International House Berkeley

39 So I came to the I-House in '46, same as everyone else. Right after the war. We're the Golden Age. You see, we came as refugees. How did I come to live at I-House? Miss Hoyt, Alice Hoyt, said to me, "How are you going to live?" I said, "I don't know because now I am working in a factory." So we stopped first at "The Black Sheep," and there was the owner, and so she hired me to work in "The Black Sheep." "The Black Sheep" was a restaurant on Bancroft, just up from Telegraph. But that job was not enough. So we went to I-House, and they hired me for room and board. But I didn't have any money to pay for my tuition. So Mr. Sibley gave me Cal's money from football. Mr Sibley was the President of the California Alumni Association, a graduate of 1902. He had been in Lithuania when it was occupied by Soviets, and when he found out there was someone in the I-House from Lithuania, he wanted to help. So he gave me $300 for my tuition – that's why they used to say I went to school on a football scholarship. What are some of my first memories of I-House? We all loved it. For us, it was our home. It was for Lottie [Wallerstein] Salz also. Lottie and I were at Sunday supper one night, and Mr. Blaisdell, the director, introduced us and said, "Do you want to know each other?" And we became very good friends. When I left I-House, Lottie knew I would not write a letter, and so she gave me a hundred cards, all addressed to her, and she said, "All you have to do is write me a card every day and say, 'I'm still alive'. And mail it." We were very close, until the very end. As a matter of fact, I was away when Lottie was very ill, and she would not let me come back up the hill because I was going on a trip to Asia, and Lottie wouldn't let me come in... After I graduated from Berkeley, I went to Washington, D.C. and worked for the Library of Congress. I graduated from Cal in '51, with a Masters in History and in Library Science, and from '51 – '55, I worked at the Library of Congress. When I came back, this is the way I met Paul [Salz]: Lottie came to pick me up at the airport. And Lottie was gabbing and was going up the hill, and there were no buildings up there on Panoramic at that time – the place that the taxi driver wouldn't go. And Lottie, gabbing, didn't change the gears, and started rolling back. And so she said to me, "Jump out, and get Paul, who is painting." So I ran out to where I knew the house was, and there was a guy with a paint brush, and I said, "Hurry up, your wife is rolling down the hill!" I had come back to Berkeley because Joe [Fraser], my husband, was from Berkeley. And my mother's cousin lived in San Francisco. That's why, when my mother died, we were invited to come here, but father wanted me to grow up in Lithuania, so we went to Lithuania. And I'm glad I did. Sure, when I came back to Berkeley, I was in touch with I-Housers. One of them, Lottie. And Peggy [Post Grunland]. And Victor Shick: there were three Russians from Berlin,

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