GRANDFATHER CLOCK

The grandfather clock that belonged to our family for generations was purchased by my great great great uncle and his wife, Bertha and Solomon Schiffman. My parents had it appraised in 1975; the description made by the appraiser follows: Grandfather clock 7'9" in height, 1'11" wide at the base, 1'3" deep with mahogany case, three weight movement and Westminster chimes. Silvered dial with applied gold numerals and pierced scrolling on corners. Moon dial and calendar by Elliott. London. Frank Herschede, Cincinnati label. Casewith broken pediment, turned side finials, and front with turned and reeded columns. Glass door with shaped and beveled glass, flanked by quarter turned and reeded pilasters over paneled bottom case having applied carving on front, over carved front feet. The clock is in perfect condition and in excellent working order. It is interesting to note that in 1975 the appraiser valued it for $5,000. My great great great uncle, Solomon Schiffman immigrated to America from Hoppstadten, Germany in 1857 along with his brother my great great great uncle, Daniel Schiffman. Solomon was 22 and Daniel 16. The brothers lived in Cincinnati, Ohio for several years, then Paris Kentucky and eventually settled in Huntsville where they opened a dry goods store. In 1875 when Solomon was in Cincinnati visiting relatives, he married Bertha Stromberg of that city. Sometime after 1885 and before 1894, Solomon and Bertha visited Cincinnati and purchased a Frank Herschede grandfather hall clock. Herschede began his clock business in Cincinnati in 1885. Initially he imported parts for his clocks and had the cabinets made by a local cabinet maker. Later he began manufacturing clock parts himself. Solomon died in 1894; therefore, he and Bertha would have purchased the clock between 1885 and 1894. Since the clock was made during that period, it would be one of Herchede’s early clocks, while he was still importing clock parts. The Schiffmans would have ordered the clock to be made and shipped by train to Huntsville. The clock had to be carefully packed with the parts separated from the cabinet; after arriving in Huntsville, it had to be reassembled. My great great grandfather Morris Bernstein had a watch and clock repair shop on the court house square in Huntsville; he may have reassembled the clock for the Schiffmans.

Solomon brought his nephew, my great grandfather, Isaac Schiffman to Huntsville from Hoppstadten Germany in 1873 to live with him and help in his dry goods and loan business. Bertha and Solomon had no children and Isaac became a son to them. This close relationship continued, and in 1894 after Solomon died Bertha moved to live with Isaac and his wife Betty. When she moved, Bertha brought the Herschede hall clock to the Schiffman home. Isaac and Betty Schiffman lived in a large Victorian House on West Clinton, a prestigious street a few blocks from downtown. The grandfather clock would have been placed in the entrance where it chimed every quarter hour, once on the first quarter, twice on the second, three times on the third and four times on the hour, after which it struck the hour.

After Solomon’s death, Isaac who had inherited his uncle’s business expanded and diversified S. Schiffman & Co.’s dry goods and loan operation to include, sales of surries and wagons, real estate and stock investments, commodity trading and banking. He was quite successful. It was around 1897 that Isaac took his entire family to Germany to visit his parents, siblings, nieces and nephews in Hoppstdten. I have a photograph of the trip on board ship with Isaac’s children including my grandmother Annie, her siblings and several passengers. Annie appeared to be around twelve; her siblings Irma and Bob were younger. A sixth member of the entourage was the children's nurse Henrietta who my grandmother remembered was the first African American many of the folks in Hoppstadten had ever seen. Aunt Bertha probably accompanied the group since she had visited Hoppstaden with her husband and knew his Schiffman relatives. During the Schiffmans’ 1897 trip to Germany, Isaac's nephew Leo Schiffman asked to come to America; Isaac brought him the following year to live with his family.

In 1908 my grandmother Annie and my grandfather Lawrence Goldsmith married and moved to their new house on the corner of Gates and Franklin. In 1910 Isaac and Bettie’s daughter Irma married and moved; shortly thereafter my great grandfather Isaac passed away. Aunt Bertha, Leo, my great grandmother Bettie and Uncle Robert Schiffman remained in the house on West Clinton. Some years later Bob married Elsie Steiner of St. Louis; the couple lived with Bob's mother Betty, Leo and Aunt Bertha. While living on West Clinton, Bob and Elsie had their only child, daughter Carol born in 1916. When I moved back to Huntsville in 1995, I would call Carol from my office, where the clock had been moved. When Carol heard the clock strike she would remark. "I hear the clock," and would then talk about living in the Schiffman house on West Clinton.

In 1916 Bettie’s daughter Irma's marriage ended. Irma and Betty moved to New York, Leo had married and moved and Bertha moved to live with her husband’s brother Daniel’s widow on Holmes Street. When she moved, Bertha left the clock in the Clinton Street house. In 1922 Bob, Elsie and Carol moved to Mims Court, a new apartment building at Lincoln St. and Holmes Ave; they took the grandfather clock with them. The Schiffman house was then sold. Bob, Elsie and Carol lived at Mims Court until 1924; then rented the Bernstein house at the corner of Gates and Green Street that belonged to the Morris and Henrietta Bernstein Estate. The clock was moved to Gates Street where it stood in the corner of the grand hall between the living and dining rooms.

It was during the late 1920's that my grandfather Lawrence Goldsmith conceived an idea for a grand hotel in Huntsville. He gathered his friends and family members together including his brother and sister in law, Elsie and Bob Schiffman, to help finance the building of the hotel. The Bernstein Estate owned a group of small stores on West Clinton at the corner of Spragins Street. My grandfather had the stores removed and contributed the land for the project. The Huntsville Hotel Company was formed and construction was begun for the elegant twelve story hotel. The hotel had 12 rooms per floor, a maid’s closet, a T shaped hall to accommodate the guest rooms and the two elevator shafts. The ground floor had a large parking garage and on the main floor a restaurant, "The Coffee Shop," a kitchen, ballroom, grand lobby, rooms for parties, both barber and beauty shops and the manager's office and reception desk. Bob and Elsie Schiffman, and my grandparents Lawrence and Annie Goldsmith moved to suites on the twelfth floor of the new Russel Erskine Hotel. Elsie and Bob's rooms were not large enough to accommodate the grandfather clock. The Hotel lobby had high ceilings, crystal chandeliers, heavy red damask curtains, and comfortable seating areas. The southwest corner of the lobby near the ballroom was the perfect place for the clock. Bob and Elsie had it moved there where they could see it every day and share it with the hotel staff and guests. Jimmy Taylor, who as of this writing is in his nineties, remembers the clock well. He was the manager of the hotel for many years, having come there to work as a night bell boy when he was sixteen. In addition to his bell boy duties during those years, it was his job to keep the clock wound.

During the years the clock was at the hotel, it stopped working. One of the divisions of I. Schiffman & Co. was the automobile business which included not only the Dodge dealership but also a service department. The head of that department was Buck Sublett, a man of many talents. He was a marvelous mechanic and he also liked to work on clocks. Buck tried his hand to get the grandfather clock to work but was unable to do so. Buck was known to carry a large amount of cash on his person. A tragedy occurred early one morning when Buck came to work before anyone arrived and was hit over the head with a blunt instrument and robbed by a fellow employee. Buck died and the fellow who committed the crime received life in prison. It was on the day that Buck died that the clock began to strike and started to work again. I remember my family and everyone in town talking about the unexplainable turn of events.

The Russel Erskine Hotel opened in January 1930 and managed to remain open through the depression and continued in operation until 1973. During that period, from its vantage point in the hotel lobby, the clock watched Huntsville grow from a small farming and mill town to the space age when Huntsville became known as "Rocket City USA." Over the years the clock witnessed a parade of important people as well as business men, snow birds from the northeast and Huntsville locals who entertained, conducted business and attended meetings. Nationally known patrons included movie stars, native daughter Tallulah Bankhead, senators, congressmen and army brass, the Barnum and Bailey Circus every autumn, and most important, the German Scientist team led by Werner Von Braun.

During the late 1930's when Huntsville was being considered for a munitions center by the U.S. Government, the site selection team from Washington stayed in the Russel Erskine during the time they were in Huntsville evaluating sites. I feel sure that being wined and dined there by my grandfather who was in charge of showing the selection team possible sites for the arsenal helped influence their decision to select Huntsville as the location for the munitions center that became known as Redstone Arsenal. The Arsenal was closed after the War and later was transformed to the site for the Government's defense and space operation NASA, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. The German Scientist Rocket Team was brought to Huntsville to spearhead our country's guided missile and later space and rocket program. I would imagine that the grandfather clock marked the events that literally "took us to the moon." .

The clock was indeed a silent witness to the growth of Huntsville from its advantageous location in the Russel Erskine Hotel, the focal point for many of the social and business gatherings that played a role in Huntsville's transformation. One of the most important transformations that occurred during this period was when integration came to the deepsouth during the 1960's. My grandfather and my parents often talked about how my grandfather and Dr. Drake, one of Huntsville's African American leaders, worked together to make sure that the role the Hotel played in the transition from segregation to integration went smoothly and provided an example for the rest of the community to follow. I like to think the clock had some sort of mystical influence on the turn of events. Its presence throughout the decades in the Russel Erskine Hotel lobby certainly serves as a metaphor for the phrase, "as time marches on."

As Huntsville grew, the hotel that had played such an important role in the town's growth became outdated. People wanted larger rooms with king size beds, easy parking for larger cars and all the amenities that came with the new competing motels that lined Memorial Parkway located at the boundary of Huntsville's original downtown. The Parkway was fast becoming the center of business and commerce for the town that was growing into a small city. The Hotel closed in 1973 and again the clock had to be moved. Fortunately my father and step mother Jewell and Lawrence Goldsmith, Jr. were living in the family home on Gates Street, the Bernstein House where Bob, Elsie and Carol Schiffman had lived earlier. My father and step mother wanted the clock and the hotel board of directors gave it to them. The clock was then returned to one of its former homes as it was placed in the large hallway near the living room. My father passed away in 1995 at which time I inherited the house on Gates and the grandfather clock that had been listed in his will as a bequest to me. My step-mother moved to a brick rancher nearby. I had the house renovated, altering it to accommodate a commercial use and rented it to Westfam, the company that had the Burger King franchise in Huntsville.

The grandfather clock had to be moved once more. The perfect place was my office in the I. Schiffman Building on the southeast corner of the court house square. The clock had come full circle as I had it moved to the building that was purchased in 1905 by Solomon Schiffman’s nephew, my great grandfather Isaac Schiffman. The grandfather clock was under my stewardship. As I approached my seventh decade in 2011 it was time to plan for the clock's future. My children and I decided to donate it to the National Museum of American Jewish History along with the Bernstein, Herstein, Schiffman and Goldsmith Collection of archives and artifacts. We felt that the Museum would be a wonderful place for such a grand clock with a unique history to be viewed by future generations.