Dr. Joseph Rubenstein Memoir, Part 2

He is a graduate of Paterson’s Eastside High School, class January, 1940 and one of 3 other surviving centenarians that we know of.*  He was an orthodontist in Paterson and in Fair Lawn for 50 years and is now retired in Arizona.  He very much wanted to participate in our “Monthly Memoir” series because he has a sharp memory and a lot of history, local and otherwise, to relay to us.  Dr. Rubenstein was particularly provoked to tell his story when, in March of this year, he saw that we published a memoir about his graduating class. 

In September, at almost 102 years old, it was now Joe’s turn to step up to the plate and thrill us with what he has to say.  When we left off last month, Joseph was attending dental school at the University of Illinois in Chicago. Then, on December 7, 1941, the world changed forever. It was the day FDR declared, “a date which will live in infamy {because} the United States of America was suddenly and deliberately attacked by naval and air forces of the Empire of Japan.”  Joseph’s life story, Part II, continues below as told to Dorothy Douma Greene, a former President of the JHSNJ.

Pearl Harbor was attacked when I was in pre-dental.  President Roosevelt declared war on December 8, 1941.  There were educational programs.  The “ASTP” was the Army Specialized Training Program. I thus enlisted in the army reserve, but not on active duty. They reduced schooling to a 9 month year whereby dental students could graduate in 3 years instead of 4.  We wore our army uniforms but were allowed to continue with our schooling.   When the war ended we were no longer needed and the army wanted to dispense of many of us professionals. We reentered civilian life out of uniform; however, we remained in the active reserve. Our draft board said we could do whatever we wanted but we needed to hang around in case we were needed.
 
In the midst of it all, I met my future wife, Doris Rosenthal, at the end of the summer either 1940 or 1941.  She lived on E. 26th Street between 10th and 11th Avenue.  I never knew her at all but a bunch of us went out for the night and we were making the rounds saying goodbye because we were leaving town for school. David Gordon and Lenny Rosenteur, my roommates at the University of Illinois at Urbana, were with me the night we went out and made the rounds. Betty Bennett, niece of the guy who owned Toby’s hot dog joint on McLean Boulevard near the 10th Avenue Circle introduced me to Doris.  I said “How are you?” I felt it was a new night for me.  Doris and I married in 1946.   

Doris and I were destined to be born before we were actually born, before we were even a glimmer in anyone’s eye. It was fate that her mother and my father worked side by side in the Aronson silk mill not knowing that their children, who weren’t born yet, would one day be married to each other.  In fact, Doris’s mother, my future mother-in-law, used to ask my father to watch her looms so she could bring Sidney, her 5 year old, who was enrolled in kindergarten, to her aunt’s house after school to babysit.  The boss was easy going, as long as she made her quota by the end of the day.

In those days the deli on the corner of E.26th and 10th Avenue was called Garfinkel’s and Friedman’s.  Later it became just Irv Friedman’s.  Sussman’s was on the opposite corner and next in line was the grocery store called Bibsy’s.  Bibsy was Mrs. Altshuler’s son who eventually took over her grocery store that was on Carroll Street and he moved it to 10th Avenue.  Remember, Mrs. Altshuler was the lady who had bought me for 3 pennies and saved my life, believing that she had good luck with her own healthy boys. There was also an outlet bakery on 10th Avenue, called the “Co-op” which got its supplies from downtown.  A lot of people don’t know this but corn bread and rye bread are the same; it’s just what you prefer to call it.  Also on 10th Avenue was Weis’ Fish Market, then a fruit market and after that Sheer and Doner, a kosher butcher.

Our first apartment was on E.28th Street between 9th and 10th Avenue. We lived there until I was re-called to complete my army service when the Korean War broke out. The reserves were called to active duty. Our building was a 2 story, 4 flat building and we lived on one of the lower sides.  My first dental office was at 308 Broadway at the corner of Carroll Street.

The time had now come for me to share my education and give back so I registered and was active in the Dental Corp of the U.S. Army.  I was fulfilling the deal I had made with the army when it let me finish Dental School during WWII.  They told me they wanted me back so I went back.  Doris and I packed up our apartment, my dental office, our son and drove all the way to Fort Campbell in Kentucky to fulfill my duty.  After 2 years, I was transferred to Fort Monmouth in New Jersey and waited 6 months for my discharge.
 
Coincidentally, the office on Broadway, the same office of my first practice, was available again after my discharge.  Go figure!  So I took it again until I ultimately moved my practice to Morlot Avenue in Fair Lawn where I stayed for 50 years.
 
 The real estate market was difficult after WWII – There was a severe housing shortage that was not keeping pace with the military discharges.  You had to know the right people to find housing and even more than that to get on the ‘priority list’ to secure a flat.

“It’s nice to try to relax and speak your mind - to speak spontaneously.”

After I re-entered the service in 1951 and was discharged, we didn’t return to E.28th Street.  My in-laws had already moved to Berdan Avenue in Fair Lawn.

We found a modest home because money was still in short supply for us - it was a little house on the east end of Fair Lawn.  It had an old fashioned heat distribution problem.  There was a grating on the first floor where the heat rose up to the grate above on the second floor.  My mother-in-law told us that she forbade us to move in there!  So we owned the house for one day and then went back to the realtor and told him to put it back on the market.  I’m sure it was a losing proposition but he found another buyer.

We subsequently found another, more traditional house on Ellis, between 15th and 17th Streets, close to Lyncrest School.  It was a traditional layout with all the bedrooms upstairs.  From that point on we always lived in Fair Lawn eventually ending up on Morlot Avenue.
 
Doris and I had 3 more children, a total of 4.  There were 3 boys and one girl.  Two of my sons passed away. Jimmy died 6 years ago. Seth died 12 years ago after a long illness.  Sidney lives in Lexington, MA and Margo, my only daughter, lives near me in Arizona.
 
Doris was a graduate of N.Y.U. She loved English literature. She eventually desired more stimulation that education had given her. When I finished with my patients she would go to Paterson State Teachers College in the evenings to earn a master’s degree in English lit. She went for quite a few years. She enjoyed the contact and eventually got enough credits for her degree, but her goal wasn’t the degree, she just thought going and learning was good enough. I don’t think she technically got the degree. She just wanted to go for the education. Doris was wonderful in every respect.
 
I first started practicing general dentistry in the mid-1940’s and then decided to take extra courses in orthodontics in the late ‘40’s. Shortly thereafter, I limited my practice to orthodontics. When I got my dental license in January 1946. I said to myself, “I’m going to work for exactly 50 years... until 1996.”  I was prescient because it came true!  When exactly 50 years had passed, I said to myself, “I made a deal, so I can’t renege on it.”  And there I was until I retired and Doris and I moved to Arizona.

Doris died 9 years ago, about 2015.  We first had a condo in Arizona but I am currently residing there for 20 years and permanently since 2012.
 
The life story of Dr. Joseph Rubenstein will be continued in a few months……..
 
* The other survivors of the EHS Class of January 1940 that we know of are Gay Kitay,

Estelle Janowsky, and Sig Westerman.

Joseph Rubenstein as told to Dorothy Douma Greene, Former President of the JHSNJ
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Joe Rubenstein enjoyed his interview sessions with Dorothy Douma Greene. He made the following comments to her after one of their sessions. 
-“You give me life and stimulation.  I have a file drawer in my head and all the information is in my head.”
-“You are re-charging my batteries.”
-  “You are a pleasure to talk to. You are adding years to my life.”