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W: Mr. Ben Stein and Mr. Ben Yoffee.

S: I see.

W: And they are the angels who helped their respective mothers put this across.
 Now this is the way that River Garden really got started. It did not go as
 easy as I'm making it sound. There was intense opposition.

S: Sam, when they found the property, did it have a house on it or was this vacant
 property and then they bought it?

W: The first lot that was purchased, on the corner of Fifth and Perry, was an
 empty lot where the original St. Vincent's Hospital was. They knew that
 they would like to be near the Jewish center, which was at Third and Silver
 Streets. They thought the closeness would be ideal for their type of re-
 ligious living. As I mentioned before, the closer you get to the synagogue,
 the more holy you are for some reason or other. Then Mr. Dwoskin came along
 with this other deal; it was a beautiful old colonial house, but the lot
 stretched from Riverside Avenue to the river, and this was most appealing.
 So they sold the property on Fifth and Perry, and applied that to the purchase
 of the new home. The home needed a director, so Mr. Stein and Mr. Yoffee
 had Mr. Sidney Entman come down for an interview from New York City, and
 they underwrote his expenses for a year so that the ladies would have no
 obligation. Mr. Entman brought with him a secretary, Miss Lillie Volitin.
 Of course, he was married also. I mean he had Mr. and Mrs. Entman come
 here, and Miss Volitin was the secretary, and that's the way the home began,
 with two employees, underwritten by Mr. Ben Stein and Mr. Ben Yoffee.

S: Sam, who were the first residents that you can recall?

W: I can't tell you who the first residents were.

S: Yeah, I don't mean names, but I mean these were old people...

W: Oh, naturally though [Names from the archives of River Garden by Mrs. Entman
 and Mrs. Ben Carlin].

S: ...who didn't live with their families?

W: No.

S: In other words, primarily this was started as an old-age home.

W: Primarily started as ah old-age home for people who had no families, or
 whose families found it was very difficult for these parents, or distant
 aunts and uncles, you might say, to live with the families. The purpose
 was to give these people companionship and a place to live. Again the
 thought comes up, is it a place to die or a place to live? But the purpose
 and the aim has always been to make it a place to live. Now you don't want
 me to go into the first officers of the home or anything. I'm sure you can
 get all of that on record, and so forth.