By Diana Brement,
JTNews Columnist
Julia Eulenberg has been doing some detective work for the past three years — the historical kind. She’s writing a book about Jews who came to the Washington Territories in the 1850s and 1860s, mostly young men looking for opportunities in the far west.
“Twelve of them start out in the south,” says Julia, whose 1996 University of Washington doctoral dissertation inspired the book. “While the Gold Rush is a really big thing, they move to California, spending time in mining towns, doing a variety of business.”
Moving north into Washington and Oregon as the rush ends, they “follow the little gold trail” all the way to B.C. Records show their stores opening and closing all the way up the coast.
Julia tells me they were “an interesting group of people.” Some engaged in typically “Jewish” occupations like shop keeping, but many pursued trades learned in Europe. There was a lumber broker, for example, and a hay farmer, and others worked at what their families had done, often for centuries.
Another surprise for Julia was that many of these men came to America to stay Jewish. They all attempted to marry Jewish women, some returning home for appropriate brides. We often associate immigration with assimilation, but, she says, “if you know what is happening in Europe at this time,” you realize that leaving was an act of cultural and religious self-preservation. (German states were revoking civil rights, shutting Jews out of business and education.)
Julia has culled historical archives in Olympia, Chicago, at Harvard, and in numerous southern towns. Court records and business documents are her most important sources, but she’s also spoken to many of the descendants of these early residents.
The book should be published in 2010 and will be a combination economic and social history with, she hopes, enough punch to give it a novel’s readability.
Like many of her “characters,” Julia has roots in the South, too. Originally from Seattle, she grew up in Dallas, moving back in 1962. She finished her B.A. in 1964 at the University of Washington, and returned in 1984 for a master’s. “Then I plunged into the Ph.D. program,” in Jewish Studies.
In 2006 she was delighted to be accepted to Hedgebrook, a local retreat center for women writers.
“It was fabulous,” she says, “I am angling to go back as an alumna.”
Also in 2006 she drove across country to see her daughter ordained as a Reconstructionist rabbi. She took that opportunity to visit Chicago and cities along the Ohio River where many of these early Washington businessmen came from, and to see the impact of rivers on early American commerce.
Any descendants of these early settlers who haven’t spoken to Julia yet are welcome to contact her at jjeulenberg@yahoo.com.
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Miryam Gordon’s book idea came out of pure practicality.
“I didn’t start out to write a book,” she told me. In fact, it took her several years to decide what to do with the notes she had made for her kids, Seth and Magnus.
“I call this a “˜mom book’ because over the years I had been teaching my sons concepts about finance,” she says.
This included opening checking accounts for them, talking about credit cards, about banks and finance. A frugal single mom for the past 20 years, she wanted to pass her carefulness on.
She wrote down what she wanted them to know, and thought the resulting document would be useful to others.
In researching competing books and approaching publishers, she learned never to put the word “economics” into the title. Then a publisher gave her an idea. Doing some Internet research, Miryam found no other books with the “˜s’ word in them, so Money Sucks: Money Strategies for Real Life, an irreverant title that may annoy parents but appeals to kids, was born.
Learning the manuscript was too short for publishers, Miryam formed Green Elms Press, and produced it herself. She feels the length is an asset. The 17- to 23-year-olds at whom the book is aimed are, like her kids, often too busy to read, and what they do read is on the Internet. (Money Sucks is available as an e-book from
www.booklocker.com and as a real book at
moneysucksthebook.com.)
Miryam feels the need for financial literacy is even more crucial now and wants politicians to take it on as a public policy issue. She’d like to see schools and the military purchase the book for their constituents.
“When you have financial literacy, you have a better life,” she says.
This year she established the educational non-profit, Financial Literacy is Essential
(www.flie.org), giving herself two years to promote the book and the organization.
“This is the riskiest thing I’ve ever done in my life,” she says, pointing out that FLIE can be scrambled to spell “life.”
And while she hopes for good luck promoting financial literacy she points out, “you shouldn’t be lucky to find out how to manage your money properly.”
Miryam is a freelance drama critic who writes regularly for Seattle Gay News. She’s worked in the legal and accounting fields and is also returning to play writing. In 1988, her children’s play, Miracles Are Hard Work, was produced at the Stroum Jewish Community Center.