Arnold Baron
Arnold Baron's roots on both sides of his family reached back to Europe. His father's family, the Barons, came from Ukraine, settling first in St. Louis before moving to Dallas, where his grandfather Abe Baron ran a scrap iron business and was active in an Orthodox synagogue in South Dallas. His mother's family came from the Vilnius area and settled around Wharton and El Campo, Texas, likely arriving through Galveston, where his grandfather opened a grocery store. His father grew up in Dallas and graduated from Forest High School, while his mother attended a college in Sherman. Arnold was born in Houston in 1929, and his family lived briefly in Wharton before settling in Dallas.
In Dallas the family lived in East Dallas neighborhoods near White Rock and later moved to Highland Park, buying a home on Belclair. Arnold attended grade school and graduated from Highland Park High School, where he played football alongside future SMU standout Doak Walker. He began at Texas A&M in January 1945 and graduated in 1949 with bachelor's degrees in both mechanical and petroleum engineering. After serving two years in the Army, he went to work for Esso, launching a long career in petroleum engineering that soon took him abroad.
Arnold met his wife Norma, who worked at Neiman Marcus in downtown Dallas, and together they raised two children, Fred and Melissa. His work took the family to Turkey, where son Fred was born in Ankara, and to Greece, where they lived in Athens while Arnold consulted on drilling projects across the Middle East, Far East, and Europe. The family returned to Dallas in the late 1970s. Growing up, Arnold's family attended Temple Emanu-El and its Sunday school, and he fondly recalled riding the streetcar to his grandparents' home in South Dallas for Sunday dinners. His mother founded Gordon Baron Sportswear, a women's clothing manufacturer, with his cousin Leo from Wharton. A lifelong tennis enthusiast, Arnold counted his children and reaching age 90 among his proudest accomplishments.
Full Transcript
today is january 10th 2020 my name is joe reingold and i am interviewing arnold baron today and good morning so mr barron tell us a little bit about what you know about your background your parents your grandparents maybe where they lived where they came from well my parents my dads let's see my dad's parents were here they came originally from st louis before i was born of course my dad was a little boy and uh came to dallas moved to forest avenue 1322 forest avenue dallas texas and that was back in oh gosh before i was born dad was reared here and my mom was
born in she was born in houston houston texas and uh my grandparents on her side came from where are you i can't read something lithuanian lithuanian right they came from vilnius that's what the capitol yeah now wait a minute my grandfather on my my auntie on my mom's side came from they didn't come from village they came from russia they came from vilnius they did okay then the barons actually came from the ukraine and they came from the ukraine okay and the grandfather my grandparents on my father's side came from what city was out in ukraine you remember it whatever whatever you remember i can't
we can't defer to melissa so yeah okay she came free they came from russia came from russia when they when they came here to the states where did they first settle my dad settled in st louis they came straight to st louis i mean okay all right and then from st louis they came to dallas okay yeah and the other side mom's parents settled in wharton texas outside of houston and mom was reared in horton did they come up through galveston originally or did they come through new york the harbor tina came through galveston did they yeah it sounds like it maybe yeah yeah i
think they came through galveston and all of that side of the family came up that way and settled around wharton el campo and one of them settled in hempstead what did they do when they got here did they have a trade or profession yet no no they were pretty young then oh okay and then they they grew they were reared down there let's see dad was reared here in dallas with my grandparents grandpa had a store a scrap iron he bought scrap iron and sold it and my mom's side smiths how let's see he opened a grocery store in wharton texas way back before i
was that was me at least 10 years ago a little while ago a little while ago a bunch of years ago and mom was reared in uh wharton texas how did your parents meet do you know i don't know how they met or what city were they in when they met probably in dallas let's see mom went to a university in sherman called kit key then it's called kit king and i guess they used to come to dallas i guess that's where they she met my dad and i don't see i don't know where dad went to anywhere i don't remember where he went to
university i can't remember that's okay so when when they met or when a little bit later on they decided to stay in dallas to settle here yeah they settled here well they went to wharton for a while and lived a few years in wharton which is where my mom's parents were in martin texas and then after a few years they came to dallas let's see i think it was about the same move too yeah yeah do you remember when that was how long ago it was what year that was around when that was let's see that'd be before i was born yeah so it has
to be way back then because i'm 90 so that would have to be probably about 100 years ago yeah so what did your dad do for a living here dad uh let's see when he was young i don't know what he did but when he i do remember the first thing i remember he was working for a change to a company called michael's it was women's clothing he went to work for them in waco i remember daddy went to work in waco about the time i was born so that would be 19 in the 20s [Music] and then he we moved they moved to and
i guess i don't know where dad and mom met there must have been a dollar somewhere and it said she was going to kent key in sherman and dad went to school i think i think i'm not sure but i think he went just started an smu but i don't remember because away before my time before your time so where were you born and raised i was let's see i was born in houston i was reared in actually dallas i guess in wharton texas for a year or two and then we moved dead i should say took the family they hauled bottom to to dallas
did you have any siblings at that time you have any wood any brothers or sisters i had my older sister pat it was is now deceased and uh she was born in houston i was born in houston i think dad and mom were living in wharton texas at that time and then from there they came to dallas that was about 1920 see i was born in 29 yeah i guess 29 february 13 1929 when i was born and then i was reared here in dallas i don't know where pat was born do you remember your old neighborhood at all here if well when we first
came to dallas from from houston we lived on uh mercedes street which was in east dallas you know before that we lived on cordova sorry cordova that was east dallas just off of uh was the big old grand england oh okay east ground near white rock and that's first i remember dallas was that house and then we we lived there a few years and then did we move into island park i think yeah to highland park and we lived uh we rented house for a short time on there and then we bought a house on belclair in 4 500 belt clear i remember that in
highland park and kids and i went to school and started in grade school i remember when we were living over there at mount aurobin creek school just off of off of east grand and then then we moved from there that house was on cordova i remember that and then from there we came to move to stanford avenue in university park then from there we moved to belclair and holland park and that's more when i started remembering more and then we went to i went to grade school i started in mount oregon then we went to god so long ago that's okay let's see do you
remember where you went to high school which i went to highland parkway yeah back then i'm sure it was a very i'm imagining it was a very small jewish population right was it probably several hundred really yeah wow jewish kids yeah yeah in in dallas no no in highland park high school oh yeah probably i just must have been 50 50 kids okay jewish and uh let's see did you have any activities with them no actually all i did was play football that's good with everybody yeah and we had one good football player i remember his name was dilk walker oh he was on team
when i was here he was in the same class i was in do you remember him i do i know the name yeah because he went to smu it was all american at this mu right and uh i don't remember how many i remember i used to go to temple emmanuel that's what i was going to ask you if your family affiliated with any of the synagogues so you were at temple emmanuel uh i was a temple of many and my grandfather was what was the one uh do you remember the name um oh orthodox he was orthodox yeah very orthodoxy south dallas had the
beginnings of all of those yeah he we actually grandpa lived in on forest avenue 1322 forest avenue i remember and uh and he was with he was with the show what was the name of the show and all this do you remember him right yeah that was the first orthodox synagogue here yeah why he was president yeah he might have been he was president what was your grandfather's name abe abe abraham and his last name baron yeah and uh let's see what else that's so long ago i can't remember anything but i do remember we moved uh grandpa was living in south dallas on forest
avenue and uh before that what was the other straight you remembered i can't remember that's okay and then from there he stayed they say he stayed in south dallas a long time then he moved on to mccomas avenue and on the coast nearer uh smu the school the street there where did your father go to school to high school dad went to forest high graduated from forest high school in 19 way back back in late early early 1900's probably around i guess 15 something around 1915. back then it was very predominantly jewish that area yeah it was mostly jewish areas right right so did you go to college after high school what did you do after high school after high went to a m oh okay didn't i go straight to unmt time yeah she knows more enough she remembers i went to uh a m i started as a freshman in january of 1945.
okay i remember the class and i was the class of 49 at a m what was your what were you studying to be engineer i wanted to be an engineer so i went to unm studied engineering graduated with a double degree and appreciate the bs in mechanical engineering and a in a bs and petroleum engineering wow so you didn't get did you come straight back to dallas or did you do something else oh after i graduated from school i went to work for uh oh i went in the army that's like you went in the army for two years and then i came here and
went to work for esso it was it's called esso petroleum in worked for them for a while for quite a while and who did that work for him did you meet your wife somewhere in there somewhere yeah that's okay that's a really long time ago do you remember anything about that where did it be norma she said in a store neiman's was she working was she working somewhere yeah uh normal was working for neiman marcus oh okay downtown downtown right right and i meant normal let's see i don't know how i met norma oh yeah because i always used to run around around neiman marcus
and look at the girls and that's where i met her that's a good place to meet women very good places yes that's where i met norma okay her mother melissa's mother and then we went together a while they got married and my son was born first fred which is my father's name also fred was born first and and you were born second let's see who's the third one no third one just two just two melissa that's this and fred okay when was fredborn where was frankie born where was randy moore oh yeah fred was born when i was working and uh turkey yeah i was
working in turkey for esso wow and he was born in turkey he's my little turk oh my goodness wow so he was born at the american military hospital in ankara and then this one was born this one being melissa was born in dallas when she won a dallas ship and we came back here how long were you stationed were you in turkey about what two years i was in turkey working for excuse me excellent then it was called that cell patrolling right and we were drilling some wells over in turkey southeast turkey and then we drilled a few wells there and then we drilled then
we came to greece we drilled some wells in the grease that was still with exxon and then gosh it's so long ago what did your wife think about this experience overseas nothing she did whatever i wanted to do she said let's go oh yeah okay never uh then uh let's see fred was born in dallas well he was born in turkey right yeah he was wearing the american hospital yeah uh and then we came back to the states no we were still overseas in and then melissa i wanted to have an anchor baby so so melissa was born in dallas that's melissa and then after
that we came we moved to we lived in athens greece for a while they went to high school in athens after a while and then from athens see yeah i was doing consulting uh engineering consulting in in in the middle east and all over the world and then from there we came after after melissa was born in the states we had the anchor baby so then we came back to dallas didn't we in the late 70s late 70s yeah and you continued to work in the same field yeah working as an engineer and consulting and drilling and i did most a lot of a lot
of my work was in the middle east so we when we lived in athens uh we moved to athens then i went to work in the middle east it was very convenient working for different oil companies as a consultant during all that time was your wife working at all did you know he was working uh i don't know where she worked i think she worked for i think she was working oh yeah cia the cia yeah for real for real wow what did she do with them i think she did office work secretarial work and okay taking care of the records that was in athens
athens greece so when you came back here back to dallas you were continuing to work in the petroleum engineering field i don't think i had retired by then yeah when i came back i was retired did i do any work here well you stayed over there until about 2 000 until about yeah i stayed over there and did consulting in the middle east far east and europe and everywhere all over the world do it for different oil companies and i decided to move we decided to move back to dallas then we tito that's my daughter's tito it's her nickname we uh then we moved back
to dallas how had your family grown since then how are they what how is it how had your family gotten bigger your immediate family had my family get bigger well let's see i had i had fred my first one and melissa the second one i only had two didn't i did they have families of their own or did you have any grandchildren okay fred didn't get married no okay no he was smart okay so where are your grandkids now and your daughter let's see there's my daughter right there yeah and the grandkids they were reared here in dallas and let's see they went to college
it's it was smu yeah did fred go to smu also no he went to a m yeah my oldest son grandson my grandson i'm at now yeah and went to a m and uh melissa went to uh where'd you go teach him i went to texas north texas yes that's a little school up north of dallas that's grown a lot it's grown a bunch it's grown a lot yeah she went there to school what did you study accounting accounting she studied accounting fred studied uh i don't know he just took geology what geology geology he studied geology and i studied petroleum mechanical engineering at a
m kind of things were you and were you involved in anything else in the city here with your wife or just you anything that you were involved in any organizations or civic activities no not much but the only thing i was really involved in was playing tennis i used to play tennis all the time in all tournaments and had some good players in way back kenneth crawford i remember ken played for smu that was back in 19 that was before i was you were even born i was even married gosh that's been 60 years 65 years ago do you keep up with anybody that was
in your class which where either high school or college let's see who did i keep up with in college well at a m we see they were up from all over the country so really another never kept up with a lot of them and high school did we do i didn't remember anybody auntie you weren't going to lunch bunch but mm-hmm there's nobody left who the lunch bunch there was there are several groups that still meet i know to this day yeah yeah yeah so um didn't you know about nan's company downtown tell joe about nan's company downtown company yeah man's manufacturing oh and i've
worked for honolulu his mother no your mom your mother nan oh i should say out of new york he worked for them most of his life when he was a long time he worked for them i think after nan moved to dallas she started gordon barron oh yeah my mother started a business here in dallas manufacturing women's clothes garden baron sportswear baron a garden part was my cousin leo from wharton came here and they set up a business and manufactured women's clothes and sold around in the united very important industry here yeah very important yeah yeah good so what other hobbies or interests did you
have especially after you retired anything since i retired what did i do don't ask her you tell me you should know she has a better movement well what did you like to get involved in anything special just tennis that's it is that it nothing okay good job all the time you should go five miles every other day sometimes every day when i was younger not now that's okay i'm gonna ask you a tough question okay and the question is is there anybody in your life that you can think of who was a role model for you a role model either business or or personally any
anything that you can anyone you can think of as a role model for me let's see can you think of anyone not you not melissa she has a better memory no it has to be from your head oh i see a memory uh a model for me yeah maybe someone in the business world or that you looked up to or uh i can't remember anybody in the business world actually i went to work when i went to work i went to work for uh uh exxon yeah as an engineer and worked for them a while then i went in and went into consulting for different
companies but nobody that particularly like you know you was a mentor to you actually no i had did all my mentoring i did work for hot oil company here and man running it was bunker that was old man atl's son he and i were good friends so i went to work for them worked for them while and then after a hunt i went to work for exxon iso and went international then and let's see then we moved to when i was working for them we were living in athens and melissa see one of the kids that got so long ago but fred was born in
uh dallas you know oh he's born in turkey turkey wasn't he organic anchorage was born in ankara when i was working and melissa was born while we were living in greece melissa came back and my daughter melissa was born here in okay here's another question um think of something that you are very proud of my children yeah why tell us why uh melissa which is the lady who takes care of me a lot that's my daughter and fred my son i don't know he kind of piddles around does a little of everything what's he doing now t2 you know he's retired yeah he would be
you about what 60 now and then melissa she worked for she who do you work for trying to think well you have to tell me why you're so proud of them well because you're pretty good not just because they were born but why are you so proud of them they're pretty good kids pretty good kids well that's that's something they were pretty good kids i used to kind of pick on them a little bit but they they they survived and where do you live now i live in richardson but i lived a long time in highland park and then let's see melissa was born in
uh where were you born i can't remember that's okay you told us that's all right okay so the last thing i want to ask one of the last things is can you think of a project or something special that you worked on that you were really proud of either at work or at home or play or something personal or something professional that you were really proud of some project or something that you did that you accomplished i guess the thing i got to accomplish was living to be 90 or something like that that's a great accomplishment yes it definitely is yeah and watching these two
my two children grow up they were both reared in dallas fred start well melissa was reared in where were you oklahoma no we're drifting here no yeah yeah that's okay is there anything else you would like to add before we end the interview no i guess you might say that dad was my father was was grew up in dallas after born in st they moved to dallas when he was a kid so that was way back in 1900 i guess or something like that that just reminded me of one more thing you've been here a long time can you think of something some way that
dallas has changed it's changed a lot what can you what can you tell us about from when you were younger till now how has it changed well i do remember when i was younger i used to ride street corner yeah to downtown dallas that i remembered then they got a bus that i remember that we rolled the bus that was about my biggest memory that's it right in there my grandmother and grandfather lived in south dallas and i used to go over to the house on sunday eat lunch with him on the streetcar would go downtown to dallas and then transfer to another to a
street cargo at their house on forest avenue and she always had a good sunday dinner for us and i went to sunday school over there at uh it's sunday school in south dallas don't remember the name of it well there were a few that were operating then this was the big one it was done in this is the huge sunday school at temple emanuel yeah yeah thank you yeah that was a big yeah well a lot has changed in daoist since then right yeah a lot especially the population there were there were there were quite a few jewish people here then but not like now
i guess right right but um and then we went to sunday school at temple emmanuel which i guess is still in these schools temple of minor schools in existence yeah i guess they still have sunday school glasses here i don't know oh they do they still have they do it's the largest synagogue one of the largest in the country really yeah the temple of manual yes sir it's grown a lot okay so anything else you want to add before we end our interview i can't think of no i don't have any memory 90 i have nothing in this memory i have to have prompting by
my daughter that's all right that's okay well thank you so much for agreeing to do this with us oh you're quiet um have a wonderful day thank you okay bye-bye