Mildred Leipzig

SADY SULLIVAN: Okay, so if you would, um, count to five just so I can get a good volume?

MIMI LEIPZIG: One, two, three, four, five.

SADY SULLIVAN: That's great.

MIMI LEIPZIG: Is that bird your -- your bird? Is that sound your sound?

SADY SULLIVAN: No, I actually, I heard it on here and thought it was lovely. I don't -- is it outside?

MIMI LEIPZIG: Oh. I don't know. It's --

SADY SULLIVAN: Oh.

MIMI LEIPZIG: Maybe it's out of this hearing aid. [laughter]

SADY SULLIVAN: All right. So that's rolling. And I will, just to formally start, uh, the interview, today is September 16, 2009. I am Sady Sullivan from the Brooklyn Historical Society, and this interview is for the Brooklyn Navy Yard 1:00Oral History Project. I am here in Sea Cliff, Long Island with Mimi Leipzig, and if you would introduce yourself to the recording however you'd like to.

MIMI LEIPZIG: Well, my name is Mimi Leipzig, or Mildred Leipzig. My official name is Mildred.

SADY SULLIVAN: Oh, okay. I'm sorry I mispronounced --

MIMI LEIPZIG: No, that's fine.

SADY SULLIVAN: And what's your, um, maiden name?

MIMI LEIPZIG: Levin, L-E-V-I-N.

SADY SULLIVAN: And just for the archive, um, what's your date of birth?

MIMI LEIPZIG: [date redacted for privacy]-23.

SADY SULLIVAN: Great, okay.

MIMI LEIPZIG: And I was born in the Brooklyn Jewish Hospital.

SADY SULLIVAN: Oh, neat.

MIMI LEIPZIG: And my father had a pharmacy across the street from the hospital, so he always said that it was very good because my mother had a corner room and he could wave to her.

SADY SULLIVAN: Aw. [laughter] That's nice. So yeah, let's -- let's start there --

MIMI LEIPZIG: And my children were born in the Brooklyn Jewish Hospital, too, so --

SADY SULLIVAN: Oh!

MIMI LEIPZIG: Yeah.

SADY SULLIVAN: Um, so your family -- where were your parents from?

MIMI LEIPZIG: My father was from the -- Russia, from the Odessa region. I'm not exactly sure because it's -- a lot of this information is folklore. You know, we never really know where people came from. Each relative tells me a different story.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

MIMI LEIPZIG: But he talked about Odessa.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

MIMI LEIPZIG: And my mother was from, um, not Dubrovnik. Uh, from, it's not -- I think it's called Dubrovnik but I'm not sure. One of my young cousins had recently found out the name of the town that they came from, which was -- I think it's, it's -- probably it's in the Pale, which is Russia, Poland, and Lithuania, and this -- hers was probably closer to the Lithuania area.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

MIMI LEIPZIG: And her father had -- my -- my mother's father had died before she was born. He was evidently, uh, gored by an ax or something. They lived in a very small village, and, uh, I hear many stories about that too, you know. All the children were sent to different people in the village to help this poor lady take care of when she gave birth to her baby. And then one day she collected all the children and came to America.

SADY SULLIVAN: This is your great-grandmother?

MIMI LEIPZIG: My, my grandmother.

SADY SULLIVAN: Oh, your grandmother.

MIMI LEIPZIG: My --

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

MIMI LEIPZIG: My mother's mother, yes.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

MIMI LEIPZIG: Yes. So you know. And, um, they came and -- they came. There must have -- there were relatives here, and they moved in with the relatives. Everybody in those days, in those situations, every apartment had a boarder, at least one boarder. Uh, you never had an, an apartment -- that's why, you know, 4:00if you look at the old tenement apartments, there's a front room, which the boarder usually had, and then there's a second room and, you know. But she came and she lived, and she learned -- she told me that on Saturdays when all the children used to run to walk their fathers home from Shul, she used to go and hold somebody's hand. She had no father.

SADY SULLIVAN: Oh, so she would just find a -- a stranger or -- ?MIMI LEIPZIG: She would find a stranger and -- that's what she told me, yeah.

SADY SULLIVAN: Aw.

MIMI LEIPZIG: I always said, poor little girl with no father.

SADY SULLIVAN: Yeah.

MIMI LEIPZIG: So -- and but they learned, she learned English in school, and they used to sing, do things like, um, when they sang Merry Christmas and all these little Jewish children from Europe had to sing Merry Christmas, they sang "Merry Kratz Mich".

SADY SULLIVAN: What does that mean?

MIMI LEIPZIG: It means Merry Scratch Me. It sounds like Christmas, but they didn't want to sing Merry Christmas, you know, it was against, it was -- they, they couldn't be involved with that.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

MIMI LEIPZIG: But by the time I was born she, she spoke very good English. And we were talking about, uh, remembering poetry, because she remembered every poem that she ever heard of in elementary school.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm.

MIMI LEIPZIG: Which you know -- and I've met other people of her generation, and even -- even my generation, who have that memory of --

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm.

MIMI LEIPZIG: Because we were talking about how people learn and what they learn. And she was very proud of the fact that she remembered everything, which is true. You know, it's -- she used to teach us those poems.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm. Do you remember some of the, who the poets were? What kind of poetry was it?

MIMI LEIPZIG: Well, "Evangeline." Everybody learned "Evangeline," right?

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

MIMI LEIPZIG: And, uh, um, my father too was involved with that. Um, "A Host of Mari -- Daffodils," is that Keats?

SADY SULLIVAN: I think so, yeah.

MIMI LEIPZIG: Yeah, yeah, yeah. They were, the two, uh -- they were both involved. She, she, for remembering things, and my father was always involved 6:00with, with reading poetry. That's the way -- part of the way he learned English.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

MIMI LEIPZIG: So...

SADY SULLIVAN: And so did they, um, did they live in Brooklyn, or were they living in Manhattan when they first got here?

MIMI LEIPZIG: They -- I don't know.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

MIMI LEIPZIG: I think Manhattan.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

MIMI LEIPZIG: But I can't remember. And they used to belong -- and I don't know where they met. But they used to belong to an organization when they, when -- and they may have met there -- called the Grouch Club. And all the thinkers of that time would go, would get up, and make speeches like, uh, Emerson, I mean, all those, those, the people of that time. I guess it was the early 1900s.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

MIMI LEIPZIG: They would make spee -- any, anybody had something to say, they would get up and speak and everybody would listen and, and share this, which sounds to me like a wonderful thing.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

MIMI LEIPZIG: And my sense is that's where they must have met, because I don't 7:00really -- now that you ask me, I don't really know. You know?

SADY SULLIVAN: Oh. So the Grouch Club would be something that would meet regularly?

MIMI LEIPZIG: I think so, and they, and these people of -- thoughtful, you know, important people would come and discuss things. And they were very proud of that. But my father was ten years older than my mother, so that was a, I think that, you know, that was difficult for her. She was -- but difficult and good. I mean, she married this older man.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

MIMI LEIPZIG: You know? Anyhow, let's see. What else? And -- oh, they lived -- no. Then they lived in the Bronx. That's, and that, that's right, I guess it's they lived in the Bronx and all their relatives lived in the Bronx. But my father had become a pharmacist, and -- which he was very proud of because it was not an easy task for him to -- he said he, his relatives taught him how to say, "I want to go to night school." [laughter] And he went, and he went to night 8:00school and he became a pharmacist.

SADY SULLIVAN: Oh, wow. So how old was he when we came to the states?

MIMI LEIPZIG: He was -- he was about eighteen.

SADY SULLIVAN: Oh, so he was, he was --

MIMI LEIPZIG: Yeah. And, and he -- also, before he went there, he -- we were talking about it yesterday. He went out to Michigan, I guess Michigan, to, to agricultural school --

SADY SULLIVAN: Oh!

MIMI LEIPZIG: -- because at that time, there was a very big movement, uh, of Jewish people to go back to the land.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

MIMI LEIPZIG: Uh, because they never could earn -- they never could own land. And he thought he would be involved with agriculture. But he couldn't make it because he was this little Jewish boy who spoke not very good English, who had to work his way through college. He was a total misfit there. He, he even took a class in comic strip writing and comic -- and how, how comic strips were written because he couldn't understand why Americans loved comic strips so much. To the 9:00day he died, he could never figure out why people like that. But he wanted to know, so he, he always told me about that class he took. [laughter] Because he wasn't a, a person who looked at pictures mostly, you know?

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

MIMI LEIPZIG: So, but, uh, but that, that's one of the things he did. And then he came back and he went to, um, to Columbia, to the -- to the pharmacy school.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

MIMI LEIPZIG: And so he bought a pharmacy in Brooklyn near the Jewish Hospital, and there he moved my mother and I -- yes, my sis -- my older sister had to have already been born. And she was all alone. She left all her cousins and everybody else. And she came --

SADY SULLIVAN: Oh, they were all up in the Bronx.

MIMI LEIPZIG: They were in the Bronx.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

MIMI LEIPZIG: And to this strange neighborhood, uh, where she knew hardly anybody, and then we used to move, and the rule -- and I think every time my mother got really tired of living where she was, we moved to a different apartment. The rule was that it had to be walking distance from the store. My 10:00father was not going to get on a train to go to work, right? So -- and, and close enough to a school so we didn't have to cross the street.

SADY SULLIVAN: [laughter]

MIMI LEIPZIG: So we lived in many interesting, yeah, apartments. But those were good rules, you know.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm. Do you know where, how your father -- how did he save up the money to open his own pharmacy?

MIMI LEIPZIG: I don't know.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

MIMI LEIPZIG: Come to think of it, I don't know the -- and my, my sister died recently. I was going to -- I would ask her. I don't know. I don't know if it -- well, it didn't, probably didn't cost any money to go to Columbia.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

MIMI LEIPZIG: You know, things were different in those days.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

MIMI LEIPZIG: So he may not have had to pay tuition.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

MIMI LEIPZIG: And -- and I guess he lived with a family, or he worked. He worked in a factory, I know.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

MIMI LEIPZIG: You know. And he would have liked to be a doctor but he couldn't 11:00be a doctor --

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

MIMI LEIPZIG: -- so he did the next best thing. And everybody in the neighborhood called him Docky. So --

SADY SULLIVAN: Oh.

MIMI LEIPZIG: I have met people recently who said, "Oh, your father was Doc Levin." They used to come from Canarsie back to his store so he could give them -- they could give him special powder -- uh, he could give them the, the powders that he made.

SADY SULLIVAN: Oh.

MIMI LEIPZIG: The milk powders or something. But, uh -- and we used to help him in the store. We used to fill the capsules and put the powders in packages and put the salves in little cans. You know, we, meaning me and my sisters. You know, do all those things. We'd watch the leeches in the jar, you know, they had leeches that he kept for the hospital. They're using them now too, you know.

SADY SULLIVAN: Oh yeah.

MIMI LEIPZIG: He had leeches there, in that, he had, he would keep -- I guess leeches were very perishable, so they would, they -- he would keep them, and they would buy them from him. You know. But you know, you do all those things. You weigh things on the scale, uh, when you're little children in a store like 12:00that, you know.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm. What other, what other kinds of medicines were, were popular out of, out of your father's pharmacy?

MIMI LEIPZIG: But -- and meaning what?

SADY SULLIVAN: What were, what were popular, I mean what -- it was before antibiotics, right?

MIMI LEIPZIG: Yeah, yeah.

SADY SULLIVAN: So --

MIMI LEIPZIG: I don't -- he had, I know that he had salves that he invented.

SADY SULLIVAN: Oh!

MIMI LEIPZIG: He called one Mildrol, one Brodinol. He named them after his kids.

SADY SULLIVAN: Oh.

MIMI LEIPZIG: You know, that was a time when drugs, druggists also took things out of your eye. You had something in your eye, you went to the druggist.

SADY SULLIVAN: Oh.

MIMI LEIPZIG: And he took something out of your eye. And now you can't, you're not allowed to do that. So -- and he used to scold any, any, um, customer of his that would take too many laxatives. He would yell at them. So that was his, his very big thing. [laughter] You know, he would see, pay, pay attention to what they did --

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

MIMI LEIPZIG: -- even though that neighborhood was a very poor neighborhood.

SADY SULLIVAN: Who was living in the neighborhood?

MIMI LEIPZIG: Well, that's, that's, uh, um, well, I said that, uh, Frank McCourt 13:00lived in that neighborhood.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

MIMI LEIPZIG: Um, I don't know. He had, he was very -- he took care of a lot of the interns. I mean, they were young kids. The interns -- the, in the drug store, in the, uh, hospital.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

MIMI LEIPZIG: And he would lend them money. He would help them out when they needed things. You know, and I know when the girls were alone during the war -- there were girls in the neighborhood who were alone with children -- if he had, um, if he had nobody to bring them medicine, he would go and bring them medicine.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm.

MIMI LEIPZIG: You know, he would leave somebody else taking care of the store. But, um, but -- so you know, he was part of the neighborhood.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

MIMI LEIPZIG: And he, he cared about these people.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

MIMI LEIPZIG: There was also, there was a telephone booth in the store, a fountain, and a post office substation.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm.

MIMI LEIPZIG: And when I -- I keep thinking about it. You know, kids, you think 14:00that everybody's a little kid now. When I was a kid, and I must have been eleven, twelve years old, I used to sell stamps at that post office. By the time I was thirteen, I was already making out the daily report. It never occurred to me that there was anything strange about this thing. I mean, this is -- and he thought I could do it and I did it and I was happy to do it. You know.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

MIMI LEIPZIG: But, uh, so -- and of course, we had the telephone booths where you'd call people because nobody in that neighborhood had a telephone. So they'd ring up, and then they -- he'd send a kid over to, to get them. And he finally got rid of the fountain and the telephone booths because the teenagers had no place to go and they would come, drugstore cowboys, they would come to the store and hang around and wrestle and do all kinds of things in the telephone booths. So he just, uh, that was it.

SADY SULLIVAN: Oh.

MIMI LEIPZIG: He said, there's no point in me doing this. It's too much trouble.

SADY SULLIVAN: [laughter]

MIMI LEIPZIG: You know. Well, it was very difficult with the --

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

MIMI LEIPZIG: -- the kids there.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

MIMI LEIPZIG: And it was a tough neighborhood. That, uh, neighborhood was a very tough neighborhood.

SADY SULLIVAN: How do you mean?

MIMI LEIPZIG: Well, it was very poor.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

MIMI LEIPZIG: It was right on the edge of Bedford-Stuyvesant and most of the population were people on relief.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

MIMI LEIPZIG: So, you know, that makes for a rough neighborhood.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

MIMI LEIPZIG: Periodically, uh, during the middle, in the middle of the night, he'd get a call from the police because -- and it took me so many years to understand what this was about -- people would break into the store to get drugs, even then.

SADY SULLIVAN: Wow.

MIMI LEIPZIG: And it took me maybe fifty years to figure out what -- what had been happening there.

SADY SULLIVAN: Yeah.

MIMI LEIPZIG: But the police would call and, you know, he'd come down, check on everything. But they would break into the drug store for drugs.

SADY SULLIVAN: Wow.

MIMI LEIPZIG: And there were, um --the Bobbed-head Bandit lived in that neighborhood. There was somebody called the Bobbed-head Bandit. Actually I think 16:00she must have been a, a woman. At nights -- you know, she had bobbed hair, bobbed -- the description of bobbed hair was a description. You know, people didn't have that kind of hair.

SADY SULLIVAN: Yeah.

MIMI LEIPZIG: So, um, those kind of people lived in that neighborhood. So...

SADY SULLIVAN: It's interesting that there was a woman bandit.

MIMI LEIPZIG: Yes.

SADY SULLIVAN: That's kind of neat.

MIMI LEIPZIG: Yes, yes. Yeah, it was very romantic.

SADY SULLIVAN: Yeah.

MIMI LEIPZIG: Yeah. And she obviously was, was a woman's lib person. We don't cut hair, right?

SADY SULLIVAN: Yeah. [laughter] Wow.

MIMI LEIPZIG: So it was -- and then we went -- there was an elementary school, right across, PS42 --

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

MIMI LEIPZIG: -- where I went. And as a matter of fact, later on when I went to high school, there was an adjunct to Girl's Commercial right next door to PS42.

SADY SULLIVAN: Oh.

MIMI LEIPZIG: So for my first, uh, freshman year in high school, I went to that same school.

SADY SULLIVAN: Right next to your --

MIMI LEIPZIG: Right next door. Yeah.

SADY SULLIVAN: And so how -- actually, I forgot to ask about your siblings. Where, what's the birth order for you?

MIMI LEIPZIG: I am, I'm the middle child.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

MIMI LEIPZIG: I have an older sister who's -- had a -- both my sisters have died.

SADY SULLIVAN: Oh.

MIMI LEIPZIG: Uh, my older sister was three years older than me, and, uh, and my younger sister was three years younger.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

MIMI LEPIZIG: And they both died very recently.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm.

MIMI LEIPZIG: Within a year, which was very stra -- funny.

SADY SULLIVAN: Oh.

MIMI LEIPZIG: And suddenly it -- my younger sister had gone -- she was volunteering at the New York Historical Society.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

MIMI LEIPZIG: She lived on Central Park West.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

MIMI LEIPZIG: She said, "I don't feel so well," and she took a cab home. Usually she walked across the park.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

MIMI LEPIZIG: She asked one of her neighbors to go upstairs with her. And she died.

SADY SULLIVAN: Huh.

MIMI LEIPZIG: [laughter] This poor guy. She, she had no indication, that anybody knew of that, uh, that she was ill.

SADY SULLIVAN: Yeah.

MIMI LEIPZIG: So, uh, you know. And then my older sister died because of something that they're doing in hospitals these days too. There's something called C. diff.

SADY SULLIVAN: I don't know what that is.

MIMI LEIPZIG: C. diff is a new virulent strain of -- I, I don't know whether it's a bacteria or whatever, that people get in hospitals.

SADY SULLIVAN: Oh, like when they've had an operation or something.

MIMI LEIPZIG: No, not even when they have an operation. Matter of fact, when we went to visit us, her, we were warned to scrub up and wear gloves. It's -- I don't know what it's -- it's from, it's because one person carries something to another. And I read about it now recently. I mean, she was -- listen, she was 83-years-old. But still, uh, she had a -- she didn't feel well, and she was, she was falling. So she must -- she must have had a cold. Her doctor gave her some antibiotics, and she -- they gave her more in the hospital. And that's really, your resistance is, uh, becomes low.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

MIMI LEIPZIG: And evidently this has been something that they've been having a real problem with in hospitals.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm.

MIMI LEIPZIG: So poor Rhoda, you know, she was anxious to live. But, uh, but 19:00anyway, so I felt like both of my bookends had left.

SADY SULLIVAN: Yeah.

MIMI LEIPZIG: You know, suddenly weren't there.

SADY SULLIVAN: Yeah. And did your older sister stay in, in the New York area also?

MIMI LEIPZIG: My older sister lived in Brooklyn Heights. She was a widow for many years.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

MIMI LEIPZIG: And my younger sister lived in Manhattan --

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

MIMI LEIPZIG: -- and, uh, yeah. My younger sister moved out to the suburbs at one point. She was living in East Meadow at one point.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

MIMI LEIPZIG: And then they, they moved to Manhattan, I think mainly because her younger son wanted to go to the High School of Music and Art.

SADY SULLIVAN: Oh yeah.

MIMI LEIPZIG: So I think that's -- and they, and they really had the best apartment in New York City, which her son never signed his name on the lease for. So when she died, the apartment was no longer in the family.

SADY SULLIVAN: Oh!

MIMI LEIPZIG: It's one of those sad -- I think he'll never forgive himself for it.

SADY SULLIVAN: Yeah. [laughter]

MIMI LEIPZIG: But, uh, but anyhow, so you know, we keep in contact with the children.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

MIMI LEIPZIG: And there's another story that doesn't have to do with my life, but I could tell you the, a story if you want to just hear stories.

SADY SULLIVAN: Yes.

MIMI LEIPZIG: My oldest sister adopted -- had two adopted children. One of them she adopted at about two, and she was the loveliest, liveliest little girl you ever saw. And as she became a teenager, she got involved with a crazy bunch of kids, so all the things that she did before, you know, she dropped out of school, she couldn't learn to read. She was a wonderful dancer; she stopped dancing because this boyfriend didn't like it. And she had several boyfriends and she became pregnant. She was fifteen by this time.

SADY SULLIVAN: Oh.

MIMI LEIPZIG: She became pregnant. This boy was a crazy boy, and I think my brother-in-law died because he frightened him to death. He was really crazy.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm.

MIMI LEIPZIG: Anyhow, Susan had this baby and she used to bring it to her in-laws on weekends to, to, uh, to take care of him, and one day they refused to return him. And she never got him back. For the rest of his life, she never -- and she, she mourned this child terribly. Anyhow, she, she subsequently had another child who she wouldn't let out of her sight.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

MIMI LEIPZIG: And I think she was married about two or three times. But -- and she always worried, and, and even in my sister's obituary -- and that was the best thing she ever did -- she included his name as one of the children, one of the grandchildren.

SADY SULLIVAN: Oh!

MIMI LEIPZIG: Evidently this boy, who lived with his father and his parents, who were also terrible people, um, kept telling him, this -- her son, that his 22:00mother never wanted him and he wasn't worth anything, he was a terrible person.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm.

MIMI LEIPZIG: The sister took care of him, took him away. The sister decided to help him find his mother because he, he was afraid to find his mother because he thought his mother didn't want him.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

MIMI LEIPZIG: So she, online, she looked at this and she saw my sister's obituary, which included Joey's name. She called the funeral parlor. The man at the funeral parlor said, "I, you know, I won't give you Susan's name, but I will get in touch with her." And by this time, Susan learned to read, she got a job, she's a grandmother, all kinds of wonderful things.

SADY SULLIVAN: MM-hmm.

MIMI LEIPZIG: She said -- so she called the -- she called this Joey, who came back, and she sent us an email -- and I have it on my computer, I wouldn't let it go -- she said, "My son is back. A hole in my heart is healed."

SADY SULLIVAN: Aw!

MIMI LEIPZIG: This is after, like, what is he, thirty years old. So --can you imagine such a thing?

SADY SULLIVAN: That's a wonderful ending and --

MIMI LEIPZIG: Yeah, isn't that wonderful? And they, so now they're very good friends. He lives down south, comes here with his children, and, uh, he's a sweet young man. You know, he came to visit us. He was so happy to have another family.

SADY SULLIVAN: Wow.

MIMI LEIPZIG: Yeah, so...

SADY SULLIVAN: And that's a -- a wonderful thing to come from your sister's passing.

MIMI LEIPZIG: That's right. And, and of course the sadness. We were all so sad that she didn't -- she would have loved this ending, you know --

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

MIMI LEPIZIG: -- this wonderful ending, because for her this was a terrible thing.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

MIMI LEIPZIG: So, uh -- and she always felt bad that she never could get that child back.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm. Oh.

MIMI LEIPZIG: So...

SADY SULLIVAN: That's amazing.

MIMI LEIPZIG: Yeah.

SADY SULLIVAN: Had she adopted, um, was she not able to have children?

MIMI LEIPZIG: My sister?

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

MIMI LEIPZIG: I guess, yeah, so she had two adopted. One, one, uh, was adopted 24:00at, I think, probably close to birth. She was a very small baby, a young baby.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

MIMI LEIPZIG: The older one. And, uh, and this one. And you know, the older one did all the right things and she went to school and she graduated college and she -- but, um, I think Susan manages her life much better.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

MIMI LEIPZIG: You know, listen. She said, "I know, I know I had to deal with hard things. I've been through a lot."

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

MIMI LEIPZIG: So... and Susan also seems to identify herself with the Italian community. I hope she doesn't hear this. But because, well, she must have -- she was an interracial child.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

MIMI LEIPZIG: Um, and one of the, the things that went on when my sister adopted her was that, you know, there was a big controversy about whether she should be allowed to adopt a, an interracial child.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

MIMI LEIPZIG: So, uh, that was -- anyhow, Susan is a very good grandmother and 25:00mother, so...

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm. Wow. So back to --

MIMI LEIPZIG: Yes?

SADY SULLIVAN: So elementary school at PS42. Did your sisters go there, too?

MIMI LEIPZIG: Who knows? My, my son went there because we lived right on that same block.

SADY SULLIVAN: Oh!

MIMI LEIPZIG: So I don't know.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

MIMI LEIPZIG: I, you know, I know very little about my sisters in elementary school.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

MIMI LEIPZIG: I guess I didn't pay much attention to what they did.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

MIMI LEIPZIG: But they must have gone there --

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

MIMI LEIPZIG: -- because, uh, that was the closest school.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

MIMI LEIPZIG: It was around the corner and, you know, so that's where they must have gone.

SADY SULLIVAN: And did you go to Hebrew School or something like that?

MIMI LEIPZIG: No -- my, my father -- my parents were -- well, I wouldn't say my -- my mother, my mother, if she could have gone closer to people in the Temple, I think may have liked to do it. But basically they were atheists.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

MIMI LEIPZIG: And we always called my father an Orthodox atheist --

SADY SULLIVAN: [laughter]

MIMI LEIPZIG: -- because he would throw people out of the, out of -- if the Jehovah's Witness came to the door, he would say, "I don't want that dirty book in my house." [laughter] And of course he would start an argument at every family meeting about, about something like that. [laughter] So basically we had no connection with religion.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm. So you didn't have a, a bat mitzvah or... ?MIMI LEIPZIG: None. No. No, no, no, no.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

MIMI LEIPZIG: None of that stuff.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm. Um, did you do, I know that there was, there was a sort of political kind of Jewish community, um, schools for kids that were more --

MIMI LEIPZIG: Oh, sure, yeah, things like that.

SADY SULLIVAN: Did you --

MIMI LEIPZIG: They weren't, uh, they weren't available when I was that age.

SADY SULLIVAN: Oh, okay.

MIMI LEIPZIG: I, it's -- that's something that I think must be relatively new. I mean, like when my kids were young there were things like Shulas [phonetic] and things like that.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

MIMI LEIPZIG: Uh, not when I was, uh, a kid.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

MIMI LEIPZIG: So, uh, we had very little contact with the Jewish community at all.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

MIMI LEIPZIG: But on, you know, on Jewish holidays, there, there, somebody, that we would go to some kind of Passover thing, you know. And my mother would always make, uh, my mother would always make dinner for any, any occasion that she could figure out.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

MIMI LEIPZIG: So, [laughter] so, and that, you know, then we did those -- those traditional things. We ate on the traditions. And as a matter of fact, when I got married, Arthur came from an Orthodox family.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

MIMI LEIPZIG: After my mother had died, my mother-in-law once invited my father for a Seder and she said, "He knows more about, about the rules of the Bible and everything else than anybody in this family!"

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm.

MIMI LEIPZIG: So -- but he, uh, he was very much, uh, opposed to anything that had to do with religion. He considered it, um, the dividing thing of the world, 28:00that you know, he said, "That's what causes the wars. That's what causes everything else. It causes division among people."

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

MIMI LEIPZIG: And, um, he was passionate about that.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm, mm-hmm.

MIMI LEIPZIG: Then we had a little girl who used to come, my mother used to give her pennies and all kinds of things, and she used to tell my mother, "The Jews killed our Lord." So [laughter] -- because we lived, this was a Catholic neighborhood, a very Catholic neighborhood.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

MIMI LEIPZIG: There was Saint Teresa's Church there. And that was another interesting thing. The most of the neighborhood that I know of was Italian.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

MIMI LEIPZIG: And the Pope was Italian, and this, the Irish chur -- kids and the Irish church looked down on the Italian kids in the neighborhood. And it didn't quite connect with me, but that's the way it was in that particular church, you know.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm. Why was it, why was that the... ?MIMI LEIPZIG: I don't know. I have no idea because I wasn't -- I mean, all I could see was from the 29:00outside what went on there.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

MIMI LEIPZIG: But, uh, that was the way that that church was conducted, I guess.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

MIMI LEIPZIG: You know, every, every group and every -- every unique neighborhood has its own, uh, mores.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

MIMI LEIPZIG: So, uh, yeah, and that was the neighborhood. You could -- I can really picture it -- you could make a movie out of it. There was one guy who used to come with a -- named Moe -- and he would come with a wagon full of fresh vegetables down the street and block the entire street. And he'd send kids out, and my mother always had great big baskets of fresh fruits and vegetables from him. But this is illegal and the police station was around the corner --

SADY SULLIVAN: It was illegal for him to sell them?

MIMI LEIPZIG: It was illegal for him to stand there, to stop in the middle of the street and block traffic.

SADY SULLIVAN: Oh yeah.

MIMI LEIPZIG: The whole thing was illegal. So -- and the, and the police station was right around the corner, so the cops would come and Moe would stand there 30:00with a roll of bills, and he would give them money. [laughter]

SADY SULLIVAN: Oh.

MIMI LEIPZIG: And he'd have the roll of bills to give change to the customers, to the cops. [laughter] But it was, I mean, it was really a wonderful service for the neighborhood.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

MIMI LEIPZIG: And then we had one of the guys who used to sell my mother fresh fish that he used to complain about, he couldn't, he couldn't, um, they, they wouldn't let you make an honest living. They wouldn't let him steal the fish off the dock. So [laughter] -- but, but he was killed, and we discovered that he was one of the leading mafia rug dealers in the city. This Tony, shabby little guy with his wagon with one horse, and --

SADY SULLIVAN: Wow.

MIMI LEIPZIG: -- he was evidently a very important gangster. So...

SADY SULLIVAN: [laughter] Wow.

MIMI LEIPZIG: Yeah. But what did we -- but we knew nothing about any of this, you know. It was, these are the things that, that went on.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm. What were the other things -- how did you get your other household materials? Was everything coming by on -- everything sort of delivered?

MIMI LEIPZIG: You mean food?

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

MIMI LEIPZIG: From the grocery stores.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

MIMI LEIPZIG: Yeah. No, the, the -- Moe had the freshest vegetables.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

MIMI LEIPZIG: There was an A&P nearby that never had that kind of fresh vegetables that Moe brought, you know.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

MIMI LEIPZIG: There were small grocery stores. There were bakeries in the neighborhood, and my father's pharmacy that you could get things from. He didn't -- they weren't pharmacies like now. He sold, uh, drugs.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

MIMI LEIPZIG: You know, that was his important thing. But basically, you know, there was enough. And then you'd take the trolley car and you could go down to Namm's and Loeser's, to the department stores.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

MIMI LEIPZIG: You know. Because those, that was...

SADY SULLIVAN: Was there anything that you had to go into Manhattan to buy?

MIMI LEIPZIG: I don't think so. No. It never occurred to us that we had -- I 32:00mean, we went because we wanted to go to the Museum of Natural History. But, uh, uh, there was nothing in Manhattan that we, we would buy. I mean, everything was, was available in Brooklyn.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

MIMI LEIPZIG: And we never had a car. My father had a -- that's another story. My father had a license that he got -- now, you can get a thing like that without a car. He had it, got a license so that he could, for identification. And the way that you got a license then -- he never could drive, he never drove a car, he drove it once -- is that when you got into the car with the inspector, you put two dollars in the glove compartment. And then when the inspector wanted to see your, your papers, you'd say, "It's in the glove compartment." And it was there. [laughter] And that's the way it was -- this is all before LaGuardia.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

MIMI LEIPZIG: So -- and that's, that's the way it was. You know. And so he got his license and he never drove a car. [laughter] Never had a car, never drove 33:00it. And we would take, you know, the train or the trolley. Even buses weren't so active then. It was mostly trolley cars.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

MIMI LEIPZIG: And, um, or you walked. I mean, me running from Prospect Place to school, I made, I must have made it in eight minutes. I was always late for school. But it didn't occur to me that there was any other kind of transportation except walking or running up the street that far.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

MIMI LEIPZIG: So, uh, yeah.

SADY SULLIVAN: So then did you choose to go to Girl's Commercial?

MIMI LEIPZIG: I, you know, I didn't overthink it, just -- I went to elementary school near there, PS241. Uh, I think it was the easiest place for me to go to.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

MIMI LEIPZIG: And my parents were very worried about us, uh, me. Me. I don't know, I guess I was the, the second child. My younger sister went to junior high 34:00where she had to take two trains or something. But that was, took them a while. That was after I went to, to Girl's Commercial. But they had an academic course and it was nearby, and it was, you know, convenient. And that's -- I, I do not know if my mother, my parents were concerned about me going to a coed school or not. I doubt it.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

MIMI LEIPZIG: But, um -- and it didn't occur to me that it was any problem.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

MIMI LEIPZIG: You know, I went. It was there.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

MIMI LEIPZIG: And I went and it's, uh, and they had what I wanted. And I did make friends and, you know, we had the, the other kids who were art students and things like that.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

MIMI LEIPZIG: And I joined the American Students Union then.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

MIMI LEIPZIG: So that made, that gave me a base of friendship. You know.

SADY SULLIVAN: Um, and you mentioned downstairs, uh, that, that because your, your family lived close to school, that that would be sort of a hang out for --

MIMI LEIPZIG: Yeah, the girls.

SADY SULLIVAN: Yeah.

MIMI LEIPZIG: Yeah.

SADY SULLIVAN: Um, can you just talk a little bit about that?

MIMI LEIPZIG: Well, yeah, they used to all come after -- they came from long distances to go to that school. And we used to -- sometimes we used to lie in my parents' bed. There must have been five of us. And we would decide that we were going to have an apartment that would have no furniture and just rugs and we'd all sleep on the floor together. [laughter]

SADY SULLIVAN: Oh!

MIMI LEIPZIG: So, you know, and they would talk about their troubles and their -- of course, they loved being there because, as I said, my mother was so happy to have them there. And, uh, as a -- most, most of my old friends have died and most of the, the, uh, my schoolmates. And one of them, who must have some -- she's got a problem that I don't understand, quite. But she has decided that my husband Arthur had said, said something bad to her, insulted her terribly. What it is she can't tell me. I said, "Delores, I know... " She's the one who introduced me to Arthur.

SADY SULLIVAN: Oh.

MIMI LEIPZIG: She always treated him like he was her brother.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

MIMI LEIPZIG: Suddenly there it is. Anyhow, but every time she gets on the telephone from -- with me. First, first she tells me how sad she is that Arthur said that terrible thing to her. And then she talks about my parents, how wonderful they were to her and how loving they were to her, and how my father had this lovely smile. And -- but what her problem is with my husband I cannot understand.

SADY SULLIVAN: Huh.

MIMI LEIPZIG: And --

SADY SULLIVAN: But your friendship, you've, you've maintained a friendship?

MIMI LEIPZIG: We've, we've maintained these friends, all of those girls I was friends with until they died, yeah, yeah.

SADY SULLIVAN: Wow.

MIMI LEIPZIG: But one of them, I think it's Dottie, I don't see at all. She, it's, but, uh, yeah. It's, it's interesting. We, we had all these friends. And matter of fact, I have one friend -- and I don't know if you want to go to her, to Arizona -- I have one friend that I met in the third grade.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

MIMI LEIPZIG: She's now in Arizona. She worked in the Brooklyn Navy Yard, too.

SADY SULLIVAN: Oh, well, you should tell me her name. We don't have a, a travel 37:00budget, but...

MIMI LEIPZIG: All right, yeah. She, she worked -- she didn't work in the, in the shop.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

MIMI LEIPZIG: She worked in, uh, in the office, in the laboratory or something.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

MIMI LEIPZIG: And she, her name is Helen David, and she's in, um, Phoenix. And I can give you her, I mean, I can give you where she, all her information if you want it, or otherwise you can get it from me if you need it.

SADY SULLIVAN: Yeah, I, that maybe, that --

MIMI LEIPZIG: Because she had a whole different thing, you know. She went -- we met in PS241 and she went to junior high.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

MIMI LEIPZIG: And I, I went to Florida. That year we went to Florida because my older sister was always sick, and my parents decided that -- I guess somebody told them that being in a warmer climate might help her.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

MIMI LEIPZIG: So my mother took the three of us to Florida for the -- we went from September to June.

SADY SULLIVAN: Wow.

MIMI LEIPZIG: We went for the, you know, the two school semesters. We went to 38:00school there.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

MIMI LEIPZIG: Of course, I hated it.

SADY SULLIVAN: That must have been strange.

MIMI LEIPZIG: Terrible. But for that reason, I didn't go to junior high, because I went, you know, there was a whole transition there.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

MIMI LEIPZIG: So I never went to junior high. But Helen went to junior high, so she went in a whole different direction, this Helen. But we maintained a friendship.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

MIMI LEIPZIG: And she got married just about a little bit after I did, so she's married all those -- those years.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

MIMI LEIPZIG: And you know, she had a very different direction. I didn't see her a lot all these years, but we still correspond. We still write emails to each other. And you know, because we're -- it's part of our life. It's like she's a sister.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

MIMI LEIPZIG: She was a single kid, an only child.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

MIMI LEIPZIG: These are the -- well, I'm free, free --

SADY SULLIVAN: That's great.

MIMI LEIPZIG: Okay. We used to walk home -- well, that was when we used to walk home from school. You know, first we would, I would walk her home, then she would walk me home, then I would walk her. [laughter] But -- and I used to talk 39:00about my sisters. And years later, I discovered that she always thought I was lying. You know, just as I thought nobody lived in a house, she couldn't believe that anybody really had sisters --

SADY SULLIVAN: [laughter]

MIMI LEIPZIG: -- particularly because my older sister was always -- she was in boarding school, she was somewhere. She always had a problem.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

MIMI LEIPZIG: So she wasn't around. And I would talk, and I'd say -- I didn't discover until I was a grownup person that she thought I was telling a lie. [laughter]

SADY SULLIVAN: That's funny.

MIMI LEIPZIG: It is very funny.

SADY SULLIVAN: And actually I -- this was also downstairs so it wasn't on the recording, but I, I love the story that you mentioned, how you didn't think that people, um, lived in houses and --

MIMI LEIPZIG: That's right. They had -- the Bobbsey Twins went upstairs to bed, you know, and Buster Brown and his sister Sue went upstairs. But nobody I knew went up -- lived in a house.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

MIMI LEIPZIG: And the particular area that I lived in, there were no houses, no houses where individual people lived.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

MIMI LEIPZIG: But at one point, one of the places we lived was across the street from the Brooklyn Children's Museum --

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

MIMI LEIPZIG: -- which is still walking distance from that, it's still sort of in that same area.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

MIMI LEIPZIG: And there was one house there. By this time, I guess I was a little bit older, and there was one private house that I knew of. But I haven't -- that was a wonderful place, and I don't know --

SADY SULLIVAN: The, the museum?

MIMI LEIPZIG: The Brooklyn Children's Museum. Of course I know it has changed radically since I was a child. But it was a marvelous place for any child to be able to go to.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

MIMI LEIPZIG: And I used to go in there and they'd give me clay to play with and they'd, I had to squeeze it out of my fingernails. [laughter] I remember -- I can't believe, I must I have ten-years-old -- I remember, I remember having to do that. You know? They let me play with it, but I had to return it.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm. Could you go there without an adult?

MIMI LEIPZIG: I was right across the street. We lived directly across the street --

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

MIMI LEIPZIG: -- so I guess. I mean, I went.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

MIMI LEIPZIG: And, um, nobody seemed to stop me. So, uh, yeah.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm. And you also mentioned earlier that you would, um, that you spent time in the Botanic Garden also?

MIMI LEIPZIG: Yeah, because that's the other part of it. My father had arranged -- he worked until one o'clock, and then he had, he hired another pharmacist to be in the store between one and, and six so that he didn't have to stay in the, in the, be in -- you know, then pharmacists were open from eight o'clock in the morning until twelve o'clock at night, and many people stayed there all the time. So he would come home and have this big European meal that my mother would make for him, take a nap, and then he would meet us at school and we would go into the Botanic Gardens or to Prospect Park. You know, and, and we, we spent an awful lot of time there, you know, and sometimes he'd take my friends, sometimes my sisters. And he would buy -- this is another -- he, he, when he'd take the 42:00three of us for a walk, my younger and older sisters and me, and he'd buy four ice cream pops because the one that finished the first, and it usually was my little sister, would say, would keep saying to us, "Give me a bite of yours, give me!" So he bought one for bites. [laughter] So every once in a while when I prepare something and I, and I put one extra thing, I say, "This is for bites." [laughter]

SADY SULLIVAN: Oh.

MIMI LEIPZIG: Because he couldn't stand us fighting with each other. So -- so he would buy an extra ice cream.

SADY SULLIVAN: Oh, I like that. [laughter]

MIMI LEIPZIG: Yeah. We'd go rowing in Prospect Park, and it was, it was just wonderful.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

MIMI LEIPZIG: You know. And we would walk in the Botanic Gardens and, and we'd go on the Indian paths in Prospect Park where they, my father, my father would take us on these Indian paths. So, uh, yeah, it was a, a -- that, that area was marvelous.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm. And did you ever go to the Brooklyn Museum?

MIMI LEIPZIG: Oh, sure.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

MIMI LEIPZIG: And he -- oh, I'll tell -- that, we, of course, because it's all within the same complex almost.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

MIMI LEIPZIG: So we spent a lot of time in the Brooklyn Museum.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

MIMI LEIPZIG: And one year, Helen and I registered for a, uh, in the summertime, for a drama class. And I also don't know how old we were then. But -- and I was supposed to play the, the -- it happened in the play that I was supposed to play the part of an Egyptian slave boy, and I had budding breasts and they were, I, my -- Helen didn't have anything. And she was very worried because an Egyptian boy, the authentic -- because we, you know, we had this play, I guess, and we learned about the way they dressed and all those things. They had an integrated arts kind of program. And Helen was very worried that I would have to wear an Egyptian boy's loin -- you know, covering and I would -- what was going to 44:00happen to me? [laughter] Of course the teacher was smart enough to give me a top. [laughter] I think she was more worried about me than, than, than I was. You know?

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

MIMI LEIPZIG: S, [laughter]. But it was a wonderful program, you know, I mean, we learned something about Egypt, right? And, and we learned something a play, doing a play. And sure.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

MIMI LEIPZIG: So, uh, all, all of those places were available to us. And about that time -- let's see, and I always went to the library near where you are. I don't know why. We went with my father, mostly my father. Um, and, and I loved that. Now, I think that's the library that had a glass floor. I don't remember, but there was one library, one small library that we went to that had a glass floor on the second floor, and I just loved going there just because the 45:00building was so wonderful --

SADY SULLIVAN: Oh!

MIMI LEIPZIG: -- and mysterious. So...

SADY SULLIVAN: Oh, I wonder where that -- hmm.

MIMI LEIPZIG: You know, you couldn't see through the glass. It just was made of solid glass of some kind.

SADY SULLIVAN: Oh, I see.

MIMI LEIPZIG: Yeah. But I know that, that my father spent a lot of time in the old bookstores down in, down near Atlantic Avenue and stuff like that.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

MIMI LEIPZIG: Yeah. And my mother went to -- because my father was never available in the evenings -- she went to night, to, she took classes in night school and --SADY SULLIVAN: Oh.

MIMI LEIPZIG: -- and you know, she made a box -- my sister and I for years talked about it. She once painted a wonderful box that disappeared when she died and we could never find it, and we always wanted to find it.

SADY SULLIVAN: Oh.

MIMI LEIPZIG: I don't know what my -- maybe my father threw it away. He was very shocked and sad when my mother died, and she was not supposed to die before him. She was ten years younger than him, right?

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

MIMI LEIPZIG: And so, uh, he, uh, he was very angry.

SADY SULLIVAN: Oh.

MIMI LEIPZIG: But she loved, she loved to paint and she loved to do that kind of thing.

SADY SULLIVAN: What other -- is that the kind of classes that she was taking?

MIMI LEIPZIG: Art classes mostly, yeah. She took mostly art. Art, interior decorating, now, and she once went with a class -- and I don't know what she was studying, and I may even have a photograph of her with her teacher -- uh, they went to Niagara Falls.

SADY SULLIVAN: Oh!

MIMI LEIPZIG: And she went with my friend Helen's mother, Mrs. Rob -- Mrs. Robertson, who she called Mrs. Robertson. She must have known her for forty years and she always called her Mrs. Roberts. [laughter] So, interesting, you know.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm. Um, I'm curious again about, about Delores, uh, who is your friend who's, who introduced you --

MIMI LEIPZIG: Yeah.

SADY SULLIVAN: -- to Arthur, and then --

MIMI LEIPZIG: Yeah.

SADY SULLIVAN: So where does she live now?

MIMI LEIPZIG: Now, she lives, she lives in Island Park.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm. And so you're still friends even though there's this strange... ?MIMI LEIPZIG: Well, I, I mean, I -- the last time I spoke to her was a couple of months ago, and I called her. And I called her really because I had found a picture of her brother, who died in the Second World War.

SADY SULLIVAN: Oh!

MIMI LEIPZIG: He died in, uh -- it was her twin brother. He died, um, he was a tail gunner and he didn't have a parachute, and he was killed. And he was such a sweet, boy, you know?

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

MIMI LEIPZIG: And at that time, both -- her husband was -- both her husband and her broth -- her twin brother were missing in action.

SADY SULLIVAN: Ugh.

MIMI LEIPZIG: So -- her husband came home, but her, you know, but her brother didn't. And I had a picture of Eddie, and I said, I called her to say, you know, "Can you stand to, if I send you a picture of Eddie?" And she said, maybe I will. And then she started on this whole crazy thing about Arthur, and I really, uh, I really don't know quite, didn't quite know what to do about it.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

MIMI LEIPZIG: And so I let it go. So you know, once in a while I, I call her up. She's obviously not well.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

MIMI LEIPZIG: She was, of all the, the girls, the most talented artist of all of them. But somehow or other along the way, something happened and she's, you know, she -- she still painted but she didn't make her mark.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

MIMI LEIPZIG: And I think that's what disturbed her.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

MIMI LEIPZIG: And it disturbed her because here Arthur was, famous, and -- she didn't say that, I mean, she always felt that was wonderful, but, uh, you know. I, that just may be the problem. I'm not sure.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

MIMI LEIPZIG: And it may be that her husband is, is doing -- having some -- maybe her husband is abusing her for all I know. I don't know.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

MIMI LEIPZIG: You know. So, uh, but, but it's like I said to Helen. "Delores, 49:00you're like my sister. What is this? You know, this is nonsense."

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

MIMI LEIPZIG: But, but we have these pictures of her, her, her brother and her parents, and she came from a family of ten children and she had these wonderful Italian parents who were, you know, she tells -- she tells -- maybe, maybe she would -- well, she didn't work in the Navy Yard so you're not involved with that. But she has stories that she tells about her Italian parents, you know. Her parents married when her mother was fifteen, and her father was much bigger than her mother. But her mother grew. So from the time she was born, her mother was a head taller than her father. [laughter]

SADY SULLIVAN: [laughter] That's funny.

MIMI LEIPZIG: Isn't that funny? [laughter] But -- and her father used to take all the kids, she told me this, she used to -- and all the kids would stand up 50:00and he would draw a picture of their feet, and then he would go downtown someplace and buy fifteen pairs of shoes. [laughter] Well, it was a very hard job to support that many children.

SADY SULLIVAN: Yeah.

MIMI LEIPZIG: It was fifteen or ten, I forgot how many kids she had. But even if it was ten pairs of shoes, you know -- several pairs, several pairs of twins.

SADY SULLIVAN: Oh wow.

MIMI LEIPZIG: So [laughter] yeah. So you know, we have photographs of them incidentally as family photographs, and photographs that Arthur took specifically later on. But, uh, and, and Ed -- Ed and Arthur were, like, they loved each other.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm.

MIMI LEIPZIG: So...

SADY SULLIVAN: And so when did you -- did you meet Arthur before you went to work at the Navy Yard?

MIMI LEIPZIG: Sure. Because I went to high -- when I was in high school.

SADY SULLIVAN: Oh, okay. So let's, so how --

MIMI LEIPZIG: Yeah.

SADY SULLIVAN: -- did that happen?

MIMI LEIPZIG: Well, he was, he was Eddie's good friend, and you know, I don't know, along the way all of us met each other.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

MIMI LEIPZIG: And we hung out together. And as a matter of fact, I used to hang out with about four or five boys, we all used to hang around together, and suddenly Arthur and I wanted to date alone and nobody could accept this.

SADY SULLIVAN: Oh!

MIMI LEIPZIG: They couldn't believe that we wanted to do this. [laughter] Because we were all together.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

MIMI LEIPZIG: You know. So...

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm, and --

MIMI LEIPZIG: And we were involved with the ASU and all those things, you know?

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

MIMI LEIPZIG: We wanted to support the war, and God, when I, I think about it, you know, we'd, we'd march in the May Day Parade and sing, "Don't mind the rain, think of the boys in Spain." And now I think about it, and what did we know 52:00about what those poor children that went overseas to fight in Spain went through?

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

MIMI LEIPZIG: We knew nothing! You know. We thought we knew.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

MIMI LEIPZIG: And so several, several of the, the kids that we knew went to Spain to fight.

SADY SULLIVAN: Oh, wow.

MIMI LEIPZIG: Yeah. So -- and, and we -- but you know, kids don't know anything. They don't know -- they think they know everything and they know nothing.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

MIMI LEIPZIG: So, so you think of how terrible it must be. And they went untrained, you know, they, they just --

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

MIMI LEIPZIG: That was a hard time.

SADY SULLIVAN: Um, and so when, how did you come to work at the Navy Yard?

MIMI LEIPZIG: They gave -- well, this was during the war, and of course we were all supporting the war, and they gave a mechanical apt -- aptitude test. I had quit school because I -- they had nothing to teach me. [laughter] And, uh, and 53:00I, and I did various things. I worked in a factory and, you know, the factory owner wanted me to go back to school and, and I, and the Navy Yard was giving this mechanical aptitude test. And, and I did very well, and so I was -- they, they were hiring groups of people. Now, Helen may have done better in a different area than I did, because she was hired for a different, um, a, a different kind of job.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

MIMI LEIPZIG: And they taught us how to weld, how to tack weld, and they taught us how to do various things. We had a training course. And they sent us to work in the Navy Yard because they needed assistance, ship fitters -- my job was a ship fitter's assistant.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

MIMI LEIPZIG: So --

SADY SULLIVAN: So do you know how you found out about the mechanical aptitude test?

MIMI LEIPZIG: I may have found out, seen it in the newspaper.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm. And did, and did you and Helen go together to take it?

MIMI LEIPZIG: No. No, we didn't. No, she went separately. At that point, we weren't seeing each other very often.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

MIMI LEIPZIG: But she must have found out the same way I did. You know, there were a lot of things happening then, the, that you read about to support the war.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

MIMI LEIPZIG: You collected newspapers. I have wonderful photographs of collecting newspapers. You collected newspapers, you collected rubber bands, aluminum foil -- all of which were really unnecessary.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

MIMI LEIPZIG: But, but it brought the community together, I guess.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

MIMI LEIPZIG: Uh, but you did all kinds of, anything you could to support the war.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

MIMI LEIPZIG: You know. And, uh, uh, so that this was really, uh, you would jump at it. Seeing this, I said, of course, they, that's -- I, I jumped at it. I thought it would be great. And besides, I was so proud that I could do those kind of things. I knew I could do that kind of thing.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

MIMI LEIPZIG: So, so I, uh, I took the test. And the, the other girls that 55:00worked with me were, very few were -- I guess most of them weren't even like each other. I don't know how much of a similarity there was among the girls. You know? They were all a little -- each one was a little different from the other --

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

MIMI LIEPZIG: -- in many, many ways, in background and everything else. And of course we shared the fact that we -- we didn't know what the hell was going on. And we got in, walked, walked into this, this building. A ship fitter's shop has a steel floor, and, I guess because they have a lot of tack welding -- I'm not sure but I think that must be the reason -- there is always chipping happen, happening. You know the sound that they, when they work in the street, they go, "Eh eh eh eh eh."

SADY SULLIVAN: Oh yeah.

MIMI LEIPZIG: So I worked in there with this group of girls, and, and I hear the sound and I say to myself, "Oh, well, this will go away. This will be fine. It won't happen, you know, it's just that you're repairing something." That's the 56:00sound of a ship fitting shop.

SADY SULLIVAN: Oh wow.

MIMI LEIPZIG: So, so you live there that way, and what happens is you get a little deaf while you're there. But --

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

MIMI LEIPZIG: Then, uh, well, I have to -- I'll describe the, the thing, though.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

MIMI LEIPZIG: They put -- they took, um, the, the bathroom doors, they -- they just, they took the men's room off and put "ladies" on it and they gave us a bathroom. There were urinals in them. We used to tell the new girls that they were foot showers. [laughter] Because they didn't know what they were. You know? They were factory urinals there, so they're circular, and a border there. The other thing is that men who work in factories -- I'm not sure if it still goes on now -- the toilets don't have doors.

SADY SULLIVAN: Oh.

MIMI LEIPZIG: But women have to have doors on their toilets. So the girls used to put up curtains, and the authorities used to come in and take them down. I mean, this was our silent protest with, they used to, we used to do it. We were, 57:00you know, whatever they said, that was one thing, and the girls would insist. And they finally -- and I know at least in one bathroom -- they finally took one bathroom and made a real door. Because somebody recognized that women need privacy.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

MIMI LEIPZIG: You know? It was, uh, an interesting time.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

MIMI LEIPZIG: This is, this is all the changeover. The pants, the, the bathroom. The, uh, the, the, the men would all tell stories about sex in the, in the shop, that everybody was doing it, and the girls, these girls were all, whatever they did. And I don't know if any of the ones that I knew ever had a -- I think one or two girls must have had affairs with guys. Certainly not under the bulkhead.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

MIMI LEIPZIG: But these, these, all the, you know, because we were all -- we were working, so we were a special kind of girl, we were working in that kind of shop.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

MIMI LEIPZIG: And you had to get shoes with steel-toed shoes, you know, all 58:00those things.

SADY SULLIVAN: Was that hard to find for a woman?

MIMI LEIPZIG: Well, they finally -- there was a, a point, and maybe very shortly after I started working there, I -- manufacturers started making very nice coveralls -- I wish you could find them now -- that we could wear, and steel-toed shoes. They were, they were producing them, you know, just for the people who worked in the war, because you drop a steel thing on your foot, you're done.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm, mm-hmm.

MIMI LEIPZIG: And then I, I was telling everybody the story, the, the, that because -- because in a thing like that, the young, new people always think they're being hazed. And you are to a certain extent. Um, one of the things, it's very simple but you have to learn it, is that you have to have -- I've forgot the name of it. You had, and you work with, with any electrical thing, you have to have a connection. Oh. Excuse me.

SADY SULLIVAN: Sure.

MIMI LEIPZIG: I, see if -- I'll go downstairs. I think this -- yeah. Hello? 59:00Hello? Yeah, hi, hi. I'm OK. Listen, hi, can I call you back in about an hour? Give me your telephone number again. I always lose it. Okay, but I can't talk to you now. Give me your telephone number. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay, in about an hour. Okay? Okay, goodbye. That was another friend I only know about forty years.

SADY SULLIVAN: [laughter]Here, I can --

MIMI LEIPZIG: Yeah, take that.

SADY SULLIVAN: Oh, good.

MIMI LEIPZIG: Okay. So what was I telling you about? Oh, working in the Navy Yard.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

MIMI LEIPZIG: Um, there were, so, well, yeah. So first of all, the men really were disturbed by us -- a lot of the men, I shouldn't say all of them --

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

MIMI LEIPZIG: -- by the fact that we were, we were working there. You know, they -- it was, it was a macho kind of thing.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

MIMI LEIPZIG: But, uh...

SADY SULLIVAN: And how did they, how did they express the--?

MIMI LEIPZIG: I, I -- it's hard to -- little innuendos, things like that, but you got the sense. Then I had one man -- at that point, Arthur and I had 61:00married. First of all, Arthur was working for the newspaper PM. He would work -- when he worked nights, I was working days. You know. You -- incidentally, you had to work sixty hours a week. They required it.

SADY SULLIVAN: Sixty hours?

MIMI LEIPZIG: Sixty hours a week.

SADY SULLIVAN: Wow.

MIMI LEIPZIG: They didn't have to, but we worked sixty hours a week.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

MIMI LEIPZIG: So Arthur would work nights. I would work days. Then I would work nights, he would work days. And we lived in my mother-in-law's house in Borough Park, and in order to get to the Navy Yard it was a -- I guess I had to take a trolley and a train or something like that. And one of the men offered to pick me up and drive me in. I thought nothing of it. He didn't think nothing of it. And I mean, when I think about it later, you know, he thought he was making a connection with me.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

MIMI LEIPZIG: Because when, when he -- I realized something was going on when he started to tell me how badly his wife treated him.

SADY SULLIVAN: Oh, he was married. I thought maybe he didn't know --

MIMI LEIPZIG: Yeah, no, he was a married man.

SADY SULLIVAN: -- that you were married.

MIMI LEIPZIG: Most of them were married, right?

SADY SULLIVAN: Oh!

MIMI LEIPZIG: So you know! [laughter] And I was this -- I was married, but I was as innocent as anybody could be. I really -- people, people there, girls would say dirty -- tell dirty jokes. I had no idea what they were saying. [laughter] I mean, in retrospect I know what they were saying. But then, I didn't know. You know.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

MIMI LEIPZIG: I was this protected person. But, um, I know -- you know. And, and then, of course, that was the time when you, the reason you got married is because you didn't, you didn't live with a guy.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

MIMI LEIPZIG: Except that one or two of them were living with other guys. And that was kind of a secret, or they would mention it and somebody else would catch it. You know?

SADY SULLIVAN: Oh!

MIMI LEIPZIG: So things were going on that I didn't really know, and I -- it just beginning to, all these sexual things were changing, all the ways that people behaved.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

MIMI LEIPZIG: And I guess I was just finding it out because I was this little, 63:00protected kid.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

MIMI LEIPZIG: So...

SADY SULLIVAN: So what year was that when you started at the Yards?

MIMI LEIPZIG: Was it '42? Joel was born in '42, so it must have been '40.

SADY SULLIVAN: Oh, wow.

MIMI LEIPZIG: I think my son was born -- yeah. I was, I was eighteen. I was born in 1923.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

MIMI LEIPZIG: So was that '40?

SADY SULLIVAN: Yeah, or '41. Yeah.

MIMI LEIPZIG: Yeah, yeah.

SADY SULLIVAN: Wow. Um, and so were, the other women that you were working with, were, were the majority married? Or how...

MIMI LEIPZIG: Most of them were, were not married.

SADY SULLIVAN: Were not married?

MIMI LEIPZIG: Were not married.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

MIMI LEIPZIG: Uh, maybe one or two was married and men were overseas. I know some of the boys were going to go overseas, so -- and the kids, the young ones that were working there. But a lot of the people who, the men who worked there were married because that's one of the reasons they didn't go overseas.

SADY SULLIVAN: Right, because they had kids or something.

MIMI LEIPZIG: And we built landing crafts, uh, you know, things like that, LSTs. LSTs, yeah. So, uh -- but yeah, so it was, so most of them were not married.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

MIMI LEIPZIG: The married men.

SADY SULLIVAN: But most of the men, the --

MIMI LEIPZIG: The men were married, and most of the girls were not married.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

MIMI LEIPZIG: Or if they were married, they were married like me. You know. They may have been married. I didn't even -- now that I'm thinking about it, I'm thinking about who was there.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm. Yeah, who was there? Is there anybody that -- just describe who--.MIMI LEIPZIG: Well, I had -- there as one girl -- now, one of the things we used to do, and that's why a lot of men who worked in welding got, um, um, there's a name for the disease, the welding, you know, from, uh, asbestos. Asbestosis.

SADY SULLIVAN: Yup.

MIMI LEIPZIG: Because what you would do is you would put an asbestos blanket around you and, and weld, like, this overhead welding, the sparks would fall down, they'd fall... And one of the young women, whose father was a doctor, absolutely refused to use one of those things. How she knew, I don't know.

SADY SULLIVAN: Wow.

MIMI LEIPZIG: But she also told me that she wouldn't let her doctor look at her 65:00breasts, that she got burned and she wouldn't let her father look at them. [laughter] She was also married to a guy -- you know, these are details that I sort of remember. She was, she -- her father was a doctor, she had gone to college, and she was married to a food and, and, and, uh, vegetable delivery guy. And she would not let her father look at her, her, her, the burn on her breasts.

SADY SULLIVAN: Was the burn from welding?

MIMI LEIPZIG: Yeah.

SADY SULLIVAN: Oh, wow.

MIMI LEIPZIG: Yeah, yeah, because she wouldn't wear the, the asbestos covering --

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

MIMI LEIOZIG: -- so she got this burn. A lot -- sometimes you got a burn because you didn't cover yourself up quite well enough.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

MIMI LEIPZIG: But, um, yeah, but you know, you'd get, you'd get those kind of burns. And then, of course, if you held -- you use a welding mask. If you should happen not to have the mask on, you'd get a flash burn in your eye, which is really a horrible thing.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

MIMI LEIPZIG: It's terrible -- I mean, I, you know, I've had it. It feels like there's terrible sand, and it's painful.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm.

MIMI LEIPZIG: Which is one of the hazards of working with, um, arc welding.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

MIMI LEIPZIG: So, uh... but she -- we had her. I can't -- I never really made friends with, with, with those girls. You know, we just sort of hung out a little bit together, but I, I -- mainly, I guess, because I was newly married and I was involved with Arthur and all that stuff.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

MIMI LEIPZIG: Yeah. So what else can I tell you about working in the Navy Yard, aside from changing the door? There, there, oh, and there was, and the gossip. And, and the hard work. It was, I mean, it was hard to be there that, for eight -- for that many hours a week.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

MIMI LEIPZIG: For sixty hours a week.

SADY SULLIVAN: What was a typical day?

MIMI LEIPZIG: You'd come in. You, you -- I don't know. You'd come in. You'd get your gloves and your gear. And the men were always trying to, to get us -- they had to buy their gloves. I don't know why they had to buy their gloves and we 67:00got gloves to wear, wear for nothing.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

MIMI LEIPZIG: So they were always trying to convince us, the ones that we helped, to, uh, to get them gloves. You know?

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

MIMI LEIPZIG: And I was always embarrassed about having -- about asking for the gloves. But I don't know why they had to pay for them. I can't figure that out. Because they needed them. They were essential.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

MIMI LEIPZIG: And you, you can't work that way without gloves, you know, there's so many hazards. So I don't know. We'd come in. We'd stand and wait, and then somebody would come and ask us to help them, one of us, and we'd do some welding or we -- it was mostly waiting and welding once in a while, and helping carry things, and you know, measuring things, because we were assistants.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

MIMI LEIPZIG: So whenever there was required to be an assistant, that's what you did.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

MIMI LEIPZIG: You know. So that's basically what it was. And then, then we would get very inexpensive meals from the, the PX or whatever the [inaudible].

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

MIMI LEIPZIG: Oh boy. I wonder if one of the phones up here works. Let's see. Maybe it does.

SADY SULLIVAN: Okay.

MIMI LEIPZIG: No. Wait. I'll go upstairs. [laughter] Hello? Hello? Hi, Zora [phonetic]? Zora, I can't talk to you now. Can I call you later? What time? Okay. About, about eight o'clock. Okay, good. Okay, bye. The telephone company 69:00messed up my phones. I used to have phones on this -- all the phones on this floor, they don't work anymore.

SADY SULLIVAN: Oh.

MIMI LEIPZIG: So...

SADY SULLIVAN: Oop. Sorry about that.

MIMI LEIPZIG: So let's see, what else can I tell you about the Navy Yard? That, that -- I mean, these, these extra -- I can remember these, the food in the, in the --

SADY SULLIVAN: Yeah, what was that like? Was there an area that you would eat in?

MIMI LEIPZIG: No, you sort of just grabbed your food. I guess you ate somewhere. And I don't have a vision, a vision of that.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

MIMI LEIPZIG: I do remember that the food was -- there was a lot of food because it was, I guess they were man-sized portions. But I remember feeling that way --

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

MIMI LEIPZIG: -- about these, uh, portions. Sometimes we'd bring our lunch with us, depending on when we were working. And, but there was an awful lot of standing around and waiting.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

MIMI LEIPZIG: That I remember too, which is why I think, like a lot of other things during the war, that it's like the collecting of papers, that the Navy had to -- you know, supposedly we had to get things done. But we were hanging around doing nothing.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

MIMI LEIPZIG: And we would complain, and that caused a lot of trouble.

SADY SULLIVAN: Who would you complain to?

MIMI LEIPZIG: Well, we'd complain to the supervisor or the boss. But you had to have a lot of guts to do that. Once in a while one of us would do it --

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

MIMI LEIPZIG: -- and then they would, it would cause a -- all the way down the line it would cause a problem, because that's not the way you work in a factory.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

MIMI LEIPZIG: You hang around and wait. So -- and I know there was an awful lot of, of, uh, doing nothing.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm. So the, the meals when you would eat all together, was 71:00that, were, was the, the yard paying for it, or you would buy your lunch?

MIMI LEIPZIG: I don't remember. I don't remember.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

MIMI LEIPZIG: I think that they paid. There's some reason I, in my head, I think that I didn't have to buy food -- the food. But it's very hard for me because I also remember that there was a, uh, a sandwich place right by the Navy Yard where we would stop in and buy the most wonderful heroes on the way to work.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm.

MIMI LEIPZIG: So it's funny that I can't, you know, that I can remember a lot of things about it, but it's, uh, evidently it -- how we ate was not important to me.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm. Do you remember, was the sandwich shop on Sands Street?

MIMI LEIPZIG: I don't remember the street. It was right around the corner from the Navy Yard.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

MIMI LEIPZIG: It was a little, tiny sandwich shop where they would make -- do you ever watch them make heroes in a -- like a factory line?

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

MIMI LEIPZIG: And they were so good! [laughter] And then after, after the -- I 72:00guess maybe while I was still working in the Navy Yard, we were offered an apartment in the project that was just being built, the Fort Greene Project.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

MIMI LEIPZIG: We thought that was the most wonderful thing. Were we lucky that we didn't move in there, because it didn't turn out to be wonderful.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

MIMI LEIPZIG: But we went -- when we were offered it, we were so excited about it, you know?

SADY SULLIVAN: And then why did you not move in?

MIMI LEIPZIG: I don't remember why we didn't, didn't. Maybe, maybe there was a -- it was too far away or we were, there was an apartment in my mother's -- the building that my mother lived in. Uh, or it may have been even more money than that, the three-room apartment that we rented. And you know, I think it was, the, the apartment was $21 a month or some ridiculous amount like that.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

MIMI LEIPZIG: Or $36, maybe it was $36 a month, and the Fort Greene one must have been, may have been a little bit more expensive, some -- something like that.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

MIMI LEIPZIG: So, uh, we didn't. We moved into the -- a Prospect Place apartment instead.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

MIMI LEIPZIG: But it was very lucky because that didn't turn out to be such a good thing.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

MIMI LEIPZIG: And then we were reading Ayn Rand, who was talking about, do you remember that, that, that, the description of the buildings that, in there?

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

MIMI LEIPZIG: So that was the thought, that moving into that wonderful building. You know? [laughter]

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

MIMI LEIPZIG: And you know, then, then, then, of course, Arthur was working. I guess I felt safe -- of course, well I, when I quit the Navy Yard, it was because I had a -- I had a baby.

SADY SULLIVAN: Oh.

MIMI LEIPZIG: I was pregnant. So, uh --

SADY SULLIVAN: Did you quit as soon as you found out you were pregnant, or did you work for --

MIMI LEIPZIG: I -- no, I worked for a couple of months, and then I asked to be released. Uh, it was very hard to just quit and not, and get another job. And I thought I would get another job because I thought it would be dangerous, it was dangerous to work with arc welding and stuff like that if you were pregnant.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

MIMI LEIPZIG: So I think I never did get another job. I must have -- I can't remember what I did then. But anyhow, I, I quit and, you know, I was pregnant, and I had a baby.

SADY SULLIVAN: Do you know what year that was around that you, that you quit?

MIMI LEIPZIG: Well, Joel is, uh, Joel was born in 1942, I think. But you know, I'm very bad with dates.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

MIMI LEIPZIG: I have to tell you. When Arthur wakes up, we'll ask him when Joel was born.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

MIMI LEIPZIG: He -- because I can never remember if he's -- he must be sixty, sixty-four-years-old. So -- that, too. You know, when your children get to be that, your children get to be senior citizens, it's hard to believe that this gray-haired man is your child. [laughter] That you gave birth to him.

SADY SULLIVAN: Yeah. That's really neat.

MIMI LEIPZIG: Yeah, isn't it? It's very funny.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

MIMI LEIPZIG: As a matter of fact, I dropped him off at the Long Island Railroad 75:00one day and I said, "Don't forget to ask for a senior citizen pass," and then I laughed. [laughter] You know. It's, uh...

SADY SULLIVAN: That's neat.

MIMI LEIPZIG: Yeah.

SADY SULLIVAN: Um, so when you -- so you, you, you left the Navy Yard before they did -- because I know at the end of the war, they, they laid everybody off.

MIMI LEIPZIG: Yeah. No, I left before.

SADY SULLIVAN: But you were out of there before?

MIMI LEIPZIG: Right, right.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm. Um, and so what was it -- you said that you worked at a -- at a factory, uh, briefly before you worked at the Yard?

MIMI LEIPZIG: Uh, yeah, at some kind of an electrical parts factory. I can't remember why I decided I should work in a factory, but I did.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

MIMI LEIPZIG: And I, I got this job where I was doing assembling, you know? You put a thing -- and I never, I was not good at it. I must tell you, they always had somebody re-instructing me. [laughter] But you put something on this, it's a screwing machine, and it's where you put, uh, well, you have to work in kind of rhythm.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

MIMI LEIPZIG: You know? And I guess I didn't do well. [laughter]

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm. And so --

MIMI LEIPZIG: But I tried that. And then I also tried a guy who could -- before the Navy Yard, I guess, I decided maybe I should go to one of these stenography schools where you -- they send you out to work.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

MIMI LEIPZIG: So I had a lot of interesting experiences, but I didn't pay attention much [inaudible]. I would, I worked -- once I worked for a doctor. Now, he was getting me for almost nothing and he wanted me to take -- to launder my uniform that I worked for him and do all kinds of exploitive things.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm.

MIMI LEIPZIG: And he had somebody before who was very willing to do all those things, and I wasn't willing to do any, I -- because I thought he was exploiting me. So that was --

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

MIMI LEIPZIG: -- that was not successful. And I worked at, um, the Brill building where somebody was producing something called Tune-Dex. They were index cards for musicians --

SADY SULLIVAN: Oh!

MIMI LEIPZIG: -- with the, with the, uh, music on them, which, great, was great.

SADY SULLIVAN: Yeah, that's a good idea.

MIMI LEIPZIG: Right, right. Of course, he -- he made a pass at me and I didn't 77:00recognize it until twenty years later, too. [laughter] No, he, he invited me to have lunch with him, and I thought, "That was fine, nice." You know?

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

MIMI LEIPZIG: And then he started to tell me I should go first and nobody should see me. So [laughter] -- so I quit. I didn't think that was a good idea. [laughter] I have a cramp in my foot.

SADY SULLIVAN: Oh.

MIMI LEIPZIG: It'll go away. So I -- I had a variety of small jobs, you know?

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

MIMI LEIPZIG: And, uh, and the -- and then I had this baby that I had to figure out what to do with, because I was still very young.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

MIMI LEIPZIG: And I had never handled a child before. So I mean, I never even held a child, a baby before.

SADY SULLIVAN: Oh, wow.

MIMI LEIPZIG: So, you learn.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

MIMI LEIPZIG: You know, you read, you read books. You read Spock. And then you read, uh, there was a book called Infant and Child in the Society of Today. That 78:00was very -- a lot of people I knew read that book.

SADY SULLIVAN: Ah.

MIMI LEIPZIG: It was a discussion, a developmental discussion of children. Those were my guiding principles.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

MIMI LEIPZIG: So...

SADY SULLIVAN: And how did you feel about, about leaving work and --

MIMI LEIPZIG: I, I -- well, I was very excited about having a baby because it was such an exciting thing, you know.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

MIMI LEIPZIG: And I, uh, I didn't -- I was not happy. I didn't feel like I should be leaving work.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

MIMI LEIPZIG: On the other hand, you know, I was going through a very confused period of time, and the fact is that Arthur was always -- uh, working for a newspaper is not a steady kind of job, so you don't know when this, this person is going to be around or not be around.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

MIMI LEIPZIG: So you, you're coping with all kinds of things, all kinds of stresses so that -- you know he'd, he'd be called in the middle of the night. I 79:00mean, we have photographs that he took on VJ Day, of all the people out in the street banging things. Well, he had to get up in the middle of the night to take those pictures, right?

SADY SULLIVAN: Right.

MIMI LEIPZIG: He, he talks about a storm where he nearly got killed. I remember that. There was a -- a hurricane in New York, and he, um, he went out. It ruined one camera with the rain. Came back to PM, got another camera, went out to take more pictures. You know, and I was home with the baby worrying, you know?

SADY SULLIVAN: Yes.

MIMI LEIPZIG: So that was not easy.

SADY SULLIVAN: Yeah.

MIMI LEIPZIG: Because it's, uh -- if I had been out there, I wouldn't have been as worried as I was in the house, you know.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

MIMI LEIPZIG: So he's, he's, you know, he talked -- he was ignoring the guys who were trying to stop him from going over the tracks, and finally one -- he heard one fellow say, "Death," and he had a, he was like one foot away from the third rail. You know?

SADY SULLIVAN: Oh.

MIMI LEIPZIG: Well, that's what newspaper photographers did.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

MIMI LEIPZIG: You know, he'd do things like -- well, later on he climbed up the Brooklyn Bridge. We, we'll show you those pictures. So, you know, he'd say, 80:00"Well, they told me to do it, so I went and did it." [laughter] So, uh, so you know, so I had this baby, which -- and not a lot of, uh -- as, as, as much as Arthur cared, he was not around a lot.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

MIMI LEIPZIG: My mother was around.

SADY SULLIVAN: Were your, were your friends also having kids at that time?

MIMI LEIPZIG: I had the first baby.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

MIMI LEIPZIG: Everybody -- I have the oldest children of anybody.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

MIMI LEIPZIG: So, uh, yeah, nobody else, nobody else had children. And you know, they'd come over and, and look at my baby --

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm

MIMI LEIPZIG: -- and play with this strange creature. [laughter]

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm. Um, and we talked about this a little bit downstairs but I don't think it's on the recording, about how, um, how you were aware, when you started to work at the Navy Yard as a woman, that that was a, a unique thing to 81:00be doing.

MIMI LEIPZIG: That's right.

SADY SULLIVAN: Can you -- yeah, can you talk about that a little bit?

MIMI LEIPZIG: Well, you know, in my whole background, there was always a discussion about -- since I was a kid, you know, I remember when we were kids -- that women should be allowed to do things that men do, that there was no reason why women couldn't do -- it was a pre-women's lib attitude.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

MIMI LEIPZIG: But I, I always know that among my parents and the, and the three of us, this was always a discussion.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

MIMI LEIPZIG: So that, um, I was very much aware of what was going on. And you know, this thing about bobbing hair was, you know, it's, it's like, it's right after the women's vote and bloomers and things like that.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

MIMI LEIPZIG: And people started to bob their hair. And, uh, this was all part of the progression of women not just being the vassals.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

MIMI LEIPZIG: So -- and, and it was exciting to me that I could do a job that 82:00men, only men were hired to.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

MIMI LEIPZIG: That was really, I think, one of the -- well, working in the Navy Yard, because it was so important for the war, that was wonderful. But also, because it was a job that only, that women were never allowed to do, and that was really very, very important to me.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm. And was that something, would you -- is that something that you would talk about at the time to your family or your husband or your friends?

MIMI LEIPZIG: Uh, a little bit. Not -- we didn't do a lot of talking about it, but especially working in the Navy Yard. Talking about wearing pants, yes. That we would talk about that, how ridiculous it was, and that women should be allowed to do things, you know, that men did. And, uh, uh, and -- but I, but I, it was implied, even when we talked about working in the Navy Yard, that we were doing things that men, that only men could do.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

MIMI LEIPZIG: And that really was one of the attractions, sure.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

MIMI LEIPZIG: You know. Now, women do everything. You know. They, they work as, 83:00uh, electricians and they measure places and climb on high rise and things like that.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

MIMI LEIPZIG: Among other things.

SADY SULLIVAN: Was there ever, um, conversation with the other women that you worked with when you were at the Yards?

MIMI LEIPZIG: No.

SADY SULLIVAN: Like, oh, this is a remarkable thing we're doing.

MIMI LEIPZIG: No, no.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

MIMI LEIPZIG: We would scoff at the men for, you know, that, for behaving, for think -- behaving that way. But basically no, we never even talked about it.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

MIMI LEIPZIG: You know, it was there -- and I don't know if everybody felt the way I did, but I think they did. I think generally, there was all kinds of levels of, uh, of, um, awareness of what we were doing.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm. And was there anyone in your life who, who thought it was a bad idea, who was against you working there?

MIMI LEIPZIG: If they did, they didn't say so. I think my par -- my mother and Arthur's mother both worried a lot about it.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

MIMI LEIPZIG: And particularly Arthur's mother worried terribly, and she -- and maybe my mother did too, but she wouldn't express it -- about me going out in 84:00the middle of the night to take a bus to go to work.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

MIMI LEIPZIG: And that was, like -- you know, in my family, we were supposed to be independent. So if my mother worried about it, she wasn't going to say it out loud. But Arthur's mother was very worried about it. And, uh, and it was -- can you imagine such a dangerous thing? I was out in the middle of the night on public transportation going to the Navy Yard?

SADY SULLIVAN: Yeah, which is a kind of remote area.

MIMI LEIPZIG: And I used to, I used to laugh because they, "Oh, how ridiculous that she should be worried about me."

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

MIMI LEIPZIG: But that's, again, the arrogance of youth.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

MIMI LEIPZIG: So, you know, you know everything.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm. I'm just going to turn the recorder so I can see it.

MIMI LEIPZIG: I don't know if we have much more to say.

SADY SULLIVAN: Okay. I have, I have a few more questions.

MIMI LEIPZIG: Sure.

SADY SULLIVAN: If you're, if that's all right.

MIMI LEIPZIG: I will [inaudible]. Sure.

SADY SULLIVAN: Okay. Um, one I guess we sort of talked about a little bit, but 85:00what would you wear when you were traveling to and from the Yards? Because you would change, you would get your equipment.

MIMI LEIPZIG: Yeah, probably pants. No, I, the, the -- I wore my work clothes.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

MIMI LEIPZIG: I, uh, I wore the, that -- as I said, that, I wish I could find those coveralls that we wore. They were wonderful.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

MIMI LEIPZIG: Yeah, and I, and you had to cover, you know, you had to cover your hair. You had to wear a cap. And your shoes. And good, and the right shoes, steel-toed shoes.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

MIMI LEIPZIG: Those were important. But you wore your work clothes to and from work.

SADY SULLIVAN: And this, it, we -- it wasn't on the recording, but I, I liked the story that you were -- mentioned downstairs, about a, a woman --

MIMI LEIPZIG: Oh, you want me to tell it again?

SADY SULLIVAN: Yes.

MIMI LEIPZIG: [laughter] I was walking in the street and I was wearing slacks, and a woman, an older woman stopped me and she said, "My dear, if you don't have a skirt to wear, I have one at home to give you." [laughter] And at first I was 86:00taken aback, and then I said to her, "Well, I don't know if I could wear a skirt on my job in the Navy Yard." And I was so proud that I could say it. I mean, I would have thought of another retort if I wasn't working in the Navy Yard. But it was such a good idea that I could say this to this bossy woman.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

MIMI LEIPZIG: Uh, this bossy, arrogant woman.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

MIMI LEIPZIG: So, but there was a lot -- there must have been an awful lot of, uh, concern in society about women, even then, about women, um, moving, changing on, wearing clothes that men wore, all kinds of things like that.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

MIMI LEIPZIG: Not being ladylike.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

MIMI LEIPZIG: So...

SADY SULLIVAN: Um, speaking of that, what about language? I've heard a lot about the, the colorful language in the, in the Yards.

MIMI LEIPZIG: Well, it was there. And again, I said I was this innocent person. But I had never heard the word fuck before --

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

MIMI LEIPZIG: -- and I certainly had never said it. [laughter] But, so I guess -- but, but more than that, I think I was kind of oblivious. But that word, you know, and, and I guess there were a few other words there. But I, I, I mean, I couldn't say it. As a matter of fact, I don't even think I said it then. I think I got to be about forty years old before I could say that word.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

MIMI LEIPZIG: So there were other girls who were much more conversant.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

MIMI LEIPZIG: They would tell dirty jokes and dirty innuendos that I didn't understand. That's why I say, I, they, I mean, ten or twenty years later, I say to myself, "That's what they were talking about." [laughter] So there I was, this innocent -- so, but you know, you can't really be corrupted by that because you don't know what's going on, so you're not being corrupted. You know? And so... [laughter].

SADY SULLIVAN: Um, do you remember what building you worked in, or area? Like a name?

MIMI LEIPZIG: It might have been B, but I'm not. I have a, a vague memory that it was B.

SADY SULLIVAN: Okay. I have, uh, this is, uh, it's a later map, but -- I think this map is from the '60s. But, um, I wonder, so this is Kent and then, um, Flushing Ave is right here. So this, I think the main entrance is here, either along Flushing --

MIMI LEIPZIG: And what is this over here?

SADY SULLIVAN: This is, um, this is Navy Street and then Sands Street, so this was --

MIMI LEIPZIG: That's not --

SADY SULLIVAN: There was a big gate here.

MIMI LEIPZIG: Yeah.

SADY SULLIVAN: And then there was a big gate over at Cumberland.

MIMI LEIPZIG: I think I used to come down Flatbush Avenue.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

MIMI LEIPZIG: Where is Flatbush Avenue on this map?

SADY SULLIVAN: Hmm. Um --

MIMI LEIPZIG: That's what I thought. Maybe not.

SADY SULLIVAN: Flushing maybe?

MIMI LEIPZIG: No.

SADY SULLIVAN: Uh...

MIMI LEIPZIG: Now, let's see.

SADY SULLIVAN: I think Flatbush would --

MIMI LEIPZIG: Now, the Navy Yard was, um, at the north end of Brooklyn, right?

SADY SULLIVAN: It's in the, it's sort of in the middle, um, but the north, northern middle, yeah.

MIMI LEIPZIG: Okay. And so I used to come -- well, I went, lived in my mother-in-law's house certainly from Borough Park --

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

MIMI LEIPZIG: -- which was much more south.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

MIMI LEIPZIG: And I used to come down either Vanderbilt or there was -- no. Wherever there was a trolley car. There was a trolley that went from north to south.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

MIMI LEIPZIG: So I, I -- this map doesn't -- this light isn't good enough anyhow, but this map -- we'll go downstairs and I'll -- huh.

SADY SULLIVAN: Yeah.

MIMI LEIPZIG: I, this, there's no, uh...

SADY SULLIVAN: This is really zoomed in on the Yard, so these are --

MIMI LEIPZIG: Yeah, yeah.

SADY SULLIVAN: Like these are all some of the big buildings.

MIMI LEIPZIG: So I'm not, uh, I'm not, um -- and I got off, I got off the 90:00trolley car very close to the entrance that I went into. That I know.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm. And what was the entrance like?

MIMI LEIPZIG: I don't know. I don't remember at all.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

MIMI LEIPZIG: I used to go right into the shop. Sometimes I'd stop in that sandwich place and buy a sandwich, and then walk into the shop.

SADY SULLIVAN: Oh, okay, so you didn't have to walk through much of --

MIMI LEIPZIG: No, no.

SADY SULLIVAN: You didn't have, like, a long walk through the Yard?

MIMI LEIPZIG: I didn't have a very long walk, no.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

MIMI LEIPZIG: It was very close, wherever I was. But this map holds no information for me.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

MIMI LEIPZIG: So...

SADY SULLIVAN: Um, I have some other, other questions. Do you remember your supervisor, who your supervisor was?

MIMI LEIPZIG: Mr. Bragg [phonetic]. Bragg may be the, may -- something of that, you know, that amount of letters and began with a B.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

MIMI LEIPZIG: And I'm visualizing the word, and I, it -- it may be Bragg.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

MIMI LEIPZIG: But I'm not sure.

SADY SULLIVAN: And so was that the person that, that, um, taught the -- taught you how to weld?

MIMI LEIPZIG: No. No, no. We went to -- the teaching was different, and I don't remember anybody's name there. They taught us as a group in a class.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

MIMI LEIPZIG: You know, where we, we handled things and they taught us the basic things, uh, rudimentary, uh, ways of doing tack welding and things like that.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

MIMI LEIPZIG: And then they put us into the shop. And we worked, each of us worked with one, one other ship, a ship fitter --

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

MIMI LEIPZIG: -- who knew what he was doing --

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

MIMI LEIPZIG: -- and told us -- told us what he wanted us to do.

SADY SULLIVAN: So that would have been Mr. Bragg, was the --

MIMI LEIPZIG: No. Mr. Bragg was in charge of the whole shop.

SADY SULLIVAN: Oh, okay.

MIMI LEIPZIG: So I remember that. You know, he used to walk around with a sour face and look at everybody, make sure they were doing their job.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

MIMI LEIPZIG: Uh, but -- and I don't even remember the names of the guys. Probably, if I thought about it, it would surface. But I don't, uh, I don't have a really strong memory of them.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

MIMI LEIPZIG: You know, we used to -- and all the girls, I don't remember the 92:00names of the girls either.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

MIMI LEIPZIG: Most of them. I -- I remember something about them, but that's all.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm. Do you remember what the, um, racial/cultural/ethnic mix was of, of people?

MIMI LEIPZIG: There were no black girls.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

MIMI LEIPZIG: Uh, there were a couple of Italians. I think there was just a, a mix, because I remember a couple of Italian girls. I remember one other Jewish -- two other Jewish girls, one whose father was a doctor and he, she was very proud of the fact that he had gone to jail because he did abortions.

SADY SULLIVAN: Oh.

MIMI LEIPZIG: Yeah, she was a Jewish girl, that -- uh, but -- interesting. She was, she was very, you know, she was very proud of him, with good reason.

SADY SULLIVAN: Yeah.

MIMI LEIPZIG: You know. And -- so there were several Italian girls and, that I can remember very distinctly. And a couple of Irish girls. And what were they, 93:00we were about ten altogether, or twelve, something like that.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

MIMI LEIPZIG: But that was about the mix. But there were no black girls, that's, now that I think about it.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

MIMI LEIPZIG: So, uh --

SADY SULLIVAN: And was that mix true for the -- like was that about the same as the men also?

MIMI LEIPZIG: I don't know.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

MIMI LEIPZIG: I really don't know.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

MIMI LEIPZIG: I, I can't, uh -- as a matter of fact, I don't think there were any Jewish men there at all, now that I think of it. But other -- but I wouldn't know, you know.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

MIMI LEIPZIG: I didn't really ask them.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

MIMI LEIPZIG: So, uh, I mean, once in a while we'd have a party, but, uh, that was, that was all. No.

SADY SULLIVAN: When you would, when you would have a party, what was the, like...

MIMI LEIPZIG: Sometimes we would have, we'd all go out and have -- eat somewhere, you know, and, and drink and dance. Uh, not often, but to celebrate a birthday or something important like that.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

MIMI LEIPZIG: We would do that. So there too I would get into trouble, because I was so innocent. So --

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

MIMI LEIPZIG: There were other eighteen-year-old girls there. I think they knew more about what was going on than I did. [laughter]

SADY SULLIVAN: Um, and do you know, like, where would you go? Where was, where was the places that --

MIMI LEIPZIG: Oh, a local restaurant or something like that, and I can't tell you which restaurant it was.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

MIMI LEIPZIG: But I remember us all going to a local restaurant to celebrate a birthday, you know, and, uh, and us eating some kind of good food and the guys all being, figuring out -- the guys mostly did all the preparations.

SADY SULLIVAN: Oh!

MIMI LEIPZIG: So, uh, yeah.

SADY SULLIVAN: And then they would invite--?

MIMI LEIPZIG: And yeah, and then they would say, we're all going. You know. Maybe we contributed to it. I don't know.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

MIMI LEIPZIG: So...

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

MIMI LEIPZIG: But the guys -- also, the guys who worked there were very happy that they were making that much money. They thought they were making an awful 95:00lot of money.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

MIMI LEIPZIG: Maybe they were making $50 a week. But that, whatever they were making, they thought it was a lot.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm. And was that true for you as well?

MIMI LEIPZIG: I thought I was making a lot of money, and I don't remember exactly how much I was making. But you know, by today's standards it was nothing.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

MIMI LEIPZIG: But, uh --

SADY SULLIVAN: And was it less than --

MIMI LEIPZIG: -- maybe I was making $48 a week --

SADY SULLIVAN: -- the men?

MIMI LEIPZIG: -- or something like that.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

MIMI LEIPZIG: Yeah.

SADY SULLIVAN: Would it have been -- were you paid equally to the men, do you think, for the work that you were doing?

MIMI LEIPZIG: No. I -- well, we were helpers and they were, they were, uh, I guess journeymen, so they had to be paid more.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

MIMI LEIPZIG: It didn't occur to me that we were underpaid because we were girls. It didn't -- that was not an issue at all.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

MIMI LEIPZIG: So, uh -- and besides that, I was doing something for the war.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

MIMI LEIPZIG: You know? This was all very important.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm. So you did have -- was that part of your daily experience there, that this was part of -- that this was the war effort?

MIMI LEIPZIG: My feeling. Absolutely.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

MIMI LEIPZIG: Absolutely. There was no question.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

MIMI LEIPZIG: And then once in a while, we would see the ship, something we did completed, and we could say -- you know, I did tell you that women were not 96:00allowed on the ships.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

MIMI LEIPZIG: Because it was bad luck.

SADY SULLIVAN: Is that why? I --

MIMI LEIPZIG: I think that was what the reason was, yes.

SADY SULLIVAN: Oh.

MIMI LEIPZIG: Yes. I mean, which is a terrible thing.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm. So you would work to build it, and then...

MIMI LEIPZIG: Yeah, we wouldn't, like we weren't allowed out there.

SADY SULLIVAN: Oh. Did you ever get to see any launched?

MIMI LEIPZIG: Uh, we saw one, I think, one landing ship. Yeah.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

MIMI LEIPZIG: But I don't know if we saw it launch, but we saw it, some kind of action that proved to us that we were really working on a ship.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

MIMI LEIPZIG: You know?

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm. And what about ships coming in for repair?

MIMI LEIPZIG: We did -- we did not see any of that.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

MIMI LEIPZIG: That was a different part of the Navy Yard.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm. Um, I -- a few more questions. Um, this one is sort of vague, but what, what was the experience like in terms of the physical 97:00experience, the -- you spoke about the loud noise. What about sights and sounds?

MIMI LEIPZIG: I, I -- well, first of all I was always tired because that was an awful lot of time to spend. Secondly, when you're working on a swing shift or a night shift, that too, I mean, you know, people aren't -- it's hard to adjust. So it took you a little while to, to -- and it was dirty. And there were always cats running around.

SADY SULLIVAN: Oh.

MIMI LEIPZIG: The cats were always running around and, and screwing. [laughter] I mean, there was thousands of kittens and cats. And I guess they kept them because there probably were rats, which I didn't see but the cats took care of them. So that it was not the most comfortable place to work. You know.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

MIMI LEIPZIG: The -- all these discomforts.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

MIMI LEIPZIG: And you know, I told you about the bathrooms, which is, was a discomfort. You took it, that's the way it is. You know, you worked, and if you were working in a factory, it was fine. You, you couldn't -- you didn't stand there and complain about it. That's what happened. You know, and when we were 98:00done, we were done.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

MIMI LEIPZIG: So -- and I said, and the consciousness about there being a war on was always there.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

MIMI LEIPZIG: And I think everybody, everybody all over, I, I don't know any -- lived that way during that, that war.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

MIMI LEIPZIG: There was something about the total nation being involved that, uh, there was no question. And of course, everyday things like rationing, uh, I mean, you were always confronted with something that involved you personally.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

MIMI LEIPZIG: So that, uh, you know, so you, you know, sometimes resented it. Sometimes you felt like you were doing something important.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm. And how did you get news of what was happening overseas?

MIMI LEIPZIG: The newspapers.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

MIMI LEIPZIG: That's what you heard, the newspapers and the radio.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

MIMI LEIPZIG: So, uh, that's, that's how everybody -- that's how you got news then. You know, there were a lot of -- New York City had a lot of newspapers.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

MIMI LEIPZIG: I bet they had about six or eight newspapers at that time.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm.

MIMI LEIPZIG: And then, then Arthur was working for the newspaper PM, so that was -- I had some insight into what else was happening with, uh -- sure, you know, that's the way you got the news, and -- or you listened to Roosevelt speak on the radio, and he had a lot to say.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

MIMI LEIPZIG: And so you felt like you were really, really involved.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm. And were you -- oh, so you, you were out of the Yards already when there was, um, VJ Day and --

MIMI LEIPZIG: Yeah.

SADY SULLIVAN: -- VE Day?

MIMI LEIPZIG: Yeah.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm. Um, is there a person that you particularly remember -- ?MIMI LEIPZIG: No.

SADY SULLIVAN: -- from the Yards?

MIMI LEIPZIG: No.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

MIMI LEIPZIG: I just left them behind, yeah.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

MIMI LEIPZIG: I did not make a connection there.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm. Did it come up? Like, is it, is it one of those 100:00experiences that has come up over time with -- you know, do people bring it up at...

MIMI LEIPZIG: Once in a while because they think it's very interesting that I did that.

SADY SULLIVAN: Yeah.

MIMI LEIPZIG: And I like the idea that I do know how to weld. I know all about arc welding and I know how to do it.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

MIMI LEIPZIG: You know?

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

MIMI LEIPZIG: Eh, but women are studying those -- they're doing sculpture with, with arc welding these days, you know, all kinds of things like that.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

MIMI LEIPZIG: Uh, so I feel like I did, did something, that I was doing something. I don't know how important it was. But I felt like I was doing something important.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

MIMI LEIPZIG: So, uh...

SADY SULLIVAN: Has anyone been surprised that, when you tell them that -- ?MIMI LEIPZIG: Everybody's surprised. Well, first of all, nobody can believe how old I am.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

MIMI LEIPZIG: I mean, I don't mean because I don't look old, but the age -- I mean, to be, have been married this long, what've we been married, sixty-eight years or something.

SADY SULLIVAN: Wow!

MIMI LEIPZIG: Nobody is married that long. No grownup person is married that long. [laughter] And nobody is as old as I am, so you know. [laughter]

SADY SULLIVAN: Wow --

MIMI LEIPZIG: So, it's very funny --

SADY SULLIVAN: -- sixty-eight years! That's so wonderful.

MIMI LEIPZIG: Yeah, well, you know, you -- what happens is that you're not the same person that got married in the beginning.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

MIMI LEIPZIG: You know, we're not the first -- two dumb, the same two dumb kids that got married, so there's a lot of people -- we changed a lot.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm. But you --

MIMI LEIPZIG: Well, we --

SADY SULLIVAN: -- you navigated.

MIMI LEIPZIG: We managed to survive it.

SADY SULLIVAN: Yeah.

MIMI LEIPZIG: Right. [laughter] Some people might, you know, have gotten divorced in between years, because a lot of ups and downs.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

MIMI LEIPZIG: But yeah, as I said, we get up sometimes in the morning, we say, "How did this happen?" So [laughter]. So it would not have occurred to us that this is the way life would be now.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

MIMI LEIPZIG: But, uh -- and of course to visualize that you're getting old is another thing, and we still can't believe that.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

MIMI LEIPZIG: I think Arthur's finally beginning, he's ninety years old and he's just, just beginning to be a little bit less together than he, than he used to 102:00be, so...

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

MIMI LEIPZIG: But, uh -- but basically, you know, that's -- so, you know, people hear about, that, you know, that you were involved with the Second World War, they're surprised.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

MIMI LEIPZIG: Just because it's history.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

MIMI LEIPZIG: And I do notice about Arthur that an awful lot of people are coming to interview him now.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

MIMI LEIPZIG: Also because, because -- because of our age, because we're history by this time, so... [laughter] Which is very funny.

SADY SULLIVAN: Yeah.

MIMI LEIPZIG: You know. When I started, um, uh, when I, when I went to see Mary for the first time and I went, I was being Arthur's agent.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

MIMI LEIPZIG: And I had decided that I would use my maiden name because I decide -- and Mary thought that was great, and I thought it was the right thing to do, too. You know, it's -- because it's very hard to be identified as "the wife of."

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

MIMI LEIPZIG: So, uh, I told you that story about Isaac, Isaac Asi -- Asimov's wife?

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

MIMI LEIPZIG: So that's, I mean, that's right. And so when I -- and besides that, when I went to, and decided to be an agent for Arthur, I also decided that I shouldn't identify myself as his wife because, you know, it changes the whole atmosphere.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

MIMI LEIPZIG: You know, your wife comes, "Yeah, his wife came to tell me about something." That's not the same thing.

SADY SULLIVAN: Oh, so I didn't realize that. So you, so you, um -- is that something that you still do, management for -- ?MIMI LEIPZIG: Well, some -- sometimes I do, yeah. What I did was I went out with a portfolio. I went, at one point I decided that the thing Arthur hated the worst was to go, to go and talk to editors.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

MIMI LEIPZIG: And he did. I mean, he'd come home with a stomachache every time. You know. And he was -- at that point, he was teaching at, at Post. So I said -- 104:00and, and we had all these photographs. And I said, "Either this is garbage and I'm going to dump it, [inaudible], or we're going to do something about it."

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

MIMI LEIPZIG: And so -- and I had a big consultation with Howard Greenberg, who runs an art gallery. And I decided I would, you know, use my maiden name and I would, uh, um, go out and, and work for him.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

MIMI LEIPZIG: And of course, it was very easy because I had nothing to sell. All I had to do was show them the pictures. That was -- that was the problem -- you just had to have enough nerve to do it.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

MIMI LEIPZIG: So, so I did it. And that's one of the ways I met Mary. I, I went to the Smithsonian and I was -- brought her a portfolio. And we became very good friends. So...

SADY SULLIVAN: Oh!

MIMI LEIPZIG: Which was nice. And, you know, and I -- we did make a lot of friends along the way. You do that.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

MIMI LEIPZIG: You know, by this time you know who, who owns galleries, who, who does things, because that's part of that kind of a job.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm. And so you have, um, there's several books now that, that have come from that, from your --

MIMI LEIPZIG: Sure, sure.

SADY SULLIVAN: -- your work.

MIMI LEIPZIG: Well, the other thing that I, I -- well, I always -- at this point and for a long time I -- when Arthur used to freelance, part of the things that he did was he would, um, he'd suggest ideas to editors for photographic stories and things like that. And so that, one of the things that I would do is I'd go to the library and do free-floating research. That's why I hate that there's no card files around anymore, because you can get great ideas if you don't know what you're looking for. [laughter] And, and if you work on a computer, you have to know what you're looking for.

SADY SULLIVAN: Yeah.

MIMI LEIPZIG: So we used to get story ideas and write out lines, and he would, uh, sell them to editors, you know, and he'd go take the pictures. And we'd, we'd work on the, the captions, that kind of thing. So we did a lot of work like 106:00that, which was, it's good. It's satisfying.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

MIMI LEIPZIG: And I felt like I was really doing something. And then I, and then I went out to, to, uh, represent him.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

MIMI LEIPZIG: I think at this point, I think I'm going to -- my, we work with my -- my daughter has been working with Arthur. We, we, we did a copyright book for him and I decided that there was no way that I could work with him that long because we would kill each other. So -- and he wouldn't listen to me! Judy he listens to. So, so, uh, so we did a big copyright book and she got a really big insight into what we have.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

MIMI LEIPZIG: So I think I may -- she, she, she may be the person going to museums from now on.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

MIMI LEIPZIG: But we'll work together, we'll figure out something.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

MIMI LEIPZIG: But, uh, she's, she was enjoying it, and she learned, she learned a lot about photography, and about her father.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

MIMI LEIPZIG: So... which is nice.

SADY SULLIVAN: So how many -- I, I forgot to ask. How many children do you, do you have?

MIMI LEIPZIG: I have two.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

MIMI LEIPZIG: I, this is Judy. These are, these, this is -- one of these children has graduated from Skidmore. But this is Judy the day she gave birth to the one who graduated from Skidmore. [laughter]

SADY SULLIVAN: Oh! Oh wow!

MIMI LEIPZIG: So...

SADY SULLIVAN: So this is the, that, a day-born baby?

MIMI LEIPZIG: Yeah.

SADY SULLIVAN: Wow.

MIMI LEIPZIG: This is, this is -- yeah. And that's... [laughter]

SADY SULLIVAN: That's great.

MIMI LEIPZIG: Yeah. So people say, "Why did you take such a funny picture of her?" You love that picture.

SADY SULLIVAN: [laughter]

MIMI LEIPZIG: So then I'll show you something about life. That picture, that over here, we, I call -- when doctors came to the house, see this picture? This is my son.

SADY SULLIVAN: Oh. [laughter] Oh my goodness.

MIMI LEIPZIG: I said, when doctors made house calls.

SADY SULLIVAN: [laughter] That is great!

MIMI LEIPZIG: The poor children.

SADY SULLIVAN: So what, was that just a normal, like a --

MIMI LEIPZIG: Yeah, yeah. He --

SADY SULLIVAN: -- regular shot or something?

MIMI LEIPZIG: He -- yeah. He must, he must have had tonsillitis or something, and the doctor came to the house and gave him a shot.

SADY SULLIVAN: Aw! [laughter] That's great.

MIMI LEIPZIG: Yeah. We don't know about those things anymore.

SADY SULLIVAN: No. Nope. Here, I can lower it.

MIMI LEIPZIG: Okay. Well, we talked enough.

SADY SULLIVAN: Yes. Um, well, thank you so much. This has been wonderful.

MIMI LEIPZIG: Well, yeah. I don't know how much information you really got. But, uh--

SADY SULLIVAN: A ton! You have really, you're a good storyteller. Um, I have a, a release form.

MIMI LEIPZIG: Okay. Yeah, I want to show you the, um, let's see, the, uh, the, 109:00"Have You Forgotten" picture. I think maybe it's in this book. Let's see. I think it may be in the back of this book. No, that's Arthur. Oh, this cartoon we found. [laughter] And here. This. [laughter] See, even the dog is in there?

SADY SULLIVAN: That is so great! [laughter] That is a brilliant idea.

MIMI LEIPZIG: Well, you know, you're at your wit's end.

SADY SULLIVAN: Yeah.

MIMI LEIPZIG: And you don't know what to do next. [laughter]

SADY SULLIVAN: That's awesome.

MIMI LEIPZIG: And we were young enough to be -- to behave that way. So...

SADY SULLIVAN: That is so great. I'm really excited to tell my boyfriend about that because he's often like, "Where is that check?"

MIMI LEIPZIG: That's right, that's right.

SADY SULLIVAN: Yeah.

MIMI LEIPZIG: And they take -- once we went to Mexico, and we were, we did things without thinking anyhow. But we went to Mexico, and we figured we'd get assignments on the way. You know, and we sent out a map to all Arthur's clients. We said we were going here and here. We got some, but we were expecting a check from one of the very big comp -- maybe it was Texaco or something, that would carry us through the whole Mexican trip. And we left. We went --camping equipment, photography equipment, and children, and we drove across the country. And we took one -- he had one or two assignments on the way. We get into Mexico. The check hasn't arrived. My sister's supposed to pick it up from the bank. My parents are worried. I mean, I didn't want them involved anyhow.

SADY SULLIVAN: [laughter]

MIMI LEIPZIG: We drive all the way to southern Mexico. We come back. Our tires are worn out. Sears luckily gave us all new tires. We have enough money when we cross the Mexican border to buy one sandwich and two cups of coffee. [laughter] So the kids had the sandwich, we had the coffee, and then we realized that on a credit card, you can get cookies in the gas station. So he comes home, he goes up to this very nice, sweet editor, and he says, "You know, I didn't get my check." And the guy opens his drawer and he said, "I forgot to put it through!"

SADY SULLIVAN: Oh!

MIMI LEIPZIG: To this guy, what was it, $3,000 was nothing! For us, it meant the difference between not being -- being hysterical on the trip and not being hysterical on the trip.

SADY SULLIVAN: Yeah.

MIMI LEIPZIG: So, I mean, Arthur did several assignments but you don't get paid immediately.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

MIMI LEIPZIG: So-- [laughter]

SADY SULLIVAN: I love this. Well, that's really, that's, it's -- I like that at 112:00each step though the two of you together weren't, you weren't swayed by that. You weren't afraid of it. You know? I think a lot of people would have been like, "Oh!"

MIMI LEIPZIG: Of course.

SADY SULLIVAN: "The check's not in the bank. We can't go."

MIMI LEIPZIG: You have to be pretty dumb.

SADY SULLIVAN: [laughter] But it's kind of wonderful --

MIMI LEIPZIG: Well no, I'll tell you. The next time we did -- the next time we took a long trip, I almost wasn't going to go. We went to British Columbia. And I made sure that I had in my shoe enough money to get back from wherever we were going. And when Arthur said to me, "We ran out of money," I said, "No, we didn't." So-- [laughter]

SADY SULLIVAN: Oh, that was smart.

MIMI LEIPZIG: Well, I -- you have to save yourself sometimes. You have to, you have to learn.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

MIMI LEIPZIG: Yeah, but the Mexican trip -- I would not have gotten to Mexico if I had been, if we had been, uh -- that's why when my grandsons went to, to, uh, to Phoenix just -- not Phoenix, um, Tucson just now, you know, the two of the boys went together. They planned, before they left, they had reservations, they 113:00planned where they were going to stop, what they were going to see. I said, "I never would have done that!" [laughter] I mean, it was wonderful and I was happy that they did it. I would have worried about them terribly if I didn't know.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

MIMI LEIPZIG: But the fact is that they really behaved much more maturely than we did with our two children. [laughter] Yeah.

SADY SULLIVAN: That's funny. Um, so this is the interview release form.

MIMI LEIPZIG: Okay.

SADY SULLIVAN: And it gives it to both, uh, the Brooklyn Historical and the Brooklyn Navy Yard Archives.

[interview interrupted]

MIMI LEIPZIG: "Existing at websites, publications, exhibits, broadcast 114:00reproductions, and existing and future" -- I mean that's -- wow.

SADY SULLIVAN: Yeah.

MIMI LEIPZIG: I'm going to sign it. I'm going to sign it anyhow, but still.

SADY SULLIVAN: It's, it's funny. This is -- we had the volunteer Lawyers for the Arts --

MIMI LEIPZIG: Yeah?

SADY SULLIVAN: Um, they have a, a group of, of law students who do free work for, for nonprofits, so they just recently helped us out with that. And ours before was like, "Give us your interview. Thanks." And then --

MIMI LEIPZIG: That's right.

SADY SULLIVAN: -- they filled it in with --

MIMI LEIPZIG: We have a lot of old releases --

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

MIMI LEIPZIG: -- that, uh, because we get -- in consideration of a dollar. That's right. And I have, from the olden days when Arthur used to -- if Arthur took a picture, we got a release. So...

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

MIMI LEIPZIG: I mean, they're antiques already.

SADY SULLIVAN: [laughter]

MIMI LEIPZIG: I waive all, for any -- wow, okay. I waive my -- any right that I may have to inspect or approve the interview or its use. God.

SADY SULLIVAN: Well, that is in there, but that's actually not how we do it. The 115:00way that we do it is, um, anything that we put on exhibit, I run past -- Because I edit the audio too, and so, um --

MIMI LEIPZIG: Yeah, yeah.

SADY SULLIVAN: -- if I edit a clip to six minutes, then I always run it past the person and say, "Hey, this is the six minutes."

MIMI LEIPZIG: So what do you do? You listen to it and you, you edit it, uh, as, as you listen?

SADY SULLIVAN: No. We keep the, the full, the full interview --

MIMI LEIPZIG: Yeah.

SADY SULLIVAN: -- goes into the archive and is archived and preserved --

MIMI LEIPZIG: Yeah, yeah.

SADY SULLIVAN: -- forever. Um, but then a copy of it we use, um, for when we're doing exhibitions. So for instance, we did one about, um, Bedford-Stuyvesant.

MIMI LEIPZIG: Uh-huh.

SADY SULLIVAN: And so I think there was maybe thirty interviews in that collection, and so a group of people, we all listened to all the interviews.

MIMI LEIPZIG: And you all pick out --

SADY SULLIVAN: Pick out things.

MIMI LEIPZIG: -- what you think of interest? Yeah.

SADY SULLIVAN: Yeah.

MIMI LEIPZIG: Yeah.

SADY SULLIVAN: And then there was already themes that exhibition was focusing on, and so then that helps us choose, like this story versus that story.

MIMI LEIPZIG: It captures a good -- yeah, yeah.

SADY SULLIVAN: Yeah, and then, um, and then of course when --

MIMI LEIPZIG: Because this is a lot of material to listen to a second time.

SADY SULLIVAN: Yeah, it is. And it's a long process and then --

MIMI LEIPZIG: Yeah.

SADY SULLIVAN: But then what happens with the exhibition is then we edit it so that a story, you know, that in the normal telling of a story, people sort of go in and out and dah, dah, dah --

MIMI LEIPZIG: Yeah.

SADY SULLIVAN: -- and, uh, but we edit it so that it's pretty succinct. So, you know, beginning, middle, end.

MIMI LEIPZIG: Yeah.

SADY SULLIVAN: Um, and -- but I'm not sure. We haven't -- uh, the, the Navy Yard exhibit is still sort of a year away.

MIMI LEIPZIG: Yeah.

SADY SULLIVAN: So we haven't done any of the --

MIMI LEIPZIG: Yeah.

SADY SULLIVAN: -- the curating yet.

MIMI LEIPZIG: Yeah. Now, now I really wanted to know the physical process of it because there's so much material --

SADY SULLIVAN: Yeah.

MIMI LEIPZIG: -- to edit.

SADY SULLIVAN: Yeah. The physical process is really time-consuming.

MIMI LEIPZIG: Yeah. Yeah.

SADY SULLIVAN: Um, but what's, what's fun for me is I, I like doing the digital -- it's digital audio editing.

MIMI LEIPZIG: Yeah.

SADY SULLIVAN: So you can see the sound wave and it's almost just like doing word processing on a computer, except it's just with, it's with the audio file. 117:00Um --

MIMI LEIPZIG: Uh-huh.

SADY SULLIVAN: -- and so I learned to edit by someone who, um, was a radio editor, and he used to cut the actual, physical reel-to-reel tape --

MIMI LEIPZIG: Yeah.

SADY SULLIVAN: -- is how he learned.

MIMI LEIPZIG: Right.

SADY SULLIVAN: And, which -- so he thinks doing it on the computer is so easy because you can, if you make a mistake, you just undo. And you know --

MIMI LEIPZIG: Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SADY SULLIVAN: So everything --

MIMI LEIPZIG: If you cut it, it was done.

SADY SULLIVAN: Yeah. And so he was really, he was a great teacher because I was like, "Oh gosh, I can't fix that, I can't do it any better. That's as good as it's going to get." You know? And he's like, "Come on." [laughter] "I used to do that with tape, and if I could do it with tape, you can do it on the computer."

MIMI LEIPZIG: Yeah, yeah.

SADY SULLIVAN: So, um, so I think yeah, I -- he was tough and that was good.

MIMI LEIPZIG: I hate reading things on the computer. I print everything out.

SADY SULLIVAN: Yeah, yeah.

MIMI LEIPZIG: Because I really feel like it makes, it's uncomfortable for me, uh, to -- I need to hold something in my hands.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm, mm-hmm. I've gotten really used to it for, for, like, correspondence and for, um, I read a lot of the news on the computer.

MIMI LEIPZIG: Yeah.

SADY SULLIVAN: But anything that has more, uh, you know --

MIMI LEIPZIG: Importance?

SADY SULLIVAN: Yeah. Or like emotions to it or something, like I really need to have the --

MIMI LEIPZIG: You read a book, sometimes you want to turn to the other, the last page.

SADY SULLIVAN: Yeah, yeah. It's true.

MIMI LEIPZIG: Here, here I'm gonna sign this.

SADY SULLIVAN: Okay. [interview interrupted] And then I, I also didn't, I didn't know your address.

MIMI LEIPZIG: Okay. Oh. What did Bob say about taking you back? We might have to take you back.

SADY SULLIVAN: Oh no. He said that he was, um, that he was around.

MIMI LEIPZIG: Oh yeah, because I know he was, had several things to do.

SADY SULLIVAN: Yeah, and then I think he said he --

MIMI LEIPZIG: You want all this information?

SADY SULLIVAN: Ah yes. He did have other things to do, but then I think the timing was going to work out because the other two --

MIMI LEIPZIG: Okay, so does he know to pick you up or just, um --

SADY SULLIVAN: Um, no. Maybe, maybe if we give him a call? Oh, and can I, uh, take a picture?

MIMI LEIPZIG: No. I don't know how I look today. Somebody was here and took our pictures, both of our pictures, and the two of us looked so awful.

SADY SULLIVAN: Oh!

MIMI LEIPZIG: And I have to write to her and ask her to please destroy the pic -- the, the --

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

MIMI LEIPZIG: Because, well, I've been watching people interview -- this is a different kind of interview -- but people have been interviewing Arthur and so I've been critiquing them.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

MIMI LEIPZIG: And this same woman did terribly -- several people, they don't know what they're doing. One guy came here, though, and he sat -- and somebody, Mary, Mary came with him. And I said to him, "What did you use to do?" And he said, "I was a psychologist." I said, "That's why you know how to interview."

SADY SULLIVAN: Oh, that's interesting.

MIMI LEIPZIG: He did -- and they just sent us the, um, the VCR or the CD, whatever it is.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm. It was a video interview?

MIMI LEIPZIG: Yeah, the guy did a video too.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

MIMI LEIPZIG: And we only watched the beginning of it, but the way that Arthur looked was the -- because I didn't see me yet in it -- but was so -- and I may not even be in it -- but it looked like a human being. This woman who took his picture and my picture was so terrible --

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm.

MIMI LEIPZIG: -- that I have to, I keep saying I'm going to write her a note and say I really appreciate it, you know, but do me a favor and tear the picture up. So...

SADY SULLIVAN: Well, this, this is actually my first time using this camera.

MIMI LEIPZIG: Uh-huh. [inaudible] trouble.

SADY SULLIVAN: It's -- it's BHS's, and so I have no idea what's going to happen. But we, we just like to have it for the --

MIMI LEIPZIG: What's today's date?

SADY SULLIVAN: -- to go with the archive. Uh, September 16.

MIMI LEIPZIG: Okay. Did I fill all the places in? Yeah. And my parents can't sign.

SADY SULLIVAN: [laughter] All right.

MIMI LEIPZIG: So what kind of camera is that?

SADY SULLIVAN: Um, it's a digital camera, Fuji. I, I, this is --

MIMI LEIPZIG: Who chose it? You?

SADY SULLIVAN: Um, no. This was, this is, actually someone gave it to the Historical Society, so now -- we used to have one that we all shared and now we have two that we all share.

MIMI LEIPZIG: Oh, that's very good.

SADY SULLIVAN: Yes. [laughter] And I can show you if...if it's not --

MIMI LEIPZIG: Want to go outside?

SADY SULLIVAN: Yeah, let's do that. Well, then I can -- this will wait.

MIMI LEIPZIG: Because there's no light here.

SADY SULLIVAN: Yeah.

MIMI LEIPZIG: Yeah.

SADY SULLIVAN: I think, I think that that was kind of dark, but it's just not showing on the screen, um, which I'm not sure why. But, um, yeah, we can do 122:00that. I'll keep this out. So I'll, I'll pack up the other stuff, and then we can do this after. Thank you.

MIMI LEIPZIG: So you're -- every, every freelancer loves that.

SADY SULLIVAN: It's wonderful. [laughter]

MIMI LEIPZIG: And people don't -- you know, we had a guy who used to watch Arthur --