The story to which I referred at the beginning of the barmitzvah address to Philip Margolis Jr. is as follows. Early in his career, Max Margolis was on the faculty of the Reform Jewish seminary in Cincinnati, the Hebrew Union College. It was the habit for various faculty members to take turns to give an address each Sabbath in the chapel of the seminary. After the service, they would greet the President, Kaufmann Kohler, and shake hands with him. Kohler was strongly anti-Zionist, as were many prominent Reform Jews at this time. When it came Margolis' turn to speak, he strongly supported Zionism. After the service, he went to greet Kohler. Kohler ignored his proferred hand, and turned his back on him. Margolis recognized that his position at the seminary was untenable, and left, securing a fellowship to do research in Germany. This must have been around 1910. It was during his stay in Germany that he wrote the grammar which used to travel with me on the bus. The circumstances of its composition were told to me by his widow, Evelyn Margolis.
She related to me another anecdote about that period of her life. On one occasion in Germany she was having an argument with the landlady. The landlady declared that Dr. Margolis was wrong on a certain point. "Mein Mann hat immer Recht!" [My husband is always right] responded Mrs. Margolis. Unfortunately her husband walked in at that point, and subsequently never allowed her to forget her rash assertion.
The Rev. Leon H. Elmaleh told me that he had never seen a more industrious scholar than Margolis. "When he got tired of a project after spending many hours on it, he refreshed himself by turning to another project," declared Mr. Elmaleh.
Mrs. Margolis was a Californian, a very gracious and distinguished lady. She had an aura about her which made people stop talking when she entered a room. I gave the eulogy at her funeral, and will make this available later, I hope. -- A.D.C.