September 10, 2005

Newsletter No. 7: Louis Rose Society for the Preservation of Jewish History

Picnic, On-Line Encyclopedia, Archives and a Gravestone
are all important projects of the expanding Louis Rose Society

By Donald H. Harrison,  contact phone: (619) 265-0808.

Louis Rose Society Picnic in Two Weeks: Please don't forget the Louis Rose Society picnic from 4 p.m. to 7 p.m.,  Sunday, Sept. 25—our first public event in behalf of the campaign to build a statue to San Diego's first Jewish settler.  We ask not only that you RSVP to me at (619) 265-0808, but also spread the word among your friends. We want this event to be a great kickoff, so please plan to come.  And let us know soon!  Details can be found in our  last newsletter.

Henrietta Rose Gravestone: A ceremony unveiling a memorial stone on the grave of Henrietta Rose—daughter of Louis—has been tentatively scheduled for 10 a.m. Wednesday, Nov. 16, at Mt. Hope Cemetery.  Henrietta, a retired school teacher who was nearly 85 when she died as a spinster, has been buried since 1957 in an unmarked grave.  The ceremony will include representatives from the Louis Rose Society, the San Diego City Schools, the San Diego Education Association and the Order of the Eastern Star.  More details will come in future newsletters, but in the meantime, please mark your calendars.

On-Line Encyclopedia of the San Diego Jewish Community—Every week more and more Jewish San Diegans of the past and present are being honored on our website as we build an on-line encyclopedia of our San Diego County Jewish community.  As of today more than 120 people have been honored and more are in the pipeline.  We would like all of you to participate in this project.  Visit the list of honorees at http://www.jewishsightseeing.com/louis_rose_historical/honorees/honorees.htm and if you see someone about whom you would like to make a comment, or share a story, please send it to me at sdheritage@cox.net for possible posting.  Please also encourage your friends to become involved in this program.  Remember,  the initial $36 contribution to the  Jewish Community Foundation. Louis Rose Fund (4950 Murphy Canyon Road, San Diego, CA 92119) entitles you to charter membership and the opportunity  to honor one person on our site.  Each additional $18 contribution enables you to honor another person.  By contributing, therefore, you are doing a double mitzvah: you are  helping to raise money for the Louis Rose statue and you are  building an on-line library about Jewish accomplishment in San Diego County.

San Diego Jewish Press-Heritage Archives—When Norman Greene and I purchased the San Diego Jewish Press-Heritage from Herb Brin at the end of 2001, we acquired the archives of the Heritage and its predecessor newspaper, The Southwestern Jewish Press. We are using those archives now to find and post stories about the Louis Rose Society  honorees. It is true that the Heritage no longer is being published, but its archives still can render service to the San Diego Jewish community.  This involves indexing the back newspapers—a very interesting task for people who enjoy reading about the "old days."  Our indexing project has reached 1950 and already we have thousands of names—and references to the articles that they appeared in—for the San Diego Jewish community.  If anyone would like to volunteer their time to the indexing project, please call me at (619) 265-0808. Scholars seeking to research the San Diego Jewish community always are welcome to browse through these newspaper archives.

Biographical project—Recently we were contacted by one of our honorees who needs help in writing his biography for publication.  He asked if we could serve as shadchan and help him find someone willing to work with him, on the basis of the writer taking a percentage of any future revenues from the book  We are glad to report that we were able to provide a connection in fairly short order.  We'll tell you who the honoree  is, and more about his story, after their deal is finalized.  But, in the meantime, the thought occurred to us that there probably are other people out there—both writers and people who believe their life stories should be put into book form.  People in either category who would like our assistance in finding each other should please call me, once again at (619) 265-0808, or email me at sdheritage@cox.net.

Your thoughts and comments are always welcome.  Please help us build our Louis Rose Society for the Preservation of Jewish History!