Oral History: Mark Silverman — October, 2022

Summary:

Mark Silverman was interviewed by Andree Hurst in October, 2022. Mark’s parents, Herman and Eleanor Silverman, bought the “Lafayette Sun” newspaper in 1947 when they were both in their mid-twenties. From the beginning they were both involved in the editorial and business activity required to put out a weekly paper. They were not afraid to expose corruption on the local scene, and their work was rewarded with top honors in statewide press competitions. In the mid-1960s competitive pressure from larger newspapers forced them to sell.

Oral History:

Andree Hurst: Hello, my name is Andree Hurst with the Lafayette Historical Society Oral History Project, and today we are speaking with Mark Silverman who is the son of Herman Silverman who ran the Lafayette Sun newspaper and many other newspapers in the area and Mark is going to tell us about that. Mark was born September 9th, 1946 in San Francisco, but his parents moved to Lafayette shortly after when Mark was one, so he’s lived here all of his life. Now, let’s listen to the interview with Mark Silverman. So, your parents moved here from San Fransisco, was there a reason, something that…

Mark Silverman: I think they came here because they had bought the newspaper, the Lafayette Sun. So, to run the Lafayette Sun.

AH: Did your father run that, or did they run it together, your mother and father?

MS: She was the co-publisher, he was the publisher, so he’d put more of his time into it than she did because she was also raising us, but she spent time also.

AH: What were your parents’ names, your mother and father?

MS: Herman Silverman and Eleanor Silverman, her maiden name was Judell.

AH: Do you recall when your parents were born? What years, roughly?

MS: Yeah, my dad was born October 16th, 1920, and my mother was born April 25th or April 26th, 1922.

AH: So, there were young people coming here, in their 20’s, arriving here, that is pretty amazing. Did your father or mother have any publishing experience prior to this, or did they think this was something they could come and build?

MS: He had experience, he started working on his high school newspaper, I think he was editor, but I don’t know, and he worked on his university newspaper, the Stanford Daily, then he was editor or the person in charge of a newspaper in Canada of the U.S. Air Force. He asked them if he could do that as part of his service. Oh, and then he worked for the San Fransisco Call-Bulletin as a reporter. I guess, when he got back from the war sometime, maybe starting in ’45…

AH: Oh, interesting. So, he was in the war as well?

MS: Mm-hmm, in Canada.

AH: Okay, Well, if you have to be in World War II, that’s a nice place. My father was in World War II in Chatta, Massachusetts so that’s nice if you don’t have to be right on the front lines. Well, that’s wonderful. So, did your parents meet in San Fransisco, or did your father meet your mother after? Well, they must have because you were already born, so…

MS: Right. They met at university.

AH: Oh, at Stanford. That’s great. Do you have any brothers or sisters?

MS: My brother lives in San Francisco.

AH: You have just the one sibling? Actually, I shouldn’t say “just”. You have one sibling? And what is your brother’s name?

MS: Daniel.

AH: And he’s one year, you said…

MS: A yeah and a half younger than me.

AH: So, he was born here, I guess.

MS: He was born in Berkeley, actually.

AH: Okay. Well, I suppose that you have seen quite a bit of change in all the years that you’ve lived in Lafayette.

MS: Yeah well, I didn’t live in Lafayette that much after I went to university, just to visit, but yeah, it’s changed quite a bit.

AH: So, you would come here to visit your parents?

MS: Yeah.

AH: And did they stay here the whole time, for their whole lives?

MS: My dad did, except they got divorced I think in ’73, and then with his girlfriend who later became his wife, his second wife, they rented a house in Walnut Creek some of the time, but basically in the Lafayette/Walnut Creek area. My mother moved around, she lived in San Francisco, then the Virgin Islands, the Fort Lauderdale, Florida.

AH: Nice. What was it like being the son growing up with your father in charge… what was his title then?

MS: Publisher. Might have been Publisher and Editor, I can’t remember.

AH: Publisher of the Lafayette Sun. Did you ever work for…

MS: I did. Two summers. That was fun. And I learned a lot, that was fun.

AH: Did you also go to Stanford?

MS: They went to Stanford, yes.

AH: Where did you go to school?

MS: Oh yeah, I went to Stanford.

AH: You went to Stanford as well. What did you study?

MS: Social Sciences. It was called “Social Thought”, my particular major. It was a small major.

AH: How did that pan out for you? Did you end up pursuing a career in that or did you end up with something completely different?

MS: I’m not even sure what a career in social thought would be. I had different jobs, and my career as a lawyer was starting in ’83 after law school, ’80 to ’83 was law school, and then, I was very lucky, I worked in one place from ’83 to 2018 when I retired. It was a great job, when I started, I had two jobs but that was just for a period of a year and a half.

AH: What kind of law did you…

MS: Immigration law. And I worked at a non-profit group, I was very happy with that as evidenced by the fact that I… Immigrant Legal Resource Center. The fact that I stayed at that job from ’83 till I retired.

AH: You must have helped a lot of people.

MS: We hope so. It was a little different, we didn’t represent any individuals very much, but we provided help to lawyers giving technical assistance to lawyers, that was our main… but my particular interest was working with immigrant groups and so I did a lot of community meetings and worked with a lot of grassroots… I’m doing a little bit of that now.

AH: It would be a good time to be involved in that issue.

MS: Yeah. Difficult, but a good time, but I get to pick and choose what I do.

AH: How did your father influence you as a young person in pursuing… did he influence you in terms of your pursuits or just… in the career he had?

MS: He was a liberal guy who was supporting those who had a tough time. When I asked him about Franklin Roosevelt, he’d get teary-eyed and he’d say, “If it wasn’t for Roosevelt, my family would have lost their home”. This is probably TMI for you, but Roosevelt, under his administration, they bolstered the mortgages that people had, and a lot of people would have lost their homes, so that was kind of his, and he remained kind of a liberal guy. When I was… when I resisted the draft, he didn’t go along with that, but he became against the war himself, he was worried about me when I resisted the draft, both my parents were, but that was more their concern, but they were proud of me.

AH: And you know times changed a lot between… and the war was a completely different war than the war your father was in.

MS: I would have fought in the war my father was in. I like to say that was our last good war.

AH: Do you remember when… let’s talk a little bit about the Lafayette Sun. Do you remember the year that it started before your father took it over?

MS: I don’t know, actually. I think it was sometime, I think he’d been there some time, I think he bought it from a guy named Larry Guitar, I must have the wrong name, somewhat wrong. Lafayette—it’s an interesting question what it was like, Lafayette was changed from a small town with a lot or ranching to a suburban town right around the time, my dad and mom worked hard but there were also very lucky because they had bought the Lafayette Sun just as the suburbs were coming to Contra Costa County.

AH: Yes, lots of change, and then Route 24 going in and…

MS: Yeah, that was somewhat later, I think.

AH: That was a little bit later. Certainly, the tunnel in ’37 made a big difference. Caldecott Tunnel brought a lot of people out…

MS: The GI Bill.

AH: Now there were some other Suns, the Moraga Sun, the Orinda Sun, were they related?

MS: Yeah, they were all related. The Walnut Creek Sun, the Pleasant Hill Sun…

AH: So, did your father own this…

MS: Yeah, all of them. But you see, they were essentially one paper with slightly different local news.

AH: Oh, that makes so much sense, so you have a paper, and then you maybe have a section, a circular something, that have the local news.

MS: Yeah, but it was not like he owned, or they owned…

AH: Did he buy it that way, or did he grow it into that?

MS: He grew it, and again that was hard work, but also serendipity…

AH: Smart!

MS: Well, smart, but some of it was luck. The suburbs were growing. What was your precise question again?

AH: Did he grow it, or did he buy it that way?

MS: I think it might have had more than the Lafayette Sun; I don’t remember.

AH: Okay, okay.

MS: Most of the papers were added, yeah.

AH: All right. So, he must have had a decent sized staff, it was newspaper-era, certainly not like today where newspapers are really struggling, I would say that was kind of the heyday of the newspaper era, wasn’t it?

MS: It was a heyday, having newspapers in the suburbs.

AH: He must have done… had ad sales…

MS: Yeah, ad sales were the way newspapers made money then, actually, they aren’t now, but they had a tough time.

AH: Because there are so many alternatives.

MS: Yeah, mainly digital.

AH: So, did he and your mother enjoy the work, did they talk about it when they came home, was it the kind of job that you would bring home with you, or what was that like?

MS: Yeah, they did, until ’61 or ’62 they enjoyed it quite a bit, my mom wrote a weekly column, and she was involved with selling ads too, it was relatively small, eight percent he was involved in, the editorials part but also the selling advertising part…

AH: They had to put the ads together.

MS: Yeah. Maybe he had other… yeah, doing that.

AH: Of course, I guess some other people could supply the ads too. That’s interesting, and so you had said until about, what year did…

MS: He’s older than 63… they were… the papers were a small fish that was threatened to be eaten by a bigger fish which was the Contra Costa Times, which was, I don’t know, you run into the name Dean Lesher, or the Lesher Theater or something…

AH: Oh, is that the same as the Lesher Center for the Arts?

MS: Yes.

AH: Same family?

MS: Yeah.

AH: So, the Lesher family back then, did they offer to buy…

MS: …and they would have probably swallowed it up or… so my parents made a wise decision.

AH: Get out while the getting’s good.

MS: And it was stressful, the period before then. I remember.

AH: Must have been, yeah.

MS: But just toward the end, I think. They enjoyed it. They won a lot of prizes, newspaper prizes.

AH: Do you remember the names of the prizes they won?

MS: I think it was the California Newspaper Publishing Association, CNPA, a never before given editorial, I don’t mean editorial like opinion, but the editorial part, but also advertising, they did win at least one award for the best weekly in California, it might have been just a CNPA members that I don’t know. I remember being in a picture with Goody Knight or Goodwin Knight who was governor of California, so there was him and me and my brother.

AH: Nice. Well, it looks like I’m looking here, and the Contra Costa Sun started right around the time their other ones were, so the Contra Costa Sun then just was one newspaper that then just covered the whole area.

MS: I think it was more for advertising. I think that was a free… unless, do you have a year for that…

AH: 1980.

MS: Oh, 1980. Then that was a paper that was started by Lesher.

AH: I guess he liked the name “Sun.” Well, I guess we shouldn’t speculate. Let’s just see here now, after your parents sold the newspapers, what did your father do at that point?

MS: At a certain point after that, he became a newspaper consultant where he would consult with other newspapers, and that was for most of his career from sometime in the 60’s, I don’t know if it’s sometime between ’63 and ’65 until, maybe he was in his ‘70’s, so if it was… ‘til he was 75, that would be 1995, I don’t know if he did it right up to that time, but a few years before, and he liked that quite a bit. Mainly weekly newspapers, and his focus was on advertising, including the now-defunct part of the business called “classified advertising.” It may be named differently now but online…

AH: That was very popular, the classifieds. Well, because nobody had the internet to find anything. If you needed a babysitter of if you needed an employee or if you wanted to sell something, anything.

MS: Yeah, right.

AH: That’s probably, I’ll bet that was pretty lucrative, selling little classifieds, because there were so many of them, they probably added up.

MS: So, I was saying about… his awards were not his, their awards were in a lot of different areas, but the highlight would have been the best weekly newspaper.

AH: That’s great. At the height, can you recall how many employees there were or where it was located?

MS: On Oak Hill Road.

AH: So, it was on Oak Hill Road?

MS: He started in a little place, but they moved it to Oak Hill Road. It’s still called that, right?

AH: Yes, right by… when you go by the Safeway. Do you remember where the building was?

MS: On the other side of the street, the left-hand side.

AH: So was it over by where…

MS: About two blocks above Mt. Diablo Blvd.

AH: Okay. So, it was sort of on this side of the downtown side of the overpass, but not…

MS: Right, assuming that the overpass was there then, at the beginning.

AH: So, people could actually walk right in and do their classified ad like…

MS: Yeah, yeah. One thing I didn’t tell you during the early period, the newspaper exposed gambling that was mainly out of restaurants.

AH: On Tunnel Strip?

MS: I think so. Does that go into Orinda?

AH: Yes.

MS: Yes, very good. I haven’t heard of Tunnel Strip, but yeah.

AH: We recently did a story on Tunnel Strip and all the “very entertaining establishments” and some of them having these slot machines and other things in there.

MS: I think there were card rooms too but I was too young to participate, but I heard about it when I was growing up, and they put a lot of pressure on him, including a publication out of Hollywood that was essentially for hire and they accused hm of being a Communist because he took the History of Western Civilization at Stanford, which was a required course for the children of capitalists, as well as for the son of a tailor like my dad.

AH: So, they didn’t want him in that gambling business, so they came up with some threats?

MS: They didn’t want him exposing the gambling business.

AH: So, they had some threats. That must have been a little scary for him.

MS: Yeah, must have been. But they worried about that they couldn’t use their business. I don’t think they were afraid physically, as a major thing, but when I learned about it later, I admired them for doing that. That was a contribution to, I think that was a holdover from when Lafayette was kind of a cowboy town.

AH: Well, it’s interesting because there could have been a split and I don’t know if you ever saw that movie “It’s a Wonderful Life” with Potter’s…

MS: And Jimmy Stewart?

AH: Yeah, it could have been… gone in that direction instead of kind of a wholesome direction with the gambling and… it could have, you know, the town, it could have, sort of…

MS: There were a lot of forces contributing to making it a safe suburb, but I think my parents’ contribution was one small contribution.

AH: Sure. So now when he… I guess those stories were done probably in the late ‘40s, pretty soon after he came on board.

MS: Late ‘40s, maybe into the early ‘50s, I remember a sheriff that had good relations with my dad, but my dad told us later that he was involved in…

AH: On the take?

MS: Yeah. I don’t remember his name.

AH: Interesting. I was going to ask you if there was kind of… a really interesting story related to the newspaper that you could tell us and that’s pretty interesting.

MS: Yeah, it was a big business risk.

AH: Well, sure. People did… I’m sure it made it pretty uncomfortable, but he was able to continue doing what he does.

MS: Oh, they put pressure on advertisers to stop, and there were advertisers who stopped advertising.

AH: How about that? Probably until public opinion went into your dad’s direction and then the pendulum swung and… well, good for him, that’s brave.

MS: Yeah, I was proud of him. I think I told him later in his… I mean, I told him earlier too, but I hope it was one of the things I told him later in his life. We had a very good relationship.

AH: That’s wonderful.

MS: I mean, it wasn’t… when I was a rebellious teenager in my twenties I may not…

AH: What else would you like to talk about here, I can refer to these questions. Where did you live as a family? What neighborhood was your family living in?

MS: Glenside Drive in Lafayette.

AH: Okay. That’s close to where I live. So, Burton Valley, kind of, in what is now more popularly known as Burton Valley.

MS: I think it might have been then too, I’m not sure.

AH: How about you in high school here, what are some of your fond memories of living in Lafayette as a teen?

MS: Or as a little kid, I loved playing with my friends and…

AH: A lot of open space?

MS: Yeah, a lot of open space.

AH: When you were young, was there a pond down there near the Park Theater? Do you remember that?

MS: A pond… no, I don’t remember. I do remember going to the Park Theater on Saturdays and you’d pay 25 cents to get in the movies.

AH: Aww, that’s wonderful.

MS: That was fun.

AH: And you were telling me about the places you went with your friends.

MS: Oh, we would do sports, like we had a basketball court, we invented games like ping pong baseball with my friend David Sargent, his parents had a basement, and we would play there, trying to be careful when his dad was sleeping because his dad worked bad shifts.

AH: Yeah, you gotta be careful with that. What about outdoors, did you… I guess there weren’t as many homes…

MS: Well, we played… there was a weekly softball game, I think, right next to our house which is now with homes and we played in our yard…

AH: And did you live near the creek there? There’s a creek that runs near Glen… oh oh, what about the train? Do you remember the train going through?

MS: Yeah, yeah, I do.

AH: Tell me about that.

MS: I remember the noise of the train, my parents told me that there were rumors, I don’t know how tongue-in-cheek, the people close to the train tracks had more children because they woke up at night and had sex, I guess.

AH: Did they always give you stern warnings not to play near the tracks?

MS: No, we weren’t that close. It probably did, but we weren’t that close to the tracks. So, it was fun playing with my friends…

AH: Did you have, like, a favorite place to go after school downtown?

MS: No, we didn’t really go downtown, it wasn’t that convenient. Maybe later, as we’d go to the movies as teenagers.

AH: Now I guess that bar was still there, the saloon.

MS: Yeah. It’s still there, right?

AH: Did you go there when you became of age?

MS: No. I have as an adult, but…

AH: What were some of the favorite hangouts for teenagers?

MS: I guess the movie theater, I remember going on dates to the movie theater…

AH: Wasn’t there a pharmacy with some sodas?

MS: Yeah, and that was a place too, we liked that.

AH: I guess it had a different, probably not as many cars.

MS: Yeah, that’s true, but every family had to have one or two cars.

AH: I’m thinking like downtown, maybe there wasn’t as much downtown traffic.

MS: Probably, that’s correct.

AH: As it is now, yeah.

MS: Later in high school I was involved in student government, civil rights things…

AH: Oh, that sort of set you up for what you did as a career, which is interesting because Lafayette was traditionally a very white town, a very white community so it’s interesting that you were interested in those things, probably a little bit of your father’s work opened your eyes, or…

MS: Yeah, my mother was sympathetic, we were even trying to arrange an exchange between our high school and Berkeley High, I mean, kids from Berkeley High would include black kids coming over, it didn’t happen, but not because of resistance from the administration, it just didn’t happen.

AH: Yeah, that’s interesting.

MS: I should let you ask the questions now because…

AH: No, it’s okay, I’m following your lead here, I just wanna make sure…

MS: I saw something that said eight minutes a few minutes ago.

AH: Yeah, we’ve got about five minutes left. Where do you see Lafayette going in the future and what are your thoughts on where the town is now and…

MS: Well, I don’t follow it that much, except through a couple of friends, especially one friend, I mean, I do support the idea of changing the zoning so that people can live there who aren’t in the upper middle class or rich, and that’s for all of California. One of my friends’ husband is on the city council and was pushing for that.

AH: Okay, interesting. Just remind me again where you’re living now?

MS: San Fransisco, Opera Plaza, Van Ness and Golden Gate.

AH: Okay, nice. Okay, well I think that just about wraps it up if there’s nothing else you can think of that you would like to share, if you have any photos of family, of course the historical society is always thrilled to make copies or have some photos in our archive of your family would be really nice to go along with your oral history.

MS: Okay, I’ll see.

AH: You can always take photos with your camera and email them too.

MS: Oh, you mean current photos.

AH: Yeah, or just photos from an album, you can take pictures of some pictures, sometimes that works too.

MS: Well, Andrey, it’s a pleasure talking to you.

AH: It was very nice to speak with you and I will let you know, that will be edited a little, like this part will be edited out, and they may put a part of the interview on the Lafayette Historical Society website related to your dad and you and… they have a little section of people that they’ve talked to over the years and it’s nice.

MS: Neat. It’s a good job, you did a very good job.

AH: Thank you very much. I appreciate you filling out that little release as well when you have a chance that I emailed, and we will be in touch when we have something for you to look at.

MS: Okay. Bye now.