Bill Gutow
Bill Gutow was born in Dallas on September 27, 1941, into a family with roots in Poland and Russia. His father was born in Newark, New Jersey, moved to Detroit at age two, and came to Dallas about six months before marrying Bill's mother, who had been born in Toronto, Canada, to a family that had passed through Glasgow, Scotland. In Dallas, his father borrowed two hundred dollars to start a small scrap business, working out of a pickup truck. Bill was the oldest of four children. His youngest brother died in an accident in England in 1992, and another brother became both a lawyer and a rabbi in New York.
The family moved often through East Dallas neighborhoods near Lakewood before settling in the Mason Dells area. Bill attended Hollen Park Junior High and Hillcrest High School, then went on to the University of Texas and Southern Methodist University, where a three-in-three program left him with a business degree and, in 1965, a law degree. He made his career in real estate. He met Barbara, a teacher and North Texas State graduate, when they lived in the same apartment building. Barbara chose to convert to Judaism, and Bill credited her devotion with keeping him engaged in Jewish life and raising their two children and grandchildren as Jews.
Bill grew up at Congregation Shearith Israel, where he was confirmed and Bar Mitzvah, and formed lifelong friendships through Hebrew school, young Judea, and AZA. He recalled summers at Camp Wakonda in the Missouri Ozarks during a polio quarantine in 1953. After a rabbi's lengthy conversion requirement discouraged them, the couple studied at Temple Emanu-El, where they remained members. Bill served on the boards of the Jewish Community Center and the Federation and worked on budget committees. He described the pride many Dallas Jews take in their culture and heritage, urging his grandchildren above all to learn about Judaism and its values.
Full Transcript
today is September the 30th uh 2013 I will be interviewing Billy guo uh my name is Nancy Youngerman and the videographer is Ruth Andrew hello hello um we'll start at the beginning well not quite at the beginning but where you were born and uh and um where you lived growing up okay um I was born in Dallas in September 27th 1941 uh the first place we lived was an apartment on Richard Street which I have no idea what that apartment looked like but I absolutely no that was where it started then we and then we went to palip Pento uh where we lived in a
for corlex uh for a number of years uh what area well palpo is probably closer to Lakewood East Dallas uh Richard's the same thing all on East Dallas uh we went from palap Pento then we went to junus which is more by the Lakewood Country Club in a very small house uh much closer to Samuel's Street then from there we mve to Hawthorne which uh is on oakw off of Wan and um Armstrong in that area from there we moved to centinary centinary to Mason Del's and uh then I got married and and then a whole new life again more yeah were your parents born
in my my father was born in um Newark New Jersey but came to Detroit when he was 2 years old you're he was born in North Newark New New Newark New Jersey mhm and then my mother was born in Toronto Canada and then she came then they came and my grandparents my mother's uh parents actually um actually my mother's mother my grandmother had was born in Scotland in Glasgow and then they moved in Scotland in Scotland and they moved from Scotland then they moved to to Toronto where my grandmother met my grandfather my who I never met cuz he was killed in a car wreck
with two cousins and I think there was an uncle and they had they were in the insurance business and they were on the way to Chicago or coming back from Chicago the only one to die was him so I never so I never knew him and mother was about 12 years old at that time um so that their their name was shankman then we um um then my parents got married in 1939 uh December 17th and um they moved to Dallas actually my father came here about 6 months earlier uh from Detroit to work with his uncle who was an oldtime Dallas site in the
scrap business a guy named Stein um and was a great uncle of mine I don't know if he was so great but he was a great uncle he was married to my grandmother's sister um anyways my dad came came here after the six months about two months after my he and my mother got married my father quit his uh Uncle uh by marriage and opened up his own little business if you call it that he borrowed $200 from my great grandfather my mother's grandfather and they bought a little pickup truck and he would go out and and pick up scrap in the morning clean it
at night sell it the next day and that's one of the reasons we got moved out of that first apartment because he was cleaning the scrap and they wanted him to quit doing that in the garage so he had to find someplace else he could do it he finally bought a little little yard um so anyways that's that's the beginning um I have I don't know what to want to know what schools I went to well we'll get to that but I still even want to go back before that to see if there um I guess any any roots in Russia or Poland or well
we know there there was some roots from my from everybody uh was from Poland even my even the ones that wound up in in Scotland they that's where they were stopped was in and my uh grandfather uh who came over I guess about uh let's see my dad was born in 17 so I think my grandfather was born would came over in about I'm going to say 1908 n something like that and um and then he met my uh he met actually I don't know why he went to Detroit but that's where I think he met my grandmother cuz a lot of her family was
was in Detroit already on that side on my father's side um when they came over here my f our name was is G but there was another group called viotto and that part of the family went to Colorado and they were in Denver and there was somebody that did a tree Once years and years and years ago and where you know I guess you come over you're going to name is vov well the guy decided my grandfather's father's going to be G and that's the way that thing uh came about um the one of the interesting things which I'm going to only leap for a
long time later was that my brother is very involved in a lot of things uh and has been uh Jewish for years and years he even became a rabbi after he was a lawyer but he was giving a speech one time in Arizona and this was probably in the late 80s middle 80s and um lady comes up to him I I I don't know whether it was for American Israel public Affair where what that speech was but anyways the lady comes up to him and she says um we're related to you I'm related she he said really she said yes um your grandfather's sister who
we didn't know anything about is my mother and she's still alive and she lives in New Jersey and she's in a home and I have a sibling that lives in New Jersey and uh she's still alive and there and so they talked for a little bit my brother then got on a plane soon after took did one of these things except I think it was just a voice deal and went to visit her and the thing that came out of it which I've always remembered which I thought was very cute was he was talking to her and going through what her parents did and so
I have always been in the real estate business and she said he she didn't know that never met never met the woman she said my father in Russia or in Poland was in the real estate business but he wasn't very successful so I always thought well that's that's reallya my line he won the anyway right so um that's that's that part of that story so that then um as I I was born in 41 my sister born in 44 my brother was born in 49 my other brother was born in 57 um my youngest brother died in 1992 he was with his wife they were
on a vacation and um in Holland no in England and he uh a truck came over and they were on a bicycle and wiped him out and she was right there when it happened um and um you know and so that's what my father got cancer very young uh he died when he was 61 years old uh my my mother had cancer and she died when she was like 77 years old do your brothers and sister live in Dallas my brother lives in New York City I just spoke to him two days ago because I it was my birthday three days ago I talked to
him often my sister has Alzheimer's and lives in Houston she has two sons that live there and they took her there about three years ago to put her into a hospital um that could take care of Alzheimer patients um she doesn't know and hasn't known for at least two she probably known for three years she doesn't know anyone and there's no there there's just it's a very sad situation because she just cannot she can't walk she doesn't walk she can't get out of bed she's in the last area although obviously she doesn't want to die because there's been the last two summers she had pneumonia
and the doctor said she's going she's not going to make it and both both times she's rallied and I don't know whether this is good or bad that's that's my uh feelings anyways she lives in Houston now and she um so and we see her about four or five times a year growing up were you um raised in a religious home I'm just wondering about your brother who became a rabbi we were raised in a very interesting religious home uh when my parents came here they U they kept kosher when they were first married now remember they were young you think she was 20 he
was 24 she was she he was 22 she was 20 um they didn't have a lot of money but there was one kosher butcher he didn't like he was very famous for you went in there to see him and he went to tell you what you were going to buy and by the time I was born there was no more kosher food in the house so we quit keeping kosher and or they quit keeping it and then um uh this was here kosher yes everything was in kosher I can't think of the guy's name maybe from or something was was that okay so it's uh
so then we go so then as we as I got older I guess I was five or six years old uh we went to sherith Israel a conservative synagogue and I we went there from that time and I met enormous amount some of my best friends today were going to um we going to shareth Israel at that time and we were in the classes to get Leon melow you might know Leon and Roger um but we but I grew up there and I went there till um I was Bor Bor Mitzvah there um I went to Hebrew school which was not necessarily a part of
the sheriff Israel at that time um I got graduated Hebrew school confirmed out of Sunday school graduate work in Hebrew school and know nothing about it uh did it because all my friends were going there but that was our life and every Saturday afternoon As we got older uh we used to go over at a guy's house named pinky Silverman at about 4:00 and we would learn the prayers of what you know whichever the prayers were going to be whether the Shak whatever it needed to be he would spend time and then we'd go out and play football I think the football was and and
Marty Cohen um the doctor was my friend that that always has been just played golf with him the other day and we had a group of guys that that this was part of our training we went into young Judea as we got older uh from there we went into AA and and um then we all a lot of us wound up going to um to college together um name some of those people okay well the people the people that you wouldn't know or y'all were was was Leon mow a guy named uh Albert Ballas a guy named Marty Cohen uh these are guys I went
to Hebrew school with um there was um Leon and Roger Bellow of course Stacy robach Harvey stall these were we were four of us Harvey and Stacy and Leon and I were inseparable for a number of years but before we got even Bar Mitzvah we were we always had a group and Carol Aaron was part of our group that went to Sunday school at Sheriff Israel and U so and then and a girl named Marilyn Heckman um who these are all Dallas families so the the we would always go out every Saturday after services and maybe we would walk downtown and go to a movie
and then some of us would take a bus home or somebody would pick us up that was we you know we're coming out of Sher Israel um and then when I got then I was Bar Mitzvah downtown South Dallas and very quickly after that we moved into Sheriff Isel moved over on Douglas um probably when I was like 14 years old or something um so then the friends of mine Gary's and Charles lne moved me and Ned seagull and Dicky Fogle came to Dallas uh these were our friends is are still my friends I went to lunch with Dicky yesterday and I I'm still uh
we're still very very close Bruce lipy became a very close friend of mine when I went to Camp when we were um which was like 19 well actually right before he went to Camp he came to higher school they had moved from amarella and that's where he and I met and we wound up in Camp in 1953 three um that was camp wakanda and I guess it's called Camp Sabra now when I went there it was an all boys camp and it was owned by a guy named U actually it was owned by his brother Harry Kessler but Benny Kessler land that camp uh we
had a polio epidemic there was also the time we I think the war was over in Korea that year um there were a lot of things happening in 19 19 53 but we were we were stuck at this Camp because we had to have gamma globan shots um my mother and dad were coming it was an 8we camp and the Redmonds went to that camp and Billy Sunshine went to that camp uh we had a lot of people from Dallas that we all went to camp together um during the time of the uh when we couldn't leave there was in the middle when they found
out there was one person with polio they they decided nobody could come up to the camp there was supposed to be parents weekend um and it's about 5 600 miles to the AR so my mother and dad had already sent told sent a note and said that you know sent me a letter talk to me and said we're not going to come up for for this one night we're not going to drive up there and then you know drive back and um so you know we love you we'll see you in another four weeks well the the day before that happened that's when they knew
that the that we were under quarantine and so the camp at 11 o'clock on that night before they go to see people sent out telegrams to every family saying you cannot come into the camp you have to go across the lake of the and we will bring all of the kids by on a boat and you'll and you can wave everybody will wave but I knew I wasn't worried because I knew my parents weren't coming so about the middle of the day the next day they came and got me and said uh you need to go to Benny kesler's cabin I said really okay I
mean I'm 11 years old going to be 12 so I I went I went up there and U who my parents are there and I'm looking I mean I'm a kid I'm what why are you here you know that first you said you weren't even coming oh we were coming this is my mother oh we were coming they drove as soon as she got the letter that night that said you cannot come to the camp so that's 11:00 at night they get in she says getting the car out we're going up to the camp they never stopped they never went to the hotel they right
into the camp and there they are in the cab and it was so typical of my mother that when it was it was going to happen when she wanted it to happen so they drove up we saw them and then they drove back the next day that day it's good story that is where's Sabra Sabra is wakanda I mean wakanda that's that's in the Missouri Ozarks which is the same and I think most people a lot of kids from this city go there it's now a boys and girls Camp my like my granddaughter went to that camp once a couple years ago what um I
don't know but tell me um you went to what college what what high school did you graduate from well we started off I went to high Elementary then I wound up at Hollen par junior high school and from there I went to hilcrest high school we moved over uh to Mason dels so I there from there I went to the University of Texas then I went to SMU and went to SMU law school and graduated law school there what's the date on that did I graduate law school graduate law school 1965 I was there on a three in three program um did that three three
undergraduate and three uh Law School and then the interesting part about that was I I was 20 years old when I went to law school and didn't really understand the plan but knew I wanted to move on well my first year in law school I got a degree from SMU in business it was a BBA with a major and and this degree comes to me the summer after my first year in law school and I said I didn't know I was getting a degree you know in business I was so happy now if I can't pass law school at least I I've got a degree
to move on so anyway way you can get it yeah right but it worked out so I did get a degree in law oh that's funny how did you meet your wife Barbara uh bar when after I'm after I came uh through gothly law school I moved into an apartment house over off of hudnell and and lemon um and um and I met Barbara uh she was teaching with another girl named um Susan Humphrey they had gone to North Texas State she became a teacher and they were teaching at different schools but they were roommates and so I was upstairs and barber always tells a
story that the first time we uh met she not first time we met but we she invited us over for Christmas to to uh throw to for Christmas a Christmas party another friend of mine went with me I mean was very small apartment so um I mean she didn't know anybody that was Jewish I think at that time and so we um she told me she wanted us I mean we could do popcorn on the Christmas tree I didn't know how to do popcorn good so this friend of mine and I were sitting there drinking and we were throwing popcorn to see if it would
stick the Christmas tree so the first year we had she had a Christmas tree and the second year we were now dating we weren't dating at that time and she had a Christmas tree and she had Hanukkah candles and the the Christmas tree never came again so that was it well um she took to Judaism like yeah she was a she I always say that it was because of her that kept me very interested in Judaism uh she did a lot of things I did a lot of things because I thought it was important to her to have done this to convert and wanted to
to be a part of the Jewish um people in the city of Dallas and I think as you know she's she's done a lot of terrific things she was a president of younger set she she was one of the beginning people high and she's just done a number of if she if she takes on a job it is her job it's not mine um what things have you done in the Jewish Community as far as organizations I was on the board here for a while I was on the board of the Federation I was um on the budget committee for the Federation um I I
don't know what I was um how many other things that I've done I've never been real interested in doing a lot I've always been better at smaller committees that they might have asked me to be a part of um and mostly always seems to be budgets and money so so that's probably where I where I do the most never been very much involved in Temple and remember the Brotherhood but really never did any anything else that I can think of went to Israel I've gone to Israel once Barbara's gone about five times you can see there's a difference in the way we think uh I
told her it wasn't a vacation she said it wasn't supposed to be a vacation so therefore you have to understand that uh anyway she still she talks about it just the other day about going back to Israel and I said I think it's very dangerous here but it's always been dangerous you just live you just either do it or or don't do it yeah um you have children two children I have a daughter that's um 44 years old be 45 and I have a son 41 um daughter has two children um two girls my son has three children and um interesting enough they're everybody's Jewish
at this time I'm shocked did not know that would happen but I think that the reason they all are or the reason they move that cuz cuz Craig was not that he married a Jewish girl and I mean she's great um but I think that's because of Barber she she pushed those kids to do certain things and um I don't think I had standing to push did your mother push my mother the only time my mother ever got involved in my life from a dating situation was that a girl called me up uh when I was in the eighth grade A Girl by name of
Gail lyo you might see it they they were F Park and she called me up to invite me to a sock hop or whatever it was in those days of course your parents had to take you you didn't have a so I went over to my mother cuz she was on the girl was on the phone and I went I said Gail midia called me she said really a cute girl sweet girl I didn't say that to her but that's the truth and she said uh and I said she said invited me to a to a dance and my mother said I see no reason
for that and I'm I'm 14 I said what and and a lot different because there wasn't any arguing he just I had to go back and tell her I cannot go and that was probably the end of um me being involved at that time with non-jewish kids on a social basis because then we were in as as I said we were young Judea then we went into AA we're members you know the Sher Israel situ ation and um never never once um got too involved with anyone else until I met Barbara and that's what I always said I always said barbar there I never asked
my wife to convert not once and um she was so much smarter than me she said uh if you're not looking out there half these marriages are going into divorce it's going to be a tough deal already you're going to want your children to be Jewish I didn't know I was going to want them to be Jewish I obviously did and U all of your friends are Jewish and that's who you're going to who we're going to run around with so to make this work this is what uh what's going to happen and it worked so far I think you're going to make it be
really late to um what advice would you give your grandchildren at this point um on Judaism or or any other value system I I think the one thing one advice I give anyone is to learn about Judaism learn the value system of Judaism I'm not going to tell you to be a religious Jew or that you need to do the but you have to learn to make a to make a a value uh U to figure out what you want to do I can't see anybody just deciding I'm not going to be Jewish or I don't want to do that and I can't see they
doing anything unless they learn about it so I think education is so important um and I think education being Jewish is extremely important I mean we have a we have some great people we have U we've done great things our whole uh history of being Jewish we're still here no one figured this was going to happen um and I think we've done some very very important things for the world so I just think if you go back to just on a smaller level though learn learn being Jewish learn about it take some courses understand it a lot of my friends don't even even religious they're
not religious at all but they're very proud of being Jewish they're very culturally Jew they they they do a lot some do a lot on Charities but yet you'll never see them in a temple or a synagogue um so you know but they and I know one friend of mine who's um whose wife's not Jewish and she keeps asking her husband she say why you don't even go to the synagogue you don't go to the temple why are you so religious he he said you know you just can't understand it it is a culture it is much much more than a religious situation and yes
I'm not religious but it is a culture and I'm proud of being a part of that so that's that's what I would give the advice is is learn you're still at um you're still at Israel shareth Israel no that's that's another story that's a key story may not like this story but so we're getting ready she's decided that we're going to convert she's going to convert so uh this was 1968 U January so we go to meet the rabbi at that that sh the because that's where I would had gone the whole my whole life and hadn't done much in the last five six years
but my parents had always gone there anyways uh we go to meet with the rabbi uh name was Shapiro and he said um and we're sitting in his office and telling what we'd like to do I was 26 she was 24 at the time and he said well um okay he listened he said how fast you know how quickly does this have to be done and I'm thinking that he means how quickly you know do you want to get married the summer do you want to when when do you want to get married is do you have to have a wedding plan when what well
he wanted to know because he wanted to know if she was pregnant and he she told him I'm not pregnant his he changed from not being pregnant he then said this is a year and a half to two year in those days uh conversion and I like I said I never asked her to convert in the first place I was 26 I was not interested in another two years of this stuff walked out of there called my mother um and told her what was happening and told her I'm not doing this so she called a friend of hers over at Temple Manuel and we went
to Temple in those days it was a one-on-one and Barbera would and there wasn't the husband didn't go soon after Barbara converted they made up it all got to be a different situation so you went with your husband or your husband with your wife and you spent time with them maybe six eight months and you studied during the week Barbara would go every Saturday and study um so that's when the conversion came that's when we switched to Temple and uh we've been to Temple ever since who are your role models oh they're probably closer friends than you would think on a national level I mean
a friend of mine I don't know if you ever knew Don Fitch or if you ever if you ever ran across him crusty guy uh honest um you knew exactly what he was thinking um probably donzale uh more of mentors more of friends uh people that I I respect Gerald Ray value systems that they have um that that's really I don't go way out I don't know enough about public figures as the more and more we find out wasn't thinking okay as you go more and more get public figures you figure out there's all the things you don't know about so I'm not anyways um
those are those are guys that I that I believe in um friend of mine Stacy robach who passed away not necessarily a role model but certainly one of my very best friends well um have I left anything out that you would want to add what are one last question and I always ask it did you growing up in Dallas meet with any anti-Semitism you know I never really had it because sort of going back to what I discussed with you before before even the kids at high school we didn't have anti we stayed in our in the Jewish group and they were and we went
with a group the high school went to his Hill Crest it was very nice never had any uh issues ran around with a lot of the guys that were not Jewish um and never really had anti-Semitism um that that happened to me um I'm sure that people it came about different for different people but I've always believed there's always an undertone there's there's always a difference uh you may not see it maybe the people I've dealt with were smarter they weren't overt about it um they didn't say anything and then say Oh you know I've been saying this all my life they just didn't say
that they just didn't talk like that so and they and I didn't remember ever U you know being on the outside for some reason um I think most of that was our choice the group that I ran around with it was our choice to stay with our group um I sometimes hope that that I'm not the other way I mean I belonged to a country club and one of the problems was that Country Club did not let Gentiles in forever and finally they started letting son and son-in-laws in and U I mean son-in-laws in and I was the I was the membership chairman when this
happened and I'll never forget I one of the guys on my committee older guy had a had a daughter and a son-in-law and son-in-law was not Jewish and the question came up we're going to start to we're going to vote on these people because their daughters the wife's parents were members and uh he said which was just took me took me back he said um you know if Joe uh wants us to come over to his country club I'm more than happy to come to his country club and I'm more than happy to invite him here but I see no reason for him to be
a member here well to make long story short we did we did go get over that and we then meet started at that meeting we did allow that and it it did work out fine and this was the clubing club this was the clubing club well Donnie Zale tells the story and I guess this is not what you're asking but Donnie tells a story about how years in the early 80s um number of his friends with the Dallas Country Club said look we want to break this deal here now and let you you want you to maybe the late '70s want you to come and
be a member of the club of the Dallas Country Club which would was not letting Jewish people in and he said only on one condition and that is if the Columbian Club will let gentile people into the country the Columbian Club so he went to visit the Columbian Club they said we're not ready so if there was anything that's revers so that was the end of his conversation with him he said just wasn't going to do that defeated him Bo think change right it really has well this has been great well I hope so thank you thank you very much sure I could have gone
hours and hours lot more than I thought