Fonda Schepps Arbetter
Fonda's great-grandparents, Nathan and Freda Schepps, founded Schepps Dairy in Russia, in a town she recalls as being a couple hundred miles from Moscow. With eleven children, half born in Russia and half in Dallas, the family immigrated through the port of Galveston, with some relatives settling in Houston and others in Dallas. Fonda was named after her great-grandmother Freda, though her mother chose the variation Fonda, inspired by a name she saw in a newspaper. Her paternal grandfather came to the United States on the boat from Russia at age twelve in 1912, while both of her grandmothers were born in Dallas.
Born in 1956, Fonda grew up in Dallas, first in a duplex on Winton Drive and later on a lake where she enjoyed the family paddle boat. She attended preschool at Congregation Shearith Israel and Hillcrest High School, where her father rushed her through so she could join the family business sooner. She attended the University of Oklahoma in Norman before transferring, earning a BBA in marketing at the University of Texas. Her family ran Schepps Wholesale Grocery Supply, founded by her grandparents in 1939, a large downtown Dallas operation supplying mom-and-pop stores, cafes, and restaurants. Fonda worked sixty-hour weeks in the purchasing office throughout her twenties until the business was sold when she was twenty-eight.
Fonda's family endured deep losses, including a younger brother who died of Tay-Sachs disease and her father, who died in a company plane crash in Austin in 1975. She has always been active in Jewish life, one of the few girls bat mitzvahed in 1969, a lifetime member of Hadassah, and a longtime board member of Congregation Shearith Israel, where she produced the newsletter for twelve years. She met her husband, originally from San Antonio, through the JCC singles group. The couple raised two daughters, Stephanie and Erica, both of whom attended Solomon Schechter before pursuing successful paths in journalism, digital marketing, and political science.
Full Transcript
how did you get the name Fonda my mother I needed to be named after an F Freda ships who nathan and Freda founded the ship's Terry and she had just died before I was born and my mother didn't like the name Freda so a lady named Fonda got engaged in the Houston paper and it was in the Dallas paper when my mother was reading the paper in the hospital and so she decided that would be a good name to go with chefs find the chef's next year the lady found it from usin moved to Dallas did you ever meet her I think I've met her
once or twice but i really was named not after her but because i covered that that is really funny father let's go back 1956 not not too far back but dallas texas tell me about life we were just a little girl well my parents were renting a duplex on winton drive which was right behind the Egyptian lounge and I just played in little sand castles and little plate pools and not much I went to preschool at share with Israel when they had the little preschool and not much what did your dad do for a living my family it was Shep's wholesale grocer supply ships grocery
supply company and it was in downtown Dallas and we supplied all mom-and-pop stores and restaurants and cafes and stuff all around Dallas and South Dallas okay know who founded that my grandparents okay founded in nineteen thirty nine and made a lot of money in the black market during world war two with pepper and stuff and my grandmother worked right beside him she was a real career woman and we kept it so your grandfather and my father signed father's side now it was he already in the United States was he born here he come over well my great-grandparents Nathan and Freda ships they found in Shep's
dairy in Russia and they had 11 children and they had half the children in Russia and they all immigrated to dallas to well through the they came on the boat in Galveston right from Russia Zabul in Russia a couple hundred miles from Moscow and half of the kids were born in Russia and half the kids were born in Dallas so they had the dairy going already in Russia yes it was the intention to start the same business here yes and it was their name of ships in Russia there was no change because my relatives have been there and they see the name ships up on
it's now a bar there are no Jews and Zabaleen they all came in through Galveston and then half half of my relatives were stayed in Houston and then half of them came to Dallas and my grandfather he didn't really like the dairy that much so he had some other interest I think he was in horse racing in the 30s and he just liked the grocery business and so that's what he decided to start did he ever get to see it grow as big as it got yes yes he died from a heart attack in 1969 and my father took it over and then my father
died in 1975 in the company plane crash he was really blowing and going my grandfather really had it going very well and then my father took it over and really took it to the next level and then he died in fact today August nineteenth is the anniversary of his death sure what is what is it 38 years today and he had his pilot he had a pilot he had a Cessna for 21 and he had a pilot and the pilot had his daughter who was my same age 18 in the plane when they all three died in Austin Texas do you remember what your family
did then well you have to go into survival mode but we're still grieving 38 years later yeah now what happened to the business we kept the business my brother was going to be a senior at a.m. and we had just gone in May my dad chartered a bus and had a had it catered with a bartender and called sent out invitations Safari to aggieland and we all went down to am and watch my brother get his senior boots because he was in the Corps there's nine or ten Aggies at my family it's a big Aggie family but my father wouldn't let me go because there was seventeen thousand boys and two thousand girls at the time when I went to college he said no so we had the best time and then that summer I flew with them he wanted me to be
his pilot and I glue with them all summer long and then the day after I went back to college his plane crashed let's go back a little bit happier time when you were young talk to me about high school life well my father rushed me through because he couldn't wait for me to join him in the business I was I actually was raised in the business okay from the age of three every Saturday every week I mean every holiday every summer from three years old on so I really didn't do a lot of it I did like two-week camp here there whatever the JCC had
or you know whatever but I was raised in the business and I loved being with my dad and my dad couldn't wait for me to get out of college and I skipped my senior year in high school and I rushed through college and where did you go to high school hillcrest high school okay I had one full year 10th grade 11th grade i left at eleven o'clock to go work at the business right and i graduated the summer after my 11th grade then where'd you go to school i went two years 20 you in norman and because i decided to graduate early too late to
apply to texas and my dad made a phone call and got me into owe you because his business associate was best friends with darrell royal and they couldn't get me into Texas but he could get me into oh you so and my grades were good just Texas wouldn't Bend so I got it oh you went there and then after two years my dad made me transfer he called me up and said get your transcripts together and get your application and you're moving to Texas and I cried because I was really having a good time I was in 85 to Jewish sorority and Edo you and
so I transferred and then the day after I started he died in Austin oh that had to be a rough time it was a very rough time i still graduated my brother dropped out of a.m. and went to run the business and we kept it another 10 years and then a competitor bought us what about your grandparents on the other side my mother's parents my mother's mother was very active in school she was PTA president she was everything am I and my grandfather was he worked for sweet manufacturing bank Arnold sweets grandfather maybe and he was at I cutter here in dallas in dallas isn't he came from Minneapolis Minnesota he moved here in his 20s because he couldn't take the cold and my mother's mother was born in Dallas and I think her family came from Poland my dad's father came
on the boat from Russia when he was 12 so he came in 1912 and my grandmother my dad's mother was born in Dallas so both my grandmother's are born in Dallas after college did you go into the family business the day after I graduated I went enjoying my brother who was already there a year I started out in the purchasing office and I I stayed in the purchasing office we bought truckloads of cigarettes from the manufacturers and truckloads of eminem's from Mars I mean we did a big big big volume we had a hundred thousand square foot warehouse downtown Dallas with a big fleet of
trucks and it was a really nice time really really fun business I work 60-hour weeks through my whole 20s we sold it when I was 28 now you know when you're working there and everything and you look at the enormity of it did you ever stop and go this is amazing that my family built this from nothing very humble people and we just had a very very loyal trade and it was really interesting to to know all the store owners and the cafe owners and the you know Buckner Baptists home the people that ran it just really great great time and and and when you
walked in we had a kashi Kerry and when you walked in it was a huge picture of my grandfather and a huge picture of my father right there when you walk in and it was you nice and it was like the precursor to costcos and you know so it was nice where'd you meet your husband well I was vice president of programming for the group which was the singles part of the JCC and he came to visit his sister and for a couple weeks in Dallas and she brought him to a party that I gave because I used to host a lot of stuff i
made the events i hosted them i did a lot it was really a very active group and and he came and we met and we dated that every night for that two weeks and then long distance and then he moved to dallas where was he from well he's originally he's third generation San Antonio and his his family had a three-generation jewelry store in San Antonio called Alamo jewellery across the street from the Alamo and he never liked the jewelry business so he left the day after he graduated high school and went to North Texas and he always liked it up here and he got sent
to austin to run a commodity firm hi no commodity out of chicago and somebody wanted to buy it from him so he sold it and went into pet health insurance way before there was ever pet health insurance and it was just a little too early for his time and then he he got a job at Merrill Lynch in dallas and he's been there 28 years at the Galleria tell me more about your community involvement in the Jewish community always have been active and I kind of take after my dad my dad was extremely active in the Jewish community in his short little 44 years because
he had he did a lot in 44 years I just always used to go with him to show and we always had front row seats for high holidays my whole life growing up and and of course I was one of the few girls that got bat Mitzvahed in 1969 my habtoor was 33 verses which was a lot this is my dad a scoring me down as a debutante for the Israeli bond event were very strong Jewish family but in Dallas this is my parents at my sister's bat mitzvah that I took with my camera he died the next month and the photographer that they had
lost all the pictures so these two pictures are all we have from my sister's bat mitzvah which was in July of 1975 I have always been active in Jewish things we there was a chef's BBY oh it's not around any longer but I was very involved in that and I joined a Jewish sorority in college and then after that I've always been active in the Jewish singles group in my 20s and lifetime member Hadassah synagogue I'm on the board of directors of Sheriff Israel right now and I was for for many years when I was in my 30s and I did the newsletter at shared
there's room for 12 years now when you were a young girl it was a turbulent time in this country with Vietnam and and you know for lack of a better term the hippie movement do you remember any of that when you were small yeah during high school yeah wearing bell-bottoms and I never really had time to get to in Bob I was very into music you know my friends and I you know what was the music you like its average white band moody blues Pink Floyd how do you compare your music from the music your daughter's like today I'm very into music and I'm very
into their music I love their music I'm open to all music all the time what do you think in your lifetime was the neatest invention that came along that you saw probably the cell phone and the computer I have vivid memories of life before even raising my children you know I didn't get my first cell phone till like nineteen ninety i still had the same number but yeah that has to be it I mean life is definitely different before and after and business to know i right you know running your family business without the computer when you are doing purchases i received a BBA and
marketing at texas and my senior year my my my computer class was the big main frames in the in that took up the whole room i had to rent the statistical calculators hmm i had to go to the bookstore and rent them because they were so expensive they had the you know square roots on them and and that was like unheard of so that was just evolving for schools when I when I got my degree was the happiest time in your life Oh probably the happiest time in my life was going to work with my dad and seeing him in action he was really a
character a real character and we I grew up on a lake we had paddle boats and our a paddle boat and I used to go out on the paddle boat with my friends all the time so that was really nice I have two brothers and a sister I do the Vietnam War affect your family at all not really my brother the one year they had the lottery I think he was number three hundred in something so not really not really you know I have another brother I just want to mention um that died of tay sachs Oh mm-hmm when I was five he was three
so my mother had boy girl boy girl boy and the middle boy at tay-sachs so my parents decided to have two more kids not knowing if one of them would have it because my mother has an uncle that had four kids that died of it and my mother said say goodbye to Stacey he's going away today I stood by Stacey and my car pool for sheriff is raya like kindergarten was honking and he died your two daughters tell me about them my older daughter they both went to schechter through fifth grade and then they both went to frankford middle school in the plano school districts
for middle school and then my older one went to Greenhill for high school and really really really loved it and my other daughter went to Booker T and the arts magnet downtown for high school and my older one is Stephanie Joanne she's named after my father stanley joe and she went to school with her she wanted to go where her best friend was going she went to Georgia University of Georgia and got a degree in publication management in the journalism school the Grady School of Journalism and mass media and she went right to work for a company called reachlocal in plano and got hired away
a couple months ago and she's working for agency entourage on Commerce Street downtown so she's doing very well in the digital marketing industry and my other daughter erica was very successful at Booker T she was vice president of the first-ever student government her senior year and then went to school at the College of Charleston in South Carolina she became very involved in communication and political science and as a sophomore got elected president of the in government there for the whole school she's very involved there she's involved with the all the politicians in South Carolina she just interned in Washington DC this summer for a political
consultant craft media digital and now she I just took her this past week back to Charleston for her senior year her name's Erica something tells me that when your kids were growing up you were the fun the Fun mom had a lot of parties at my house I did whatever I could for my kids you know within reason they were great great kids great great parents very happy with them in your lifetime there's been so many momentous occasions of course you lived through the Vietnam era the hippie era era that we talked about the Kennedy assassination here in Dallas something good the moon landing in
69 for the first time and of course the tragedy of 911 was there something on the national scene that really stood out and affected you the Kennedy assassination I was on the playground at dealey elementary school with my friends listening to his parade on the radio and we heard pop pop pop on the radio I so I was seven years old and that was that event the loner moon landing I was at the JCC swimming pool we all used to hang out at the j at the swimming pool all the time and the JCC had a little TV on a chair and we're watching the
lunar moon landing on the TV at the j and that's where i was there and 911 i was at home i had just got back the night before from a long long weekend in padre island with some girlfriends and this was the next morning and that's the last time that the airport was easy you know it was like nothing we were on Southwest Airlines it in padre there was no like checking anything and everything changed after that what advice would you like to leave for the next generation study hard I recommend doing everything you can to get the best grades you can as early as
you can you know starting starting probably 8th or 9th grade yeah well thanks for doing this today did a great job okay