Interview with Ed Semon, November 4, 2004, Menomonee Falls, Wisconsin

Partial Transcript: Ed's father was born in 1893 in Russia. He was one of four boys and his father died when he was thirteen. The family supported themselves by selling cheese at the market. He left Russia in 1913 at the age of nineteen and never saw his mother or the two brothers who remained in Russia again.

Partial Transcript: Ed's father had to bribe a Russian official to escape Russia and go to Germany. He left through Hamburg, Germany and took a boat to Canada. He came to Wisconsin to stay with his mother's sister.

Partial Transcript: Ed's father's name was originally Benjamin Sumonowsky, but Ed does not know when his father changed his last name to Semon.

Partial Transcript: Ed's mother came to the United States in 1920 from Czechoslovakia. She came from a family of five sisters and five brothers. She was the only one out of the sisters to receive a high school education and she worked as a telegraph operator for the railroad system in Austria-Hungary. She lost this job after the end of World War I because she was Jewish.

Partial Transcript: Ed's mother had an aunt in Milwaukee who sent a ticket for one of the daughters to come to America. Ed's mother escaped Europe through Italy in the second class boat. She arrived in New York and took a train to Milwaukee to live with her aunt, where she worked in a glove factory.

Partial Transcript: Ed's father went to Sheboygan to work in a chair factory for a year, where he painted chairs. He went to Milwaukee and became a freelance painter of houses. His father joined the military in 1917, because of the U. S. government's policy of granting citizenship to anyone who joined the military. He was sent to Camp Grant in Rockford, Illinois and got out of the military in 1920.

Partial Transcript: His parents met in 1920 after his mother had been in the country for three months and his father had been released from the military. They had a sort of long distance relationship because his father peddled.

Partial Transcript: Ed's father explored many small Wisconsin towns while he peddled and discovered that Athens, Wisconsin had many opportunities. His parents married and moved to Athens, where his father established a store.

Partial Transcript: Ed's parents met through a friend. His mother could read and write Bohemian, Germain, Polish, Hungarian, English, and Hebrew. His father spoke Yiddish and English. Ed discusses how his parents only spoke English at home and wanted to fit in with American culture.

Partial Transcript: Ed's father was very successful in Athens, Wisconsin. His store was called the Semon Fair Store and was a general store. Ed tells a story about how the only doctor in Athens was sent to prison for three months during prohibition for prescribing alcohol to his friends.

Partial Transcript: Ed talks about how grapes grew well in Athens and how his father would occasionally make wine during prohibition. Many people made moonshine in the town and his father's store prospered because it sold all the ingredients to moonshine.

Partial Transcript: Until the 1932 election, Ed's father always voted for the Socialist party. However, he voted for Roosevelt in 1932.

Partial Transcript: Ed lived next door to a blacksmith. His father insisted that his mother work in the store when the business was first starting out, but his mother eventually refused to work. The store was open on Saturdays and Sundays.

Partial Transcript: Ed's father loved Buicks. Since Heny Ford was widely known for being antisemitic, his father would not buy a Ford truck, accept deliveries from Ford vehicles, and turned away salesmen who drove Fords. Many other Jewish merchants in the town took the same stance as Ed's father and Henry Ford eventually had to publicly end the company's antisemitic policies.

Partial Transcript: The Semons were the only Jewish family in the primarily German community of Athens. Ed and his siblings were called antisemitic names when they walked past the Lutheran church on their way to school.

Partial Transcript: Ed's mother belonged to the Presbyterian Ladies Aid and meetings were held in the Semon home.

Partial Transcript: The Semon family kept kosher and received their meat from a train from Chicago. They had to go to Milwaukee to purchase food for passover. Ed talks about how his father was a single issue voter and he would evaluate political candidates based on if they were good for the Jewish community.

Partial Transcript: One day in 1938, someone posted antisemitic pamphlets all over the town. Ed's teacher traveled around town taking them down. The Semon family was greatly disturbed by the incident.

Partial Transcript: The family had a shabbat dinner every Friday night. Ed's brother had his bar mitzvah in Wausau and attended Jewish school for six weeks in Milwaukee.

Partial Transcript: A majority of Ed's Jewish education came from his mother reading to him and his siblings. Ed did not learn any Hebrew until later in life. The family always attended synagogue on high holidays in Wausau.

Partial Transcript: There were three Semon Faire Stores in different towns. His father helped set other merchants up in business. Ed also tells what he calls the Semon myth.

Partial Transcript: Ed's father lived in Athens from 1920 to 1940. The family left Athens because Ed's sister went to prom with a Presbyterian and his parents did not want their children marrying and dating outside of the Jewish faith.

Partial Transcript: About a year after his sister's prom, the family moved away from Athens. They moved to Menomonee Falls and his father opened Semons Elevator and Supermarket. The last Semon business was sold in 1972.

Partial Transcript: The Semon's feed business went out of business in the mid 1950s because Menomonee Falls quickly changed from a farming community to a regular city. Ed and all of his siblings worked in the family's grocery store.

Partial Transcript: Ed and all of his siblings married Jews, like their mother wanted. Ed started college at UW-Madison in 1945. He met his wife, Jeanine, in Milwaukee at a Jewish Community Center function.

Partial Transcript: Ed's siblings from oldest to youngest are Ervine, Robert and Ruth, who are twins. Ed is the youngest in the family.

Partial Transcript: There were two other Jewish families in Menomonee Falls when the Semons moved to the city in 1940.

Partial Transcript: Ed was principle of the Jewish religious school in Waukesha after he had kids. The school had sixty families at its peak.

Partial Transcript: The Semons left Athens in 1940 and sold the store to a few other Jewish men, who had the store for two to three years. The store in Marathon burned down in 1944 and they built a new store. Ed also talks about Jewish merchants in other small Wisconsin towns.

Partial Transcript: The Semons often socialized with other Jewish merchant families while they lived in Athens. They would meet up in the Wausau park regularly in the summer. He discusses the various Jewish families.

Partial Transcript: Ed tells a story about how a local Athens community member would bring the Semon family a Christmas tree every winter. Ed also talks about how his mother's family in Czechoslovakia were sent to Auschwitz during the 1930s. Two of his uncles survived Auschwitz and came to the United States in 1948. Ed also discusses how his parents sent supplies to his father's side of the family in Russia during the 1930s. Ed talks about teaching religious school in the 1970s.