Photo above curtesy of Peggy Tager
The archives committee is excited to partner with UNC Greensboro Museum Studies program to interview our congregants who are 90 years and older. On February 3, 2022, graduate student Arden Craft interviewed Peggy Tager, age 91.
Peggy Tager Interview
February 2022
As a graduate student in the Public History program at UNCG, I had the privilege of interviewing Mrs. Peggy Tager last week for the Temple Emanuel online historical archives. The purpose of our time together was to collect and record information about not only Peggy’s familial history, but her experience as a Jewish woman who has worked and lived in Greensboro for the past 60 years. Sitting at the kitchen table in her home together, Peggy and I talked for several hours about anything and everything one could think of. It is safe to say that I ended up learning more about local Triad history, Peggy, and about myself than I ever anticipated.
Peggy Rosenbacher Tager was born just down the road in Winston Salem, North Carolina on May the 13th, 1930. Her family first came to the area when her paternal grandfather, Sigmund Rosenbacher, immigrated to the United States in the late 19th century from Germany. He started a highly successful department store and depot in Winston Salem known as Rosenbacher Brothers, which was in business from 1880 to 1927, and married Peggy’s grandmother, Carrie Rosenbacher (maiden name Rose) in 1885. Being one of the few Jewish families in Winston Salem at that time, the Rosenbachers became quite prominent and well known to the community, so much so that the Rosenbacher familial home, which was built in 1909, is still standing in Winston Salem today and is open to the public as a historic site. Peggy’s mother, Claire J. Rosenbacher (maiden name Weil), came to the area when she married Peggy’s father, Sandel Rosenbacher. Claire and her family were originally from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
Peggy attended religious services growing up in Winston Salem, but at the time they did not have a physical temple, so they used the second floor of a store front downtown. Winston Salem would not go on to have a formal temple until the mid- 1950s. Peggy and her mother were both active in temple happenings, and helped with Sunday school, event planning, and Friday bulletins. Peggy attended R.J. Reynolds high school where she graduated and then eventually left Winston Salem for Durham when she married her late husband Henry Tager.
Henry was a WWII veteran who had just finished up school at Duke, and Peggy, who noted that she was not looking for a husband, walked right up to him and introduced herself at a Jewish singles weekend in Wrightsville Beach, North Carolina. Six weeks later they were engaged and planning their wedding. The pair would go on to live in Durham for about 10 years before relocating to Greensboro permanently. In the meantime, they had four children, 3 sons and 1 daughter, and started several businesses. At one point the Tager’s owned and operated over 40 establishments in North Carolina, including ice cream parlors, a night club in Chapel Hill, a chain of discount stores, and most notably several high end men’s clothing stores, known as, The Hub LTD. The Greensboro Hub LTD location is still very much operating today and has been in business for 70 years.
When I first talked to Peggy she told me that she was not a “typical 92 year old,” and I can certainly confirm that. Today Peggy drives a sharp red convertible and is an avid supporter of the Greensboro symphony and of the UNCG chamber choir. Peggy has been a member of Temple Emanuel for 70 years this year and raised all her children in the temple. She played in a bowling league for upwards of 50 years and throughout her life served on the council of Jewish women, and on the social committee for the temple, was a member of Sisterhood, World ORT, Hadassah, and attended religious studies for over 20 years. Even at 92, Peggy is definitely not a person to sit around and wait for things to happen when she could do it better herself.
In the beginning of this note I mentioned that through interviewing Peggy I learned something unexpected about myself. As a young Jewish person, I was excited to interview Peggy to gain insight into the history of the Jewish community in Greensboro and to learn about her experiences as a Jewish woman, particularly in business. I did not expect, however, to discover that Peggy and I are actually related. After the recorder was turned off Peggy and I talked for several more hours, and it is during this time that we uncovered that her niece is married to my mother’s first cousin, making us distantly related through marriage. As one might imagine, this was quite a small world moment for both of us. The odds seemed incredibly low that I would happen to be in the one class, in the one program on campus, participating in this one very specific collaborative project, and on top of that, that I randomly picked Peggy’s name out of a list of people obviously not knowing we had any familial ties. I am grateful that the odds worked out in both our favor and that I got the opportunity to interview Peggy and capture some of the knowledge and wisdom that she has to share. I also feel very humbled to have found myself in a room with a relative I did not know I had, living right down the road, completely by happenstance. It was a much needed reminder to me that when the world around us often seems large and overwhelming that in some ways it can still feel small.
To listen to Peggy’s full oral history, visit Temple Emanuel Archive.
– Arden Craft
MA in Public History/Museum Studies Student
UNC Greensboro
Advisor: Dr. Anne Parsons
Temple Emanuel Archive Blog 