Member Profile
Ruth and Maurice Richter
In today's society, it is not a common occurrence for couples to stay married with any longevity. But those who navigate through the potholes and the blessings of marriage and indeed last til death do us part should be admired as the quintessential ideal.
TBS Charter Members, Maurice and Ruth Richter, personalize that ideal as they celebrated the monumental achievement of 50 years of marriage this past July 19.
Ruth & Maurice Richter
Imagine 50 years together. The good times of course are easy and are the reward for the difficult times: arguments and disagreements stresses of jobs, child rearing, decision making, illnesses, identity crisis's, anxiety - well any of you with life experience are familiar with these challenges. Maurice and Ruth have survived these times and, as everyone who knows them can see, they still love each other deeply. They are commemorating this milestone event with a new Chevy Aveo and then by flying to Barcelona, boarding a ship and cruising to France, Italy, Greece and Turkey.
Ruth Louise Aizanman, born in Alberta Canada in 1938, was the fourth child of Polish immigrant parents, Fanny Fiaga and Leonard Label Aizanman. Ruth, the baby of the family contracted mumps as an infant and consequently lost her hearing. Her older sister, Rose, was infected with Whooping Cough when she was small and also lost her hearing. Their second brother, David, died at 18 months from pneumonia. The first born, William, was the only child in the family who was not affected by a devastating childhood illness and is still living in Calgary.
Ruth's mother, Fanny, was one of nine children, all of whom immigrated to Canada before World War II began. They settled in Calgary, where Ruth's father, Leonard opened an antique and used furniture business. He, fortunately left Poland before the war, with his best friend, but sadly, as is the all-too-familiar Holocaust story, all of Ruth's father's side of the family perished in Poland.
In the 1940's, educational accommodations for deaf children in Canada were usually far from home with most provinces having one residential school. Ruth began school, at age five, in Edmonton, Alberta, which was about 200 miles from home, and stayed there for one year, coming home on the weekends. Since Alberta did not have deaf schools for children past age six, she was sent by the government in 1944 to the Mackay School in Montreal, Quebec, where she stayed for 8 years.
Ruth's sister, Rose, went to Manitoba School for the Deaf in Winnipeg until World War II, when the army took over the school for military purposes. Rose transferred to Mackay School in 1940 until her graduation in 1948.
When Mackay School closed every summer, Ruth returned home to her family in Calgary. One summer, while home, Ruth's brother, William, noticed Ruth engaging in some Christian rituals and asked her about it. Since there were no other Jewish children at her school, Mackay sent Ruth, along with all the other children, for their weekly Christian education. Ruth's family were Conservative Jews and she knew if her parents found out they would be angry and so had kept it a secret from them for many years, not wanting to upset anyone. William reported this finding to his parents who immediately called a family meeting. After eight years at Mackay, Ruth's aunts and uncles proposed to her parents that they transfer her to Jericho School for the Deaf in Vancouver, which would bring her closer to home and solve the problem.
Ruth was very happy in her new school and relieved she no longer had to keep her secret from her family. She was impressed with their social activities and athletic program and joined the Bird Scouts taking an interest in hiking and camping events with them on the weekends. Since Ruth was now closer to home, she was able to see her family more often and began to develop her Jewish identity by taking part in celebrations, like Passover.
She graduated Jericho in 1955 and then attended a business college in Calgary that has served her well her entire life. She specialized in accounting and finished her training six months later, getting her first job at The Bay, formerly known as the Hudson's Bay Company, a Calgary department store, where she stayed for one year.
In January of 1957, Ruth followed her sister, Rose, to Los Angeles, at the urging of her parents. Since there were few Jews and deaf community in Calgary, Ruth's family wanted her to be able to have a meaningful social life with Jews of her same age and find her own place in the world. She settled in with her sister in Hollywood and got a job with Pacific Bell as an accountant. Ruth stayed with Pacific Bell for ten years.
On the advise of her sister, Rose, Ruth began her social life going to the Unison Club, the same place that Rose had met her husband, Bert. The Unison Club, a club for deaf singles and married couples at the West side Community Center on Olympic Boulevard and Fairfax, was formed by Rose Zucker who was an instrumental person in the life of almost every Jewish Deaf person in Los Angeles. She was also the driving force behind the founding of Temple Beth Solomon so that her deaf daughter, Helen Zucker Inga, would have a place to develop her Jewish Identity. Rose was a tireless advocate for the deaf community her entire life. The Unison Club would become an extremely important focal point of both Ruth and Maurice's lives, where they met life-long friends and each other.
Maurice Samuel Richter was born in Chicago on June 13th, 1935, the second child of Fred and Rose Richter. Fred supported his family with his own wholesale poultry and egg business.
Maurice lost his hearing at age one from Rubella. His parents enrolled him in the Alexander Graham Bell Elementary School for the Deaf in Chicago where he learned to lipread.
He continued his secondary education at Lane Technical High School where he was mainstreamed, but without interpreters, and graduated in 1954. His college years took him away from home to the University of Michigan, at Ann Arbor, where he majored in architecture.
Maurice's Jewish education was not neglected, as happens so often with a deaf child. Orthodox and Conservative synagogues, very often adhere strictly to Talmudic Law which has a section describing the three categories of people who are assumed to be limited in their communication and therefore banned from participating fully in the Jewish community. One of these categories is heresh, translated as deaf-mute.
Because of this obstacle, Maurice was barred from his father's conservative synagogue and his grandfather's Orthodox synagogue for his religious training. But Temple Sholom in Chicago, a Reform synagogue, welcomed deaf children with open arms into their religious school, confirmation and bar and bat mitzvah training.
Several of Maurice life-long friendships were made here, special among them were the Podolsky brothers, Herb and Sherwin, both of blessed memory. Maurice's parents worked with him at home augmenting his eight-year formal Jewish education at Temple Sholom. This was all achieved through lip-reading and special help from his uncle Jake, culminating in 1948 with his bar mitzvah.
While interviewing Maurice, it became quickly evident that he has extremely warm and cherished memories growing up with his family in Chicago. As he told me of his heartfelt love for his uncles on his mother's side: Jacob, Irving and Harry, his eyes filled with loving tears of these men who had an enormous influence on his life.
Uncle Jake, as Maurice called him, whom he particularly adored, was blinded in the war. Maurice said he was one of the most capable people he has ever met and taught him how to differentiate the coins in his pocket, by their size, shape and feel and how to read Hebrew in Braille to practice for his bar mitzvah. Though he had no need for Braille in his actual bar mitzvah, it was fascinating and wonderful to learn to touch the Hebrew letters and have the very fabric of the Jewish people come alive on his fingers. This tactile experience was much more meaningful to Maurice since he could not hear the Hebrew pronunciations. To a young pre-bar mitzvah boy, this kind of understanding of one's needs was sheer brilliance and his uncle carved a place in Maurice's heart never to be equaled.
In the summers, when school was out, young Maurice would look for work. As soon as the potential employer found out he was deaf, he was sent on his way. Luckily Maurice had a very supportive family and his uncles welcomed him to work with them at their jewelry business where he spent many summer hours learning everything they could teach him related to their business. When he wasn't working for his uncles, he was working in his father's poultry business. These business-related experiences were important, but his father and uncles also taught him independence, character and everything they knew about competition. They imparted their knowledge of every card game, board game and sport you can imagine. In those years of camaraderie spent with his uncles, Maurice learned what it meant to become a man.
Maurice's passion for sports played out in Pop Warner football baseball, proudly defeating 15 other players to make his baseball team. At the first team meeting, he told the coach he was deaf. The coach said, "Can you read my lips?" and when Maurice answered, "Yes I can!" the coach said, "Go home." Surprised but undeterred, Maurice never let this sort of discrimination get in his way and promptly joined the cross-country track team.
Beginning in the spring until the chill of the Chicago autumn began, Maurice engaged in a monthly ritual, sometimes alone, sometimes with his sister, Selma. The goal: A twenty mile bicycle trek from home, along the lake front all the way to his father's office downtown where they would meet, load up his bike and drive home together.
When Maurice wasn't hanging out with his close friend and neighbor, Mickey, he spent every weekend at the movies with Selma. She would mouth the dialogue of the old classic movies to Maurice so he could lip-read whatever he missed and could follow the plot. This created a very strong bond between the brother and sister.
In February of 1957, at age 22, after finishing college in Ann Arbor, Maurice joined his family in West Los Angeles, where they had moved with hopes of improving his father's health. He left behind a girlfriend, but Fred Richter had given Maurice possibly the best piece of advice he had ever gotten: "This is not the right girl for you...." Maurice could see his wisdom, agreed and left any further thoughts of her in Chicago.
Upon arrival in Los Angeles, Maurice discovered the Unison Club, attending faithfully every Thursday night - never missed! Here he continued his love of sports in the company of other deaf Angelinos, coached by his uncle-by-marriage, Nat Balin, who happened to be the athletic director for the Jewish Community Center.
It was here that Maurice Richter and Ruth Aizanman met for the first time, but there was no love at first sight; they had nothing in common particularly, other than being deaf, Jewish and dues-paying members of the Unison. Actually, they couldn't have been more different, she grew up using ASL, he grew up oral and a lip-reader; a cultural divide that seemed unbridgeable.
One fretful day, Maurice got word that his ex-girlfriend was arriving from Chicago - not so happy with his decision to leave her behind. So he enlisted Ruth's help, asking her to accompany him to Venice Beach, the meeting point of his ex, and pretend to be his girlfriend for the day, discouraging any quest the ex may have for reconciliation. The ruse worked well beyond anyone's expectations: the ex was satisfied that Maurice was "taken" and the new couple began to date. She teaches him how to sign; he teaches her how to read lips - a bridge is built and over a year and a half they fall in love. Maurice proposed to Ruth during Chanukah while at a French subtitled film, in her excitement she practically jumped in his lap and to this day neither one of them can remember what film they saw.
Ruth's very large Canadian family failed to convince the couple to marry in Canada, so they came en masse to Southern California to the Sportsman's Lodge on July 19, 1959 to witness the union of this extraordinary couple.
Maurice's first job in Los Angeles, in 1957, was a short-lived three months as a draftsman with Structural Engineering Company. He was no stranger to discrimination while growing up, his deafness closed many doors, but he always managed to open a new one. But now, he was faced with a new kind of bigotry at Structural Engineering.
Rose Richter, being a traditional Jewish mother, packed her son a traditional Passover lunch including the familiar pesach foods: gefelte fish, matzot and so on. One of his fellow workers noticed this strange meal and was quite interested, innocently asking him about it. Four hours after Maurice's explanation, he was handed a pink slip, not from his cowardly boss directly but from his secretary. Astounded by such narrow-minded intolerance, Maurice gladly took his leave.
He then took a job with the County of Los Angeles in their map department, but soon grew weary of this and found himself too bored to stay.
Ruth introduced Maurice to her supervisor at work and on the usually unlucky, Friday the 13th, 1957, Maurice began his 40-year career with Pacific Bell starting as a draftsman and working his way up to engineer. He then helped his best friend, Nate Shapiro, get a job there, starting their own deaf Pac Bell group.
As anyone who knows them can attest, Maurice and Ruth are a very organized couple! They mapped out their future systematically, first buying a home in Van Nuys in May of 1965 and exactly one year later in May of 1966, their first child, Rodney, (named for Ruth's grandfather) was born. Ruth left Pac Bell to be a full time mom and exactly three years later in May of 1969 their daughter, Harriet, (named for Maurice's grandmother) was born. They remain today in that same, adorable, meticulous house with 44 years of reminiscences, adding new memories with the third generation of four granddaughters: Maya, Anna, Izzy and Abby, ranging in age from 4-11.
Maurice and Ruth are among the few pioneers who, in 1960, founded Temple Beth Solomon of the Deaf to have a place where they could practice their religion freely and give their children a proper Jewish education. They have been among the most active members of the synagogue, chairing countless committees, holding Board offices of TBS and the Sisterhood and receiving many honors the highest being: The Hersh Man and Woman of the Year.
Not only can Maurice and Ruth take immense pride in the creation of a 50 year ideal relationship and family, but also in the (almost) 50 year founding of a one-of-a-kind synagogue of, for and by the deaf. They have been immensely influential in the life of TBS and for that they have our eternal gratitude. More Profiles...