Sophie Goldstein
Sophie Isaacs Goldstein will always be remembered as a tenacious dynamo. She began life as the granddaughter of a career soldier for Czar Nicholas in pre-Bolshevik Russia, a status which allowed them to live with some safety in the anti-Semitic nation. The family saved for many years, and resorted to paying corrupt officials, eventually emigrating to Germany and then the United States in 1914.
The Isaacs family settled in Syracuse, NY. While at Syracuse University, Sophie met her husband, George Goldstein. They married in June of 1934. George attended Tufts Medical School, earning a degree in Dentistry. Sophie began working as a Social Worker. In 1939, they moved to Saratoga Springs to start George's dental practice and raise a family. The Goldsteins had three children, Barbara, Louise, and Geoffrey.
George Godstein died in 1956. Sophie decided to go back to school and pursue a degree in Library Science. She served as a Librarian in the Queens Public Library for over 10 years before returning to Saratoga.
Upon her return to Saratoga, she began working with Florence Susman, Saratoga Springs Public Library Director on a project. Florence introduced her to the resources of the Saratoga Room, a very small collection in the library's basement. She was furious that there was very little information about Jewish history in Saratoga. Florence shared her dismay. The two began what has since become known as the Saratoga County Jewry History Project, now a part of the Sophie Goldstein Collection in the Saratoga Room of the Saratoga Springs Public Library.