Sitting in the cozy dining room at their Red Maple Inn, lifelong Clevelanders Evie and Gordon Safran –married for 56 years – shared their memories of growing up on Cleveland’s East Side during and after World War II, the tremendous role volunteering has played in both their lives, and their thoughts about what aging successfully means to them.

Tell me about your growing up years – when and where you were each born and raised. 

Gordon:  I was born here in Cleveland in 1935 at Mt. Sinai Hospital. We lived on 95th Street, off St. Clair for my first five years, then moved to Bainbridge Road, just off Taylor Road [in Cleveland Heights]. 

That’s where I started school and I still have a Cleveland friend from first grade and two from fourth grade.  Cleveland Heights was a wonderful place to grow up in.

I was a pretty good athlete, spending a lot of time at Cain Park, and was on their soft ball team and basketball team….In the summers, I’d go down to the Cleveland Stadium and work as a vendor.  Being tall for my age, every once in a while I’d sell beer, too.    

Evie:  I’m a year younger than Gordon and I was born in Cleveland, too.  My parents lived with my grandparents in because they didn’t have enough money for their own house.  I had wonderful years on Ashbury Avenue in East Cleveland living with my grandparents. 

When I was seven, my parents bought a house in Shaker Heights on Maynard Road.  I went through the Shaker Schools, and remember wonderful years at Fernway School. I still get together with people I went to school with there.

I was a tomboy and loved sports and was always out playing with the boys on our street or roller skating.  Growing up in that neighborhood, I had a good childhood.

What did your parents do, and who do you think had the most influence over who you are today, your mother or your father?

Gordon:  My father was a shoe salesman at Halle Brothers. He’d been brought up in New York City, then he met a girl who lived in Cleveland, and she told him he should move to Cleveland because she was in love with him.  He moved to Cleveland, then found out she had lots of boyfriends.   But he loved Cleveland, and decided to stay here, and had the good fortune to meet my mother.

He applied at Halle Brothers, but didn’t get the job, so went to work for another store.  He was really unhappy there, so he went back to Halle’s and said he wanted to speak to Mr. Halle.  He didn’t see him, but he was hired.  He worked on the second floor in the women’s shoe department for all his adult life.  I worked there a bit, too, when I was in high school.

My mother was a stay-at-home mom, though she did work in the voting booths when there were elections and she was involved in a lot of community organizations.   Whenever she’d go shopping – and there were a lot of stores along Taylor Road at that time – she’d answer the phone in the store if it would ring.  That’s the kind of person she was….She was a terrific lady. 

Unfortunately, she passed away at an early age.
 
Evie:  My father [Harold Kahn] was a self-made man, a lawyer, and became very successful.   He founded Kahn Kleinman, L.P.A. [along with Bennet Kleinman, Armond Arnson and Bennett Yanowitz].

He was a great influence in my life, and was a very dominating, but very kind, person.  My mother was a housewife and very active in the community, as was my father.

I was at odds with my father almost my entire life. He was constantly challenging my decisions and it took me a long time to realize he wasn’t challenging them, he was simply forcing me to examine them and make sure I knew why I was doing something.  He kept me constantly alert, on my toes.  It probably made me a strong person and gave me self-confidence.  He was a very worthy adversary and now I know why: He wanted to protect me and make sure that my life was a happy one.

He died at 64 of a heart attack, and unfortunately we had unfinished business.  He was a role model to me in so many ways.

My mother? She was always loving, but had tended to take a back seat in many ways.  Upon my father’s death, she really became a strong and independent woman…And she was a strong role model to me after my father’s death because, at 60, which is young, she made a whole new life for herself.  And she did it beautifully.

You’ve each had tremendous leadership roles in the community.  Usually it’s the first born who goes that route…so, where are each of you in the sibling line-up?

Evie:  I’m the first born, and have a younger brother. Both my parents were civic leaders, very strong civic leaders.  Neither of them talked much about what they were doing, which was a shame. I’d have enjoyed hearing about it.  I found out later, after my father’s death, that a lot of the things that I’d done [as a volunteer in the community] were the exact things he’d done.   It shocked, and pleased, me to know that  I’d automatically –[chuckles] genetically – done these things. 

Gordon: I’m the second of two. And I was always impressed with what my parents were doing. They didn’t do things at the level of Evie’s parents, but they were always involved in community organizations.

Where did you each go to high school, and what were good – and not so good – at?

Evie: I went to Shaker Heights High School, and was generally a good student.  I always got letters from the gym instructors commending me for my prowess in sports. My dad would always say: Can’t you get a letter in English or math?, but math was my downfall.  I had to be tutored through geometry.   I just don’t ‘see’ it.  It’s astounding to me today that our oldest daughter is a very accomplished math teacher.  And all our kids are good at math.

Gordon:  Let’s start with the not so good. I was terrible in French. I just couldn’t pick it up. The rest of my classes I did well in, especially the sciences and math.  And I participated in sports – basketball and baseball – although I didn’t play that much.  [Laughs] If we were ahead by a lot, or behind by a lot, that’s when I’d go in.

You were both born in the 1930s, during the Depression, and grew up during and after WWII.  What impact do you think “coming of age” during the two most significant events of the 20th Century had on each of you?

Gordon:  I think both had a role, to some respect.  Obviously the Second World War had more influence than the Depression. I was so young then, though I do remember that there was a man pushing a cart up and down the street selling greeting cards. His name was Mr. [Jacob] Sapirstein. My father did okay during the Depression because he took care of, primarily, very affluent women in town, so the one time Mr. Sapirstein needed some money – maybe fifty dollars – he loaned it to him. And you know the end of that story: Sapirstein became Stone and the pushcart became American Greetings.

During the war, I knew we were at war, but I had no real idea what was going on in Europe.  And that was because the information just wasn’t there….I think I became more aware of things after the war, especially when we got a television set in 1948. 

Evie: As far as the Depression, I don’t really remember that much.  I was only seven years old when it started.  And though I remember World War II, and was aware that it was a bad war, I wasn’t that aware of what was going on. We’d go to a movie – pay our nickel or dime – and see the newsreel, and that’s where we got a lot of our information. 

I remember saving fat and grease, and that it was put in the milk chute for pick-up, and that bubblegum was in short supply. When a friend of my father’s brought us a whole box of bubble gum I was the most popular person at school, but there really wasn’t that much impact on me, or the formation of my personality. Other things may have shaped me, but I don’t think those two things did.

So what do you think did influence you?

Evie:  For me, it was growing up in the '50s. That’s when I was an adolescent, and dealing with the trials and tribulations that came with that. And there are so many things that shape who you are, too: your parents, your friends, the environment. 

I think the thing that really shaped me the most was that I had a great family – aunts and uncles and cousins – and there was a lot of love in the family.  We had a lot of family dinners and happy times. That’s the environment I tried to create for our children, as well. 

Evie: We met on a blind date, June 24th, 1955.  We’d been introduced by mutual friends and we’d talked a lot on the phone before our first date. Gordon had  just completed his second year of college and I’d completed my first year at Indiana University.  I have to say, it was attraction at first sight: He was good looking.

We doubled with the friends, going to a double feature – Turkish movies with subtitles – at the then-Heights Art Theater in Cleveland Heights. After the movie we went for coffee and then he suggested I stop by his house. He said he was having a few people over.

I was a sheltered girl from Shaker Heights and he was the first “Heights boy” I’d ever dated.  I was dressed in a linen sheath with the white heels and a purse, quite the stylish young lady, and I said okay.

When we got to Gordon’s house, cars were parked up and down the street and the house was literally “humming” there was so much noise. And it was a small house. 

When we walked in I saw Gordon’s mother, my future mother-in-law, wringing her hands – with good reason – and one of Gordon’s friends was trying to comfort her. All the action was down in the basement, and when we walked into the basement it was a “scene.”  People were dancing and having a blast and drinking beer. When we walked into the laundry room there was Gordon’s father – the sweetest man who never drank – icing bottles of beer in a tub.  And I thought: This guy is wild and crazy and he gets it from his father.

Gordon: I’d just gotten home from college and a friend had suggested we get together.  I thought it was a good idea, so I suggested he bring a couple of friends over to the house.  I never expected what we found when we got there. We still talk about that party. 

Evie: I was intrigued with him, and we’d really clicked.  Initially, we had sort of a long distance relationship.  He was in pharmacy school at Ohio Northern University and I missed him so much that I transferred from Indiana University, lived at home and went to CWRU so that I could be closer to him, though he was still about four hours away.  We got together when we could and that was it.  From then on we were a couple.

So when did you get married?

Evie:  In 1957.  I was still in college, getting the degree all young women got then, a bachelor of science in elementary education.  Back then the reasoning was: Of course you will marry and of course you will have children, but God forbid that something should happen and you should need to work.  With that degree you would always have a profession.    I taught for a year until we had our first child.

Gordon, you have a pharmacy degree—one of the toughest medical degrees to get – yet you became owner of E.B. Brown Optical.  How did that happen?

Gordon: When I was a senior in high school my parents sat me down and said: We want you to go to college, but we can’t afford much.  So we talked about what I could do with a 4-year college degree that would guarantee me a good job right out of college.  Ohio Northern had a 4-year pharmacy program, and that was it.  I was going to Ohio Northern to be a pharmacist.  Today, my grandkids visit many colleges before making that decision.

When I came out of college I worked for Gray Drug for four years, as assistant manger, and then manager, at one of their largest stores in Ohio. They treated me well, and I was pretty happy, but my plan was to work with them for another couple of years, then buy my own drug store.  But then a drug chain called Revco, the first discount drug store, started up, and I wasn’t so sure about my future as an independent drug store owner.

A guy named, Maury Stonehill, approached me with an offer.  He said he and Joe Cole had just bought some Sears Optical departments, and they didn’t know if the man they hired to manage things would be a good fit. They knew me – through my in-laws – and asked if I’d be interested in learning that [optical] business.   So I went to work in their [optical] laboratory for about seven months, and I also went out working as an optician at both Sears and Montgomery Wards stores, because the company was expanding optical departments into other settings.  Soon after I received my opticians license.

When Mr. Cole bought the [optical] business from Mr. Stonehill, and folded it into his Cole National Corporation, I stayed with Cole National.  I managed the day-to-day operations at the various locations, and it was during this time that Mr. Stonehill bought the three-store E. B. Brown Optical Chain, here in Cleveland.  Around that same time, Cole National wanted me to go to Harvard and get an MBA, but I thought that if I did, then I’d be obliged to stay with the company.

I joined E.B. Brown and worked there till 1885, then I bought all the E.B. Brown stores.  To do that we had to leverage everything we had, even our home.  But I knew it was the right thing for us, and I owned E.B. Brown for 11 years.  Though I held up expansion for a while, we eventually grew to 42 stores and expanded from Ohio to Pennsylvania, Maryland and Kentucky.  And we added audiology services and safety eyewear in the stores, too, because it was a good business move.

[Laughs] Buying those stores was a leap, but I had confidence that it was the right decision.
 
A lot of couples, especially when a business is getting off the ground, work together.  Did you?

Evie: Initially, when he first bought E.B. Brown, I worked at one of the stores, just on a part-time basis.  And much later, when he opened the inn, I thought this might be a way for me to start another  kind of career, but I really didn’t like “going” to work every day, having to be someplace at a certain time.  So I never really got into the rhythm of the job.  And I was somewhat saddened by that.  I’d been hoping that I would like it.

Also, and this is probably one of the reasons it didn’t work out, is that [by then] I had my own interests.

And we work together in other ways.  We have always been very supportive of each other’s community activities. That’s always been a real partnership.  And I consider that [partnership] an important part of our relationship.

You both have long histories of volunteering – Evie, you even mentioned that your “career” was volunteering – and the list of volunteer work you’ve both done and the positions you’ve held is long.  So, the question is, what got each of you so involved in volunteering, not just in the Jewish community but in the Greater Cleveland community, too?

Gordon: I’d always worked on the Jewish Welfare Campaign, since I’d been in high school, so I’d been somewhat involved with the Jewish community. But what really got me involved was that Evie’s father was president of what was then the Jewish hospital and convalescent unit on Harvard Road.  When he passed away there was an open seat on the board, and they asked me to fill it.  I was 35.

Then I got involved in the Jewish Community Center and I really what they were doing there: things that improved and changed people’s lives.  I asked if I could possibly get on the board.  After that, I was invited to participate in The Lampl Leadership program. [Chuckles] I don’t even know how that happened.  And when I took over E. B. Brown, I started doing a lot of volunteering with the Cleveland Sight Center….When the inn opened, I got involved in Geauga County, too, with the The DDC Clinic for Special Needs Children in the Amish community, though now a lot of others are using the clinic, too. 

But you know, while I’m a good volunteer, Evie is the best, especially at fund raising.
 
Evie: I resisted being part of organized volunteering for a long time.  I don’t know why.  But I remember when and how I got started.

When the kids were very young – I was 27 – one of my dear friends, Sheila Wolf, who was very active in Women’s American ORT*, said: You are coming to a meeting with me, and there’s no arguing about it.  So we went to someone’s house and that’s how I got involved with the Sandalwood Chapter of ORT, which was then under the presidency of Barbara Rosenthal.  [* Organization and Rehabilitation Through Training.]

I listened to what she [Rosenthal] said – she was so professional – and I was impressed. I’d always thought women’s meetings were all about did you want tuna fish or egg salad, and I wanted no part of that. I got really involved – because I felt I was doing something worthwhile – and eventually became president of the chapter.  [She and Gordon were named ORT Couple of the Year in 1990.]

Then I got a call to attend a leadership training program for a select group of young women. I was impressed that they chose me, so I went to the first meeting – at the home of Elaine Rocker – where they spelled out the whole leadership role, and how we could become leaders in the Jewish community.  I was thrilled that there was this kind of group and started going to the education meetings and networking and meeting a lot of Jewish women who were my age and hungry to do something useful, aside from staying home and taking care of our kids because we were the lucky generation: we didn’t have to go out and work.  I really have to say, we were privileged to be able to learn so much.

But the thing that really got me hooked on serving the community was something I heard from Albert Ratner. He talked about growing up in a loving and supportive family and how holiday meal times were wonderful, except that as a child he’d always been at the little kids’ table and couldn’t wait to be old enough to sit at the grown-ups’ table.  And I realized that I’d had the same wonderful and supportive childhood he’d had and that now it was time for me to “sit at the grown- ups’ table,” too, with all the responsibilities it entailed. I never forgot that, and it’s empowered me all these years.

Gordon:  If we can’t make a difference we don’t stay involved [in an organization].

Volunteering is always a two-way gift: Yes, community agencies benefit from volunteers, but so does the person doing the volunteering. So the question is: How do you think volunteering has benefited you?

Gordon: You are right on that.  You do get more out of volunteering, almost, than the people you are helping, and I feel good about the things I’ve done.  Sometimes, as you get older, you have some apprehension about the rest of your life.  But every time I look back at the things I’ve done, I feel good.

Evie:  Anything you do for other people is good.  I really believe we weren’t put on the earth as an accident, we are here to improve things and help things get better.  I think volunteering is a human necessity. 

People who don’t accomplish anything in areas that don’t directly involve them lose out.  I don’t know how they can feel good about themselves.  We all know plenty of people who never do anything with their time or money to make the world a better place, and I honestly feel sorry for them.  How can they not help others?

Gordon: One time I was reading an article in the paper that said ORT was collecting for a rummage sale and that one of the members had volunteered to store things for sale in their basement.  I asked Evie who that dummy was, and of course it was her.  But that’s not the whole story.  After they’d stored all that stuff in our basement there was a bad rainstorm.  The storm and sanitary sewers backed up into the basement, and I got to be the one to clean things up.
 
You have four children.  Did any of them inherit your volunteer genes?

Evie: Yes, in their own way. Our oldest daughter, Mindy, is Vice President of the Jewish Community Center, and she’s been working with the Jewish Education Center’s scholarship program, and she was President of Hillel, too.  And she does other things, too. I’ve no idea how she finds the time... But she’s a real chip off the parental block.

Our son Neil is an architect.  And he’s volunteered in a variety of ways, including teaching art to mentally and emotionally challenged students.  He won an award for that…

Gordon: …and that’s the only the reason we knew about it.

Evie: Our daughter Lee is out in Berkley and is a psychologist, so I don’t have to even say more.  She’s also very active in work in Central America because she lived in Guatemala for a couple of years. Our youngest daughter, Haleigh was very active in college.  But right now she doesn’t have time:  She travels constantly for her job and has two young children, but she’s still involved helping a friend whose son is very ill with cancer. When the father started a fund-raising organization, she became its director.

So, I guess to answer your question is yes, whether they wanted to or not.

Gordon: Evie wasn’t that happy about the leap.

I got to thinking about building an inn out here [Burton] because we knew the area – we used to bring the kids out here when they were little for the Apple Butter Fair and for maple syruping – and in the last few years that I owned E. B. Brown, the company pressures grew.  I’d already bought a home out here as a retreat, and I’d come out here to work and we’d have management meetings, there, too. And I was concerned about retiring, and having something to fill my time that I wanted to do.

So when I sold the business in 1996, I decided to build an inn.  I knew exactly the property I wanted, but I had to convince the owner – she lived out in California and had never even seen it – to sell. That took about a year, and I bought it before I got approval to build [the inn] from City Council.  Convincing the mayor and council took work.  Only after I’d prodded the mayor did he go to an inn in Central Ohio. Then he got what I what I was trying to do.  Red Maple Inn is a bed and breakfast inn, but it’s a conference center, too.

When we finally got the approval from City Council, I started building the inn, using primarily Amish carpenters. 

Evie: And this when he’d never built even a dog house.

I was very concerned.  After he sold the company I felt we were in good shape financially. Then, all of a sudden, out of the blue, because this is something he hadn’t discussed with me, he said: I want to build a country inn. He was asking me to take a leap without a net. 

But Gordon’s a risk taker, and he’s tenacious.  I think that’s why he’s been successful.  Those are things that are good in business, but not in a marriage.  But I finally said to myself: How can I say no.  He’s worked hard for us all his life and he deserves this. 

And you know, I realized later, after the inn was built, that this was Gordon’s creative outlet, something that he, himself, built.  He’d always jumped into something that was already a going concern.  The inn was something he did all on his own, literally [laughs] from the ground up. We have pictures of the groundbreaking.

That’s when I jumped on the band wagon.  Now, in retrospect, I think the inn is a great idea.

Gordon: I have to admit, I did have some second thoughts, though.  I took a course down in Florida from a fellow who ran an inn-training school.  And late one night I’m walking upstairs – to the third floor of the inn – with a glass of water and a bag of chips for a 19-year-old kid.  And I said to myself: Why do I want to do this, I’m retired.

Evie: I called that his inn-ternship.

Gordon, you mentioned your involvement with The DDC Clinic.  How did that happen?

Gordon: That started after I first opened the inn [in 1999]. There was a county meeting, and I found out about it from one of the County Commissioners who was attending.  I went to the meeting with him and found out that they [Amish community leaders] wanted to start a clinic dealing with the high number of their children suffering from rare disorders.   There are a lot of genetically-related medical conditions among the Amish, not so much from intermarriage but because everyone is descended from a small group of people who migrated to the United States in the 1900s.

Well, to make a long story short, I helped start raising money for the clinic. There was a lot of support from people and organizations – in fact The Cleveland Foundation gave support – but not that much support from the commercial community here in the area.  Eventually we were able to buy a house.  Now we have a real clinic, a new, 12,000 square foot building, in Geauga County.  People from all over the world are coming to it because of the work they are doing with children.

You are both in your mid-70s, yet you’re both very energetic.  Where does all that energy come from?

Gordon: We’ve begun starting the day together, just a half hour or so sitting and talking.  For me that’s energizing.
 
Evie: We just started doing that a couple of months ago. And it’s become really important: a way to start off the day with a good connection.  And it makes us realize how lucky we are.

Gordon: Definitely.

Evie:  For me, I think some of that [energy] is because I have more time now.  I’m not as involved in the community as I was – but I’m still involved in quite a few things – because I decided it was time to stop and smell the flowers and spend more time with my children and grand children.  [Chuckles] I play golf and I walk my dog and Gordon and I visit with friends.  I feel a much greater need at this point in my life to stay in touch with people.  I guess you’d say I was a homebody, and I like it because I’m using my enthusiasm and energy for things I really want to do. 

And I’m at the point, too, where I want to be a role model for younger women, especially in the Jewish Community, and especially with regard to fund-raising.  That is something – seeing older women doing what I wanted to do – that really helped me realized my potential.  Now, with the activities I am involved in, I’m that older woman, that mentor.

What are you doing – on a daily basis – to stay physically fit.

Evie: We have some exercise equipment and a TV down in the basement. We both use it and  I have a trainer who comes twice a week.  If I didn’t have her come, I’d never exercise because for me to get on the treadmill, well, it’s like the most supreme torture.  I’ve found Mad Men, and now I watch an episode and do the treadmill. Each episode is 46 minutes and the time flies.  I’m worried, though, because I’ve exhausted that series, so I’m going to have to find a new one.

For me, it’s important to exercise.  If I don’t, well, I just don’t feel right.
 
Fitness isn’t just about exercise, it’s about diet, too.  So, what are you doing diet-wise to stay fit?

Gordon: We watch what we eat, and I don’t eat red meat more than once a week.   I have celiac disease, and  I can’t have anything with gluten in it, so I’ve been watching my diet for years.

Evie: We do a lot of shopping at Mustard Seed Market in Solon…

Gordon: …because they have a lot of products for people with celiac disease. 

Mythbusters is all about successful aging.  Besides maintaining your health, what’s your – Evie and Gordon Safran’s – “recipe” for aging well?

Evie: Live your life so that it counts. You only get one chance. It would be nice if you got a replay, but you don’t. I really do feel that life is a miracle, a gift.

Gordon: It’s taking care of your health and happiness. My father used to say “health is wealth.” Happiness is not from possessions, power or prestige, but from loving relationships with family and friends.

What role do you think attitude plays in aging well?

Evie: It’s really important.  As you get older, you tend to dwell on things that maybe you shouldn’t, so you really need to make an effort to keep a good attitude.

When I feel down, I go to the picture of our family in our family room and I look at it.  If I’m not home, I start thinking about all the people in the family.

Gordon: Attitude is love. We love each other, and we are grateful for each other. 

I know this is a pointless question, but I’ve got to ask: Are you ever planning on retiring? 

Gordon: No. That’s not my way. 

Evie: I actually consider myself semi-retired. I worked hard raising our family and working for the community. I think I achieved a good balance at that.  Now, though, I’m in another place.

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