Golda Meir's House: My Daily Inspiration

In 1911, Herman Kortz and his wife Fanny, built a small, brick duplex in the style of the Denver Double at 1606-1608 Julian Street to serve as a rental property. The Kortz family had established themselves in Denver business with their jewelry stores, of which Elvis Presley was a loyal customer.  Almost immediately upon the house's completion, Sam and Shayna Korngold, a young couple with their daughter, Judith, moved in as tenants.

The west Colfax neighborhood of turn-of-the century Denver had become somewhat of a gathering place for Jews of Russian decent, such as the Korngolds.  Most of them had traveled out West for treatment at Denver's famous Jewish Hospital for Consumptives (Jewish Consumptive Relief Society and National Jewish Hospital), and were either ill or recently recovered from tuberculosis.  This was also true for the Korgolds, as Shayna suffered from consumption.  In 1913, Shayna's younger sister, Golda (known as Goldie to her family) unexpectedly came to live with the Korngolds in their Denver home.   Fifteen-year-old Golda had been living with her parents in Milwaukee, studying to become a teacher.   Her parents however, wished Golda to discontinue her studies and marry the young man they had chosen for her.  Knowing that Milwaukee law forbade married women from teaching in public schools, Golda ran away to Colorado to continue her studies.

While in Denver, Golda worked part time as a presser for her brother-in-law at Korngold's Cleaning and Pressing Works, near the Brown Palace Hotel and attended North High School.  In the evenings, the Korngold's home served as a regular meeting place for Jewish intellectuals in the community.   Philosophical discussions and heated debates, covering a broad range of topics, would often carry on into the early morning hours.  It was during these nights of intellectual fervor that Golda developed many of the values and ideas that would later serve her during her political career, including Zionism and women's suffrage.   In her 1975 autobiography My Life, she stated, "to the extent that my own future convictions were shaped and given form ... those talk-filled nights in Denver played a considerable role." and "it was in Denver that my real education began."

Not only did Denver nourish Golda's future political life, but her personal one as well.  She met an artistically inclined, music-loving sign painter named Morris Meyerson, whom she married four years later.  After two years in Denver, Golda reconciled with her parents and moved back to Milwaukee to complete her high school education.   Shortly there after, she, Morris, and her beloved sister Shayna emigrated to what was then know as Palestine, where they changed their name from Meyerson to its original Hebrew version: Meir.  The year was 1921.
With Shayna's emigration to Israel, the Korngolds vacated the Julian Street house, and the Kortz's found new tenants. Various families and individuals inhabited the duplex over the the next fifty years, but none so influential nor inspiring as Golda Meir.

Shortly after Golda's death in 1978, the duplex was identified as her home and reached its current home on the Denver Auraria campus in 1988.  The city of Denver deemed the house city landmark in 1995.  The house remains the sole preserved American residence of Golda Meir.

Every time I walk past this quaint brick home on campus, I am inspired.  I'm inspired at how my ramblings and debates of today could change the world tomorrow.  I'm inspired by how God can use women who are passionate.  I'm inspired by how a woman will move across the world to act on what she believes.  I'm inspired by how much just one woman can inspire me.

This house feels like a gift from the Father just for me.  It serves as just one more confirmation that I'm supposed to be where I am, studying what I am, because someday, He just might use me to inspire others.