Aaron Pearlman
Aaron Pearlman was the youngest of four children, with two sisters and a brother. His father, a Perelman, immigrated from Poland at about thirteen years old in 1913, sent alone by his family to escape anti-Semitism and seek a better life. Though he arrived without relatives, people from his home area welcomed him into their families in East Texas, around Gladewater and elsewhere. Aaron's mother, Gertrude Berenson, also came over as a young girl. The family settled in Palestine, Texas, a rail hub with a small Jewish congregation, where his father built up a junkyard business and was well liked in the community.
As a boy Aaron struggled with being overweight and with anti-Semitism, including a painful incident at a Saturday movie. He loved the arts, taking dancing and other lessons and joining the Little Theatre in Palestine. When he was thirteen, his father suffered a stroke and his mother had a breakdown and was sent to Galveston for treatment, never fully recovering. His oldest sister left a government job in Washington to come home and raise him. They eventually sold the house and moved to Houston, where a neighbor introduced him to Jeanine. The two began dating during high school and married, a union that lasted about sixty years.
Aaron pursued business in graduate school, then served in the military at Camp Gordon in Augusta, Georgia, where his aptitude led him to become a radio repair instructor. After the service he came to Dallas, where Jeanine's parents had moved. He worked in management for twenty-seven years, rising to vice president, before leaving in 1982 to start his own stationery and gift business, developing personalized and packaged goods sold at the New York show. His sons pursued the arts and advertising, one becoming a cantor and performer. Aaron was active in the Jewish community and Temple work, creating program books and handling entertainment, and continued to cherish family, the arts, and each new day.
Full Transcript
today is October the 27th 2013 and I'm looking interviewing Aaron Kaplan airhole Aaron Aaron Perlman is my cousin all right today is September the 27th and I will be interviewing Aaron Perlman yeah and we are at the bone adventure and hello Haley is pretty famous in this part of the world so it's been fun and we have interviewed your water and your body come on what about you and I'm going to start with you and your family before you were married before were you born all of these Texas and Palestine father came over to myself I did with the guidance and fee was thirteen years
old and his name is perelman see that was in 1913 and he went into the service and because he was at a service he graduated so the United States Citizenship you have to forgive me because sometimes I have to grab the word you know anyway he he had a pet that every story is a different little things and so for that he picked up when he came in he didn't have family but he had welcome family you know people from his home area who knew he was coming brought it into their family and they're just absorbed into their family so as far as we knew
as young children they were our relatives were in East Texas mostly in Gladewater killed our timer and they brought my mother she was Gertrude Berenson and she also came over as a young girl and with there would I guess she had something actually when I was growing up it was the wars they carry the large lump in their throat because all their families they've never spoken they never spoke girls or pants or family oh there she get letters from time to time but I knew that that's the kind of kid you know was busy playing attention to I was one of four oldest sister was
14 years older and I had another sister still in Dallas Pearlman she is seven years older I had a brother six years old my oldest sister is not my brother's other sister is here in Dallas and that's nice to have her here - did anti-semitism Drive your father from Poland oh yes that's what was asked for a better life as it was nothing here he saw his family saw it and they sent him over by himself as a young kid on the ship you know he was he was tall he was man he was a great wonderful person very [Music] we descending pat when they
married they settled and settled in Paris ting because that was the center where the trans trans changed and they felt that was going to be the place and there was a small Jewish group there too okay congregationally but it didn't last to trial services I did not Mormons but not because they didn't try to get me to go to big bar mitzva but I didn't want to go I was having fun I was obnoxious I guess I didn't want to go to to try her every Sunday to go no there's something that my friends did and I was fat I was fat and I was
humiliated at school and mr. fact I find and can't get through the door you know all of these things that kids do and I had to grow up through that and ineffective being a lot nevertheless after the war was over my father had a stroke we were sitting at kitchen table at lunch we lunch together frequently and we had dinner together it's not like today everybody sat down for a meal together and all of a sudden my father to this play the came and they took him to the hospital against the Palestine but in those days that was nineteen those doctors ages chants yes bread she was so close I
mean they were the only thing that they had that was reminiscent of their previous lives and she had breakdown they sent her to Galveston and I'm sure they did all those horrible things with wires and so forth and she didn't waste benefits after that so here I am 13 years old I just turned 30 and both of my parents were and that makes you grow up fast and my sister they wanted to send me to her to a military school and I was just hangin by the ceiling and my sister said she would tenders or my sister oldest sister who is from two years only
was in Washington DC and a great job at the government she gave up that job she came home moved home she took the responsibility for the consistory we were both at the University of Texas when you say they wanted to send it to this extended family who felt like they were more 11 anyway she took responsibility and I decided to sell the house and to move to Houston the duplex downstairs and she knew standing up steps brother have a river spring very sips didn't play the violin just took the best part drawn us but he was okay okay and well did you in this stage
did you grow up with Jewish kids to depend on the question whether there was a Jewish man way that we upstairs and they were friendly with the timers and they called the mother called the ruthiess of the dirt rude and said there's a boy here downstairs he's 13 why don't you get repeated come over to native and introduced into the other twins Ruthie didn't wanna come she didn't wanna convert she got on her bike because her mother forced her to and she wrote over we were about five blocks away and she rang the bell and I came to the door and she says she looked
at me she said I'm saying over the summer really bad nevertheless we became big friends and I went just junior high school Cindy Johnson junior high and all church kids just great friends with the number of the people there Jeanine was there and she'll tell it to you her side of story but we met when she she was graduating in 1949 at the end of the year and I graduated now she graduated in the spring of 1949 and I graduated in January and we started dating in those white six months her senior year and we just knew that we were satanica had the same feelings
likes dislikes just will be married to page 60 years I think that marriage will make it did you um did you go on to college or did he well when I was a child and I was bad my parents sent me to do everything that could they sent me to dancing lessons they said we depart lessons spell check I mean I was just very much into the Arts and I was in love with you know the movies I used to go down to the movies in Palestine as a young kid probably six years old and I remember going in to the theater and sitting down
early Saturday morning all the traditions and the guys in front of each other Babbitt said you chew you killed Christ you this bad so I just fell apart I didn't know what this was and I ran my father is by that time he had a junkyard and I ran to them down to the end of Main Street in denouncing to Exodus you know that's pelvic area anyway my father did go through pedal cart to expand it and he was very well Palestine and he was very well liked and he didn't walk with we used to have he had those old battery-operated cars where he said
facing each other and there was you know just little and don't we used to ride that and take it into the parades that was one of the things that I guess were stolen from they passed away we didn't protect what was artists anyway any other anti-semitism besides that one terrible is very specific sketch new bodies adults here I was 9 or 10 years old I was getting your experiment understand movies most Buddhists are Justin and so I joined the Little Theatre Palestine tribe thing yeah they put me in a play by the name two different I had two livers was just suppose I had one
came to death darris because if I got to do Marilyn I remember and I was so embarrassed that I never wanted to get up and speak in front of people and I avoided every speech class that I to avoid speech Isis it just funny how things how how did you get to Dallas I mean what made you say well it's I said Janine and I were talking about how many children we wanted to make 16 who started day 2000 fifty-three I was graduate school at the time it means by a cheetah in business and I went into the service and I was it to Augusta
Georgia to camp garden and the tour that did the doctor doctor doctor the radio repair and the radio something my sister had a neighbor who had a brother who was one of the teachers in that things worked out that was during the career the end of the career and I went to the price be radio and passed that I was pretty good attitude and they kept me there as a instructor and they put me in the rain repairs radio repair or any technology is further explained for bye-bye I can paste things and I can draw things but I cannot anyway after I got out of
the service her parents had moved from Houston to Dallas and they wanted to post-eternity Dallas and through family and so forth on that same and you were there for how long I would live for 27 years management CEO not president the vice-president and they saw the business rich I was there with them so but my job was all in management and I didn't like that before I was created and I dealt with Quran got to be where I was killing pencils so our left in 1982 I saw the writing of the world phantasm is really for you left over 1882 and Jame matter shops stationary
here craft shop and so I often went with her to New York that she used to go we are relating with had meetings which they are with her and I thought that everything that was being Cheryl was just tapped our burfi on further bigger than I thought well I can take advertising which tried to illustrate what the point of the piece and I came back and I decided I would do the same so I did a album our first album that hold studios would buy our stairs with and it did pretty good I had a very good introduction I'm at the New York show and
every year we'd go to the New York show I went from just our personalized daughters to packaged goods you know day at a time place to attain that business food and I was in that business 1982 we're still trying to get rid of it so it's been a long time Randy well first my oldest son Greg came back he was in California he was a healthy the business he was he wanted to take over he wanted to be president he wanted to make all the decisions to hire and fire and I do that at present you know the furniture gives us together and we had
a little misunderstanding that was us and Randy was in New York here graduated summa kalla and they told to stay on stage and he because he told you was there about in years ten years I'm not sure and he had lots of contacts and he had lots of your grapes but what the writer did broadly he did things up in Rhode Island Massachusetts and all over there we would have many times to see which shows in Pennsylvania but he never got in the Big Apple so after serving people in restaurants and working on Ticket Master he decided to come home and he started and he
graduate just work rather I said that's what just sure we're just trying to sell off and he had a wonderful thing at the time he was doing on the side which is reserved yeah drive is that the Turkish it was in the corner and the consi was in the choir they recognized his voice that he started doing more and more and more and you've got that he was also and when the temple decided to get a second Cantor with absolutely knocked it off his feet because he knew ii can read they were going to need him for this pose and door shuts that's God -
probably because after being every years nothing happened he tried out at the Dallas Theater Center and the director from New York loved him and put him in the show that was a workshop for him it was here for eight weeks Mena's a wonderful experience about everything there's a chance - laughter - yeah and had he still been a temple he would have been able to do that because he was involved on Friday nights of Saturday mornings on Saturday afternoons he's uh no pun intended why not wonderful are your other sons in the arson my oldest son is also at the RT but he he's a
Childress sound big several dozen that he doesn't have the buyer so he does all that way you notice that many of the other shows that Marcel does the majestic and he also teaches a school to young people and other son who was worked at the agency with Vanessa as a college kid loved advertising and he decided he was in New York I said Stuart this is my business you know what you taste her back as an acquisition pass a Kevin executive there's no agencies and he got up to the Reds he had a title big office and so forth and he went from boldly to
that party Jay welcome to get out they move like that to target and then when the eighties to crash and the advertising agency has no product their product is their people so if things get too we got that people in order to reduce your expenses he was under the table and a big salary and they got rid of the big salaries and left a little salaries there I understand that advantage well after so long he got the bit so he and a friend of his searched and searched but you know they didn't the fire at that time if they felt he wouldn't be happy he
had lower salary and he had a big you know six-figure salary at that time so he and a friend of his opened a franchise of a tuners over the second place and he decided he would as to inside of course but totally changed on that matter because the oldest American Jewish autonomous pedal absolutely helped she was bipolar okay did you stop this now are you active in the Jewish community everybody was a position where I made the decisions about you it's hard to do it but you know the organization organization after world of the most including the Temple Mount peplum and in case you see
a little progeny was very involved and I did the original programs 60 80 90 100 hundred 20 page programs and introduced the book and the fact that it was a book rather than just a throwaway and I was very involved with entertainment I used to get all the entertainment do the negotiating so it's a very strong your children how has Dallas changed for them since you see a difference in the Jewish community between the time they were children and now it's more serviceable and it's not just to some of our friends they're very close Jewish connections in our family too simply because of their careers
there to us be there um who are your role models [Laughter] am i leaving anything out that you'd like to add any story enjoy life now maybe one after to be thank God it's another day I can see the line well thank you very much pleasure thank you