AT Shorts: Anti-Semetic Deed Restrictions
In the 1940s, a Jewish family in Colonia Solana is asked to remove their name from their mailbox to discourage other “non-Christians” from moving into the deed-restricted neighborhood. This story was excerpted from Stanley Feldman's oral history and broadcast in the context of an Arizona Public Media story about housing discrimination in Tucson.
“My dad was an interesting businessman. In addition to working really hard, when he got some money, he was not averse to speculating a little, so he'd buy a little real estate. He bought this house, '43 or '44. He bought this house way out in the sticks, a half a mile east of Country Club, one block south of Broadway. OK? I mean, you had to be crazy to go out that far. All right? So that's where we moved and it was a really nice house compared to where we had been, and a big house. Things got better for us, really better for us. And I would walk to Miles School every day, I think, starting the fourth grade, fourth, fifth, and sixth, and then walk home. I do remember one incident when we moved in there.
The neighbors came to call on us, a group of them. And I was sent to bed so I wouldn't hear what was going on. So I got out of bed and leaned down at the doorway so I could listen. And what had happened is the subdivision restrictions prohibited the occupation of any property in the subdivision by anyone that is not of the Anglo-Saxon race and the Christian religion. And we were not of the Christian religion.
And the neighbors knew that because my father had put up a little-- a mailbox with a little sign underneath saying Feldmans, the Jewish name. And they had come to tell us that they didn't want to make any trouble, they weren't going to force us to move. These restrictions were enforceable at the time, by the way. They were not going to make us move, but the name had to come off the mailbox.
And either my mother and father asked why, and they were told that the neighbors didn't want the name there because it might lead other people to believe that it was OK for Jewish people to move in. And that would destroy or impair neighborhood values. And so the name had to come off.
So as I told you, my mother was a very unique woman and I remember her saying, of course, we'll be happy to do that, but in fairness-- and I'm paraphrasing-- but in fairness, she said, I'd like you to know that in my will, I've left this house as a home for the Jewish aged and I hope you won't mind. So that ended that conversation. So we lived there peacefully ever after. “