a comedian. I knew him quite well in those days.
I: What year is this?
Z: Oh, this must be---I would say in the 1950's---late 1940's and 1950's. He used to come in the store and I used to take care of him. And he would do his shopping there.
I.: There was a reference in some of your papers to the family operating in Texarkana, Texas?
Z: Yah, Texarkana, Texas. In about 1934 my brother Sam, coming back from New York---in New York he heard of this store in Texarkana that was in bankruptcy. So he stopped there and he made a deal to buy that store in bankruptcy court---from the bank. My brother Jake, my brother-in-law, Harry Chernin, and myself. Of course I was just, well let's see---I was around 17 years old. I wasn't much of a merchant, but they sent me there just to learn. We ran that store for, oh, about four years until my father passed away. And then my mother wanted me to come home, and my brother to come home, and her daughter and son-in-law to come home. So we sold the store and moved back to Nogales and stayed there all the years after that.
I: Now there was a question that Bonnie Travers had. We noticed in your family papers that your father was buried in Los Angeles.
Z: Yes, my father and mother were both buried there.
I: We were wondering why?
Z: Well, at that time, for some reason or other, when my father died my mother wanted him buried in a mausoleum. She didn't want, for some reason, him buried in the ground. In the mausoleum they're buried in a building.in the wall. So when she passed away we buried here there, too. There's no other reason that I know except that's what she wanted. There wasn't anything in Arizona at that time that I know of.
I: That explains why.
Z: Yah, that explains why.
I: How would you describe your family's civic contributions?
Z: I think we did our part civically. We were never much for politics although my brother-in-law, Harry Chernin, was mayor of Nogales for, if I can remember right, a couple terms. And I was on the Nogales school board for close to ten years.
I: What year were you elected to the Nogales school board?
Z: Oh, gosh, can I remember that far back? Let's see. It might have been '37-'47---in the middle; well it was in the late and early 50's. Because that's more or less when my two daughters graduated from Nogales High School, and I had the honor of giving them their diplomas. I happened to be on the board. There were three on the board. There were Johnny Elias and Mased Carem--no it was his brother Dave Carem and myself. Those days there were only three. A.J. Mitchell---I don't know if you've heard of him---was the Superintendent of Schools in those days; and he really ran the school. We were, as you say, "go-fers". We did things for him because he was fabulous. He ran the whole system himself with one secretary. Of course, we gave him a little help now and then.
I: And your brother-in-law, Harry Chernin, when was he in office?
Z: Well, I don't remember exactly. But it could have been---it was before then.
I. I can look that up.
Z: Yah, you can probably look that up. I don't remember exactly. But outside of that we weren't---it probably was a mistake. My father always told us, "Stay out of politics. If you're in business, stay out of politics because you're gonna make a lot of enemies. Makes no difference how good a job you do you'll make a lot of enemies." That was one of the reasons why none of us went into politics. At different times they wanted us to run for different offices in Nogales and Arizona. We remembered him saying that, so I think that stuck in everyone's mind and we stayed out of politics. Outside of that we gave our share to charities in Nogales and I don't want to enumerate the different things we did; but we did our share. We used to do a lot of charity work in Nogales, Sonora also. If there was a flood, which we had in those days before they built the underground arroyo to take out the water, people would be flooded out---families. So we would send over maybe 100 blankets and 100 pillows, new clothes to those people. Through the years this was just a regular way of life in Nogales. I mean, we did it because we lived there and the people treated us right, and if someone was in trouble we tried to help them out a little bit as much as we could.
I: Now did you find that there were ever any difference in business because you were Jewish?
Z: During the war we had...
I: During World War II?
Z: World War II, we had a little problem in our life. I hate to say this, but like a lot of Mexican politicians---unless you paid them off they would---you couldn't get anything done. There was a newspaper man there at the time who wanted to be paid off so he wouldn't publish anything bad about the Jews. But we refused and every once in a while he would publish something.
I: Was this in Nogales, Sonora?
Z: Yah, we didn't have as far as I can remember, too many problems on the American side. There was---once in a while there were remarks made, which of course there were remarks made about the Mexicans, about the Chinese, and so they made remarks about the Jews.
One of the terms that I was running for the school board there was a lady---a local lady---went in to see a friend of mine and he was a friend of the school board. And she went in and she said, "We have someone else we want to run on the school board. Because right now we've got that Jew, we've got that Arab, and we've got that Mexican." He happened to be of Arab parents---his parents were Arab. He was an Arab. He just pointed his finger---he told me later---he said, "I'm an Arab. There's the door. You can leave." He didn't argue with her. That was the end of her. There were incidents like that. But there was nothing terribly serious like we hear today---burning down places or shootings, and that type of thing we never had any. But different incidents came up. But like I say, it wasn't just the Jews. I've heard plenty of people talk about the Mexicans. "They're running...," They're even saying that now in Nogales."They're running the town." It's just foolish. What's the difference whether they're Mexican or American or Jews or Catholics or Protestants? If they're good people, or smart people, that's what they should be doing.
I: O.K. One other question. How would you find then the issue of the peso devaluation?
Z: Well, I was, I'd been working in the store steady since...in Nogales...about 1935. And I've been through a number of devaluations, and they were all hard. But we survived and everybody, of course, everybody wasn't spread out that much in those days. We didn't have so many stores, so it was easier to survive. But we survived and I was through, gosh, I don't know how many devaluations. When I first went to Nogales before I was working, the peso was almost 2 to 1. Then it was 12 1/2 to 1 for a long time. I don't know if you're referring to the last devaluation. But the last devaluation was the worst that has ever hit the border. I think it's the worst that ever happened in Mexico probably since the old revolutions that they had. And it was a real catastrophe for the border towns and for the Mexican people in Mexico who've suffered drastically. Thank goodness it looks like it's coming back a little bit now. It will take a long time---'till they get rid of the mordidas as they call it. The poor people are still going to suffer.
I: Now there is one more question I would like to ask about your mother. How did Dora Capin manage to maintain a kosher home?
Z: Well, of course I was very small when we first moved to Nogales.
[end of side A]
Audiocassette Side B
I: Interviewer: Melissa Amado, Director Bloom Southwest Jewish Archives
Z: Zellie Capin, Eighth child and youngest son of Hyman and Dora Capin
I: We're discussing the kosher meat being purchased in Tucson?
Z: Yes.
I: Do you, what's the date?
Z: Well you know to buy kosher meat in Tucson was a job.
I: Was this in the 1920's?
Z: In the 1920's. Yes, and to go from Nogales to Tucson, it was a dirt road and it used to take sometimes 3 or 4 hours one way. So that was quite a trip to make, you know, to bring back kosher food and kosher meat. That's what it was mostly in those days. And of course I don't know if you know too much about the slaughtering of chickens. My father used to do that--say the prayer, and they would cut the neck of the ckicken, and to make it kosher they had to drain all the blood out.
I: The chicken was upside down? They had to sever the vein or artery? The artery?
Z: Yah, the artery. Yes. And so he would do that. I can still remember standing next to him when he'd do it, as a boy---one of the few things I remember as a boy. But then as years went on my mother got away from being kosher although she would never have any pork items in the house. Although I can remember, not real young, but as a young man and as a teenager, I would have bacon now and then or ham sandwich. My mother---it didn't bother---it didn't seem to bother her although she would never have it in our house. We would eat it, and eat it outside the house. And I think she was kosher only a short time, maybe less than ten years because it was very, very difficult to have a real kosher house. Because you know in a real kosher house everything has to be...today---in those days not quite as bad---but today everything has to have the seal of the rabbi on it, whether it's salt, whether it's sugar, or whatever it is. Then after that, we never had kosher house. In other words, kosher in Jewish by not mixing meat with dairy products and not having two sets of dishes. In the old days we had two sets of dishes, when we would eat dairy and when we'd eat meat. That was brought on years, centuries ago, when the dishes were made out of pottery, and you would put meat in it, the fat would soak in it. And you could never wash it and get it clean. Then you'd put milk in it and it wouldn't mix very good. I think was a a health idea in those days. You know it got to be religious, but I think it was more for health purposes. In centuries ago why didn't they---this is what I understood---why didn't they eat pork---because it wasn't clean. Today its a different situation. But people who are kosher, they believe in it.
I: Now, one other question is, How many Jewish families were able to observe the High Holy days or any of the Holy Days in Nogales? Or did they have to go to Tucson?
Z: Well, we belonged to the Temple in Tucson when it was---
I: Temple Emanu-el?
Z: Yes, Temple Emanu-El, when it was down on Sixth Street. You know, the old temple they're rebuilding now?
I: On Stone Avenue?
Z: Yes, it's on Stone Avenue, not Sixth Street. Stone Avenue. My father was a member there. We used to go there just for the High Holy days because it was too hard to get there for Saturday nights. And we would go there--- drive down from Nogales for the High Holy days. And down the street---I just can't remember---there was an Orthodox little temple there years and years ago. I don't know if you have that in your records. On Stone. I don't know the name of it, but it is maybe six or seven buildings down from Temple Emanu-El. I remember my father---I can't remember very well---it might have been just a house where the very religious would meet there. I remember my father would go down there, then come to Temple Emanu-El and walk up, back and forth. It might not have been an official temple, it might have been just a house that they had where they would meet, but somebody must have that record that there was a more orthodox one.
I: I'm sure Anshei Israel had their meetings originally at a house.
Z: What house?
I: Near Temple Emanu-El. I talked to Mary Fried. Her family moved here [Tucson] in the 1930's and her family were conservative and they were one of the founding families.
Z: It might have been Anshei. Like you said, it was probably a house right down from Temple Emanu-El. That's where my father was a member there also. And of course I've been a member of Temple Emanu-El since 1937 when I got married ---because the date.
I: This concludes the interview. I do appreciate your time and I'll keep you posted on how we develop this project. Thank you again.
Z: Thank you very much.
(resumes) I: One more anecdote on Hyman Capin
Z: Well, when my father moved to Nogales he was a military tailor at that time. And that was the only thing that he really knew what to do---was the tailoring business. So, he went right---maybe a hundred feet from the entrance to Camp Stephen D. Little. He had a little building there that he rented and he opened a little tailor shop---and he did--he made a good living. I don't know how long---maybe a couple years.
Then, like I say, my father was very aggressive. So he went in to see the colonel---the commanding officer and camp deputy. He went to see him. In those days, the colonels were very rough. And of course the tailor was nothing to him. If you weren't in the army---an officer---in those days you were nothing. So he went to talk to him about opening a tailor shop on the, in the camp.
This colonel told him, "Oh, I've had you---there was one time the Jews came up---you Jewish tailors." I don't know if he said it that nicely. "They were terrible. They stole from my soldiers." He raved on and on. So my father, a very polite type man and calm, he said, "I'm not that way," he says. "And I would like to do something. I would like to make you a uniform because you say none of them are any good. I would like to make you a uniform---a dress uniform. And if it fits you, and you like it, and you want it, I want to be paid for it." And this happened to strike the colonel that "He's an honest man. He's not trying to bribe me." So he gave him permission.
My father was a very fine cutter and tailor besides, and he made the whole uniform himself. And when it was all finished---in those days they wore boots---and he took the uniform to the colonel's house and the colonel tried it on. And it must have fit him magnificently because he looked at it and looked it over, and looked it over. My father remembers in telling me, because I think he talked to me as much as my older brothers because I was around him more---"It's magnificent, Mr. Capin." Then he tells him---he says, "I'm going to give you a building." the building was maybe 75 to 100 feet long---one of those pre-fab buildings that they had in those days. And my father set up the first tailor shop there. And that's how he got into the camp.
If he would have told the colonel, "I want to make a uniform for you and if you like it you can have it," the colonel would probably have turned him down. But he said, "When I make it you're going to have to pay for it." And I think they agreed on the price at the time---of course in those days, still under $100 was a lot of money. But in those days the uniform was about $80 to $90, really a lot of money. it was a jacket and the pants and the whole outfit. Then he was in the encampment for many years, and this is where he got his real start. They say he had at different times 30 to 40 tailors working for him. He did all the cutting himself of the uniforms and the measuring.
I: Thank you again for sharing your anecdotes with us, and your memories. This makes a difference for everyone.
