Being Alive At 90 by 2025 !

 Nadene Goldfoot                                              
                                                                                    

Here I am by my computer under the oil paining I did of my father's maternal Uncle's grandfather in Poland who was a Talmud scholar.  

Oh dear!  Being Jewish, I'm only 2% of the population of the USA.  Being 90 years old, I'm also only 2% of Portland, Oregon's population.  How lovely;  at least I can remember the number!  Portland's population in 2024 was 622,832.  

• According to Census Reporter, 3% of the population in the Portland, Oregon metropolitan area is 80 and older.   So I take it that it decreases for us 90 year olds to 2%, but actually as shown below to be only  1.49%.  I take it that not many 90 year olds are in Portland.  
• From the looks of my Assisted Living quarters in Brookdale Oswego Springs, all the elderly men in Portland must be here.  We've got a few new ones lately.  
• World Population Review estimates that 90,316 people in Portland are seniors. 
• In 2024, Portland, Oregon's population was estimated to be just over 639,000. This was a slight increase from 2023, and the first increase in several years. However, the population was still below 2020's total of 652,000. 
• The median age in Portland, OR is 38.6, as per 2019-2023 ACS 5 -Year Estimates. Of the total population, 
• 52.65% aged 30 to 64, 
• 1.49% were 85 years of age and older.
• I attended Lewis & Clark College in Portland for a year and a half, married a Reed College pre-med student, had 2 children, finished college at Portland State and became a teacher.  
• As to my childhood:  This 90 year old remembers saving newspapers and collecting them in the newspaper drive needed during WWII. We took them back to school where they were weighed and recorded by our name.   That was in the days my parents subscribed to two newspapers;  the Journal and the Oregonian; one in the morning and the other in the evening delivery by Carl Burbano, a boy on his bike that lived up the street.  We kids went through magazines cutting out the pictured jokes and pasting them into books we made to send to the soldiers.  Somehow we managed to do that at school.  I read some of the newspapers, but found nothing in it except war news, like where the soldiers advanced to.  
• During the 1960s, I moved my family to Anchorage, Alaska and I taught 2nd grade. We returned, I believe after being there a year and a summer.  Oh, those earthquakes!  Every day!  We moved to Eastern Oregon where my parents had a 2nd home because of my father's business.  He was a wholesale meat Co. situated on Columbia Blvd in Portland, but had to drive his cattle truck to eastern Oregon to buy the cattle.  I had been his bookkeeper before college.  
• I moved to Israel in 1980 at the age of 46 and became a dual citizen, taught English as a 2nd language, returning because my  grown son,, who remained in Portland, had become seriously ill with an unknown disease and his wife was very worried, asking me to return. I did and he eventually became  well. Being a teacher of 22 years already, I taught in Safed, returning during Thanksgiving in 1985. 
• Now I'm a news junkie and have been keeping blogs which have grown to 7 different ones, with 4 of them history, ancient and modern and the other 3 being for my genealogy research.  For the past 20 years I've been writing in a blog every day.  
• I've never seen such politics as today.  For me, Trump has been a great president in helping Israel more than others have, but I fear what will happen if he suddenly changes his mind about the state.  I just pray that Jared Kushner, his son in law, and his daughter have a continuing good marriage as Jared is Jewish and must be the advisor about Israel with Trump.   I'm in shock over what's happening here with Trump's decisions.  This, my son has explained, is a condition called Cognitive Dissonance.  He's even made a video about this condition which is now on youtube.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p7Wap0uMHMM
• This last episode  on TV news, that Trump just called enough on to make his point, was an absolute disgrace!  I still can't believe how someone can be handling Israel better than others have in the past but be so idiotic with his own country and other friends of the USA such as Ukraine.  My questioning is, staged or not staged?  And if so, why on earth?  He has  really put his foot in it now.  In doing so, it could also harm Israel being it's he who has backed her.  I hope people can keep this separate.  I wrote my disgust immediately after viewing the verbal fight.  I hope others do the same.  
•  https://jewishbubba.blogspot.com/2025/02/so-this-was-peace-meeting.html

Ladd's Addition Amazing Coincidence

 Nadene Goldfoot                                              

I grew up in Ladd's Addition;  went to Abernethy Grade School from K to 8th grade, and then onto Washington High. 

                  Nadene, graduated Washington High on Stark St. in 1951 at the age of 16

 This led to being in the first class to graduate from Portland State in 1958.  From there I taught at Buckman Grade School not too far away, and a few times even swam in their indoor pool.  Being Jewish, and being 90 years of age now, I am in the bracket of being 2% of the Jewish population of the USA as well as being 2% of the population being 90 years old in the USA.  I guess I'm a pretty rare bird !  Ladd's Addition was a  new area when my parents moved in.  It was made up of a mixture of people.  My best friend, Patty Shumacher, lived behind our house and across the alley.  Her house faced Abernethy.  She grew up to be Miss Portland!   

We had Chinese across the street and around the corner, another Jewish family, the Padrows, 3 houses away, Greeks, and lots of Italians as well as a Swedish family whose son certainly caught my eye, Johnny Elving, even at my age of 5. We were in the Rose Parade together;  I in a bassinet and he pulling it on his bike.  In my Kindergarten was another boy who caught my eye;  David Jeremiah who made the best wooden boat in  his shop corner of the room.  I believe it was he who went on to become Admiral of our Navy and was in another Rose Parade, leading it.

                                                                             

A man came around with a pony every year and we kids had our picture taken on it.  Here's my brother, David, who became the Rose Festival Junior Prime Minister one year.  He was 8 years younger than me, born the year after Jerry in this article in 1942.  

An Irish family lived next door to us in a very large house.  The school's Pot Luck dinners were probably the best in the city with all the wonderful assortment of traditional food that was on the table.    

                                
Later, Jerry  Cinnera was born and raised in the Ladd's Addition area of Hosford Grade School and also attended from K to 8th grade.  What he remembers is that as a kid, maybe 7th or 8th grader, getting into trouble with the principal.  Being Italian, he remembers that his grandparents lived in the same area and that his mother sang in one of the nearby Italian restaurants and had a great voice.  Jerry inherited that, singing all the time to his tapes.  We have a 6 year difference, so his music preference is quite different from mine, but I'll hear him sing one of these days.  

He remembers the neighborhood so well!  He made me a list of the landmarks:  Little Italy, the market club just off 10th and Belmont, The Lido Italian Restaurant on 10th and Belmont, the Monte Carlo Italian Restaurant on 10th and Belmont.  Then there was the Grand Central Bowling Alley on 8th and Belmont and the Wholesale Produce Market where an Italian man with an open wagon came around with fresh fruit and veggies to each home, parking near your curb while you chose your fresh  and beautiful wares.  There was Gatto Produce on 10th Street.  Also Jerry remembered Grazian Produce on 10th Ave. and Caruco Produce on 10th Street.  His father had the Cinnera Produce on 10th and Taylor.  There was Amato's Supper Club on 12th as well !  We both remember the shoemaker on 12th Street.  I remember 2 Italian mama-papa stores that I walked to every day, buying something my mother forgot and needed quickly.  Down on Hawthorne and 12th was a supermarket style store, the first I had seen, where we tried to get to every week.  

Now I can't mention much about Hosford being I wasn't there, but my 5 female cousins of the Oster family attended.  We had the 1st, 2nd 4th and 5th daughters becoming Portland teachers with the 5th getting her doctor's degree teaching at Portland State and doing much more, while the 3rd worked at the VA.   

             At Brookdale on my 90th birthday with another cousin attending, Don Eichman. 

Jerry and I grew up in Ladd's Addition without bumping into each other.  We both remember the Plaza Theater where I saw many movies.  I remember crossing the Ross Island Bridge all the time to get home from Portland State.  Right on the corner of Powell was a bank I went to every day when working for my father across the River who was in the Wholesale Meats Co, then.  I had become his bookkeeper making a little pocket money.  I had deposits to make every day for him.  My end of the bargain was $15 per week to keep the books. One thing I learned was to always keep busy;  pick up the broom and sweep if out of accounting to do.   

Now, we have met.  We both have wound up at a Brookdale Oswego Springs of Portland, Oregon, in Assisted Living.  We even live on the same 3rd floor, and to make it even eerier, we live next door to each other.  Now, I think that's pretty amazing, don't you!  

Another twist to our story is that I've just been told by our receptionist Debra that her family members had attended Hosford as well!  My good gracious!  

To add to this, I just found out that our program director, Colleen, came from Ladd's Addition also besides the Sellwood area.  She also has such fond memories.  What are the odds of the 4 of us all from this lovely SE Portland area meeting up in an Assisted Living-work and residents, in part of Lake Oswego?  Well, it is also lovely.  

Raise the coincidence level again;  just found out my caretaker's father in law owned the Monte Carlo in Ladd's Addition that Jerry remembered.  This is more than amazing;  it's fate!  (morning of 3/3/25).  

Jerry might have been in class with 2 of my female cousins, Harriet born in 1941 and Darlene born in 1942.    Those were WWII years.  My brother David was born in 1942.  All 3 are now deceased. Jerry was born in 1941.  We meet in the dining room every morning.  We're both very early risers and are usually one of the first down there.  Our conversations started by mentioning a Darrell Felici (sp?) that we had both known; me at Washington High and Jerry, maybe from Hosford, not sure.  

3/17/25  Jerry wrote that when he was 18 years old, he tipped over a rig hauling frozen lambs from Swift to New York, his first job,  and was really rattled after that, and his Dad and Mom flew out to help him, and then flew him back home.  "We had a truck in Chicago and they came back to Minneapolis and transferred the lambs to this truck".    Johnny Grossman drove the truck back to St. Paul, Minnesota.  

"I had to fly home with Mom and Dad because I had to start school and I wanted to stay there and wait to get the truck repaired.  What a bummer!  Mom and Dad didn't say anything on the way back to Portland.  the lambs were frozen enough.  It was really bad experience.  I wasn't really experienced but I wanted to drive the lead, and that was that".  

3/24/25:  Jerry seems to be the last of the Little Italy population and he has been busy lately writing down his thoughts about Ladds Addition.  

His father's name was Bazilio Cinnera.  Another Italian family name was Shindilis.  Bazilio went to Abernethy Grade School for one year.  Then he went to Benson High.  After that Grandma Neurely put him to work selling fruits and veggies door to door in Little Italy.  

                        Consolidated Freightways

He worked his way up selling produce and then acquired a partner, Vennie Graziano, who eventually quit and went to work for Consolidated as the lead man in the nation.  

Then Paul owned the produce house and named it Cinerra Produce.  He then sold it to his right hand man, Norm Wilson, who smoked cigars. In fact, all the men in his family smoked cigars.   He then bought two produce trucks.  He drove to Yakima every day.  He tipped the truck over on the old Columbia Highway.  Then he bought 17 big rigs and hauled produce for Safeway Stores.  He hauled from Oregon and Washington and to California, and from California back to Oregon.  He even got to Billings, Montana.  Jerry drove and loved those big rigs.  

Edited on 6/3/25: 8:52am

 https://www.nps.gov/crps/tps/workingonthepast/case_studies/ladds_images/MulbarryAve3.jpg

Abernethy and Hosford Schools in Portland, Oregon

 Nadene Goldfoot                                            

Starting with Hosford Middle School as it is called today, it is at 2303 SE 28th Pl, Portland, OR 97214  

Hosford-Abernethy is a neighborhood in the inner Southeast section of Portland, Oregon, called Ladd's Addition.  Being Abernethy is in this neighborhood, Hosford must be, also.  Ladd's is bordered by SE Hawthorne, Division, 12th, and 20th streets. It is part of the Hosford-Abernethy neighborhood association.

An article we found written by Jesse Leonard in 1964 explains Hosford's interesting past.

It is important to note that Hosford Middle School sits on ancestral lands belonging to               

The Confederated Tribes of the Grande Ronde Community, who were forcibly displaced from this area. 

Hosford Middle School has an interesting and rich history.

Rev. Chancey O. Hosford (1820-1911) was born in New York state and came to Oregon in 1845. He studied theology at "Oregon Institute" before it was renamed Williamette University, and was a Methodist minister at Vancouver, Washington in the 1850's and at Mt. tabor beginning about 1861. He was also a school teacher.  While living and studying at Salem, he had acquired a land claim, and he traded that for 200 acres on Mt. Tabor. From: Portland Names and Neighborhoods by Eugene E. Snyder.

 

(1919-1926) The first Hosford program was located in eight portables at S.E. Stephens and 30th streets. School opened September 2, 1919 and during the first school year three more portables were added. The construction for all eleven buildings was $25,640. A total of 296 pupils were enrolled that first year. The school was named for an early Mount Tabor schoolteacher and minister, Chauncey O. Hosford. The school moved to its present location at the beginning of the 1926-27 school year. The original site together with other properties was exchanged in 1934 for the Cleveland High School athletic field.

 

(1926) The construction on the present Hosford School began during the 1924-25 school year and the building was opened on September 7, 1926. The original structure had twenty-eight classrooms, two gymnasia, and an auditorium. There was a major addition to the building in 1954. In 1926-27 the school grounds were 3.37 acres. Now the grounds cover 6.6 acres.

       Graduating from 8th Grade of Abernethy  in 1946;  ready to go to Washington High

I am in the back row standing with the tall kids;  I'm now 90 and am 5' tall  !  Mrs. Jagger is on the left and Principal Tate on the right--I hope.  We had one Black, two Chinese and the other "Nadine" was possibly Native American with a French surname. It was unimportant to us at the time.  I am Jewish and there was another Jewish girl.   This picture shows 43 of us graduates.  

Abernethy Elementary School's address is 2421 SE Orange Ave, Portland, OR 97214, near Division.   

• Abernethy has been a gathering and learning place in inner SE Portland for 99 years.  Abernethy was built in its present location at SE 14th Avenue and Orange Street in 1925.  The school was named "Abernethy" after the first provisional governor of Oregon George Abernethy.  At Abernethy, we believe that a strong neighborhood school creates a safer and friendlier community for everybody.

  The families, teachers and staff at Abernethy are proud to continue the tradition of being a part of a strong, viable neighborhood school.

  Although the school is closely identified with the Ladd's Addition neighborhood, Abernethy actually serves a much broader community.  Abernethy's official boundaries span from SE Powell to SE Hawthorne Blvd., and from the Willamette River up to approximately SE 39th Avenue.

  Abernethy is proud of its history.  Several families at Abernethy have had two or more generations attend the school.  We believe that our rich history gives the school a strong foundation on which to build a promising future.

• I attended school here and my classes included Kindergarten to graduate the 8th grade.  I skipped twice, 6B and 7B being the year was divided into 2 semesters, so I skipped a whole year total.  

  
  
  

• I was told that Ladd's addition used to be the farm of a Mr. Ladd.  William Sargent Ladd (1826-1893) was the farmer who owned the land that became Ladd's Addition in Portland, Oregon. 

• • Ladd was a prominent businessman, politician, and philanthropist in Portland in the 1850s. He was born in Vermont and moved to Portland during the California Gold Rush. The California gold rush (1848–1855) began on January 24, 1848, when gold was found by James W. Marshall at Sutter's Mill in Coloma, California. The news of gold brought approximately 300,000 people to California from the rest of the United States and abroad.
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  • He was elected mayor of Portland twice in the 1850s. He co-founded the first bank in Oregon in 1859. He built the first brick building in Portland.
    
                                                                 
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     How did Ladd's Addition come to be? In 1891, Ladd subdivided his 126-acre farm for residential use. The development was inspired by Pierre L'Enfant's plan for Washington, D.C. The neighborhood was designed with a radial street pattern, a central park, and four diamond-shaped rose gardens. Ladd's Addition is considered one of the oldest planned communities in Oregon. 
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  • Past meets present… William Sargent Ladd became one of Portland's wealthiest men in the 1850s. He was elected mayor in 1854, but it was not until 1891 that he decided to subdivide his 126-acre farm on Portland's eastside. Primarily developed in the 25-year span between 1905 and 1930, the real estate development known as Ladd’s Addition resulted in an architecturally rich mix of compatible early 20th century styles, including bungalow, craftsman, American foursquare, mission, Tudor, and colonial revival. Possibly the most remarkable characteristic of this community is its continuity of scale, setback, orientation, and materials.                                 
    
    
    One of our famous rose gardens in Ladd's Addition
    
    

Resource:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ladd%27s_Addition

https://www.pps.net/Page/8866

https://www.yelp.com/biz/hosford-middle-school-portland-2  Review

https://www.pps.net/domain/308