Celia Lewin
Celia was born in Grodno, Russia, in 1904, into a devout Orthodox family. Her father, a veteran of the Russian Army, fled to relatives in Boston rather than be drafted for the Russo-Japanese War. Her mother, pregnant with Celia, later crossed the Russo-German border by posing as the single sister of a neighboring doctor, with Celia recorded as the doctor's child. Reunited in Boston, her father worked in the fish business until a falling-out with a partner. A prosperous cousin in Wills Point, Texas, offered them his store, but as strict Orthodox Jews the family could find no kosher food there, and they soon closed the store and moved on.
Around 1909 the family settled in Dallas, then a small community, living first on Alamo Street next to the Romanian shul and later on Highland and other streets in the heavily Jewish neighborhoods near Tiferet Israel. Her father peddled fruits and vegetables by horse and wagon to Forney, Mesquite, and Terrell over dirt roads, sometimes sleeping in wagon yards, and eventually opened his own grocery store in Forney. While the family lived in Forney, Celia boarded in Dallas with the Fromm and later the Byers families so she could attend school, graduating from Bryan High. The family later moved back to Dallas, buying a home on Park Row.
After high school, where she trained in shorthand and typing, Celia worked at Milner's Supply, Higginbotham-Bailey-Logan, and for wholesale salesmen, and did temporary work helping organize the Jewish Welfare Federation under Arthur Adams and J.K. Hexter. During the Depression she was turned away from work because jobs were reserved for single women. She married Charlie Lewin, whose German-Jewish family had been in the meatpacking business and belonged to the Sons of Herman Hall. Celia raised her children, Ruthie and Larry, and remained a passionate advocate for Jewish tradition and education, learning Hebrew alongside her son and believing deeply in passing faith and heritage to the next generation.
Full Transcript
9th, 1973. And this is Celia Lewin who has lived here for many years and she's going to tell her own story. How is it that your father and mother, your parents came here and where were they from? My parents were from Grudna, Russia. It is now Poland, but it was Russia when they lived there. And my father was going to be drafted for the Russo-Japanese War, and he had just gotten through serving four years in the Russian Army, and he didn't care anything about going to war. So he came to some aunts who lived in Boston, Massachusetts and my mother being pregnant with me she stayed and lived with her with her father and her mother in Grudna.
When I was a year old, of course when my father came he stole over the border but my mother preferred to go over the border. Well, not having a pass you can't go through between the Russo-German border. So my mother posed as a single woman, as a sister to her neighbor who was a doctor, and I and she wrote, they wrote me in as the doctor's child. So they rode over the border, and then they came to Boston, Massachusetts. My mother had a brother there, pardon me, and my father went into the fish business. He opened up a fish store with a partner, pardon me, but being that he was a little high-tempered, he had a falling out with the partner, and he decided that the partner should buy him out, which he did.
In the meantime, my mother had a very successful cousin who lived in a small little community in Texas called Wills Point. Pardon me, that many many years ago he had already made his fortune and my mother wrote him a letter saying that they would like to come to this to Texas So my cousin wrote her back and said you can have the store just come on because I am giving it up and I going back to New York City So my parents came to this small little village and of course if they had stayed they could have owned two or three surrounding towns But my mother and father were very orthodox people, and they couldn't eat the meat.
all they could have would be just dairy and all the fruits they had plenty of money to buy but no place to spend it so my mother said she is not going to stay there when was this oh you mean what year well let's see I was about I think about four years old. So that would be 1960, about 1969, 68, 19-no! 1908. 19-yeah, about 1908, 1909, say 1910. My sister Doris was born, our second sister was born in Boston, Massachusetts, and my mama always said she was a Yankee because she, you know grew up I mean she was born in Boston so my mother and father gave up the store just closed it up and they came to Dallas Texas which at that time was a very it was a small community so my father didn't have anything to do because he was just a tradesman and he started paddling with the horse and buggy and not a horse and buggy a horse and wagon and he would go to Farney and Mesquite and Terrell go and there was nothing but dirt roads nothing like what we have today and they would have to sleep in the wagon yard what they call the wagon yards I used to hear him talk about it when I was a little bitty girl when it was miles maybe it would take him all day just to get to Terrell Texas and then stay there three or four days and then come home.
What did he sell? He sold fruits and vegetables. So then he would stay home two or three days, and then three years apart later, my sister Esther was born, and then three and a half years, four years later, my sister Rosa was born. Well my father had many offers to go in other kinds of businesses but he was so honest that once he was offered this big opportunity to go in the scrap metal business and Papa said no he couldn go in that because the weights weren right and he didn know that much about it and he refused to go into any of that business Finally, it reached the point where he opened up his own store in Farney, Texas, and he was quite successful.
And at that time, it was during the First World War, I guess, or Second. It must have been the Second. First World War, 14 to 18. And they didn't have, there was no place to rent. So we couldn't expand, which we would have done if we had had the facilities for it. Then our girls started growing up. What kind of store was that? It was the fruit and vegetables, groceries, but it wasn't a big store. We couldn't make it any larger because there was nothing for rent, see. So we lived there about four and four and a half years, and I went to school in Dallas.
Went to high school and graduated at Bryan High. How did you do that? I stayed with the Byers family on Bryan Street, Jerome Byers' grandmother, and I lived at their house and I walked to Bryan High every morning. It was across from Exile Park, their home was, and I walked about 15 blocks from the way and 15 next. Where was Exile Park? Exile Park right across from St. Paul Hospital. You know where it is, that great big part? It's near Bryan and the hospital. Yeah, near Bryan and Hall Street. Hall, I see. Right. In fact, Dr. Waldman, Bill Waldman's brother, Morris Waldman, started becoming a doctor at the age of 35 for eye, ear, nose, and throat.
And I can still remember him living with these doctors across from the St. Paul Hospital and finishing this course just determined he didn't become an eye, nose, and throat doctor until he was about close to 40, I would say. And he became... You were talking about high school girls? Graduating high school then was like graduating college today. Very few of the children in my age category even went through high school. Most of them went out to work If they went a year to high school it was considered quite good What year was it Well I see I graduated I graduated Was it after the First World War Was it after 19 Yeah.
Yeah. Yeah, it was. 1920? It was after the First World War. When were you born? 1904? 1904. So then, I got then... 1921 then? And I took my stenographic course at high school. None of us ever went to business college. And my first job was at Milner's Supply where they, you know, with ribbons and things. That's Weiss, Martin Weiss. Martin Weiss. And he and his wife were very, very frugal people. They brought their little lunch, their little lunch, and they brought their thermos bottle. And he weighed about 90 pounds when she was twice as large. and they were so frugal. They burned a little bitty light in the back of the store and I was the secretary, you know.
And I think I worked there about two weeks and that was about the extent that I could take. And then I got a job at Higginbotham Bailey Logan and I was there until I got married. I was there almost five years and I took dictation from all over the building. Anybody needed someone to help out I did it and then I after I got married I don't remember how long I stayed home and then I was offered a job probably for two salesmen one was Canon wholesale towels bed spreadsheets beautiful line then was a Peace Goods salesman and I was there about four years until I was pregnant with Ruthie and Let's see, then of course I stayed home and didn't go back to work until after when Larry was about 14, 15.
That was an accident because, oh, I did temporary work in between a little bit. But then I remember when during the Depression and I was determined I was going to go back to work and I went downtown to apply for a job and they said no, the jobs were so scarce that they wouldn't even hire married. women. There wasn't enough jobs for single women. And of course then they didn't have nurseries even as much as we have them now. So there was no place that I could leave Larry to even go to work, see, because they just didn't have any. But let me see what period that was.
I think after I got married, before I got that job for Cannon Mills and the salesman, I got this call to come to work temporarily for the Jewish Welfare. They were organizing the Jewish Welfare Federation. When was Larry? Larry was born in 1941? Oh, no, no. This was before Ruthie was born. I did that work before Ruthie was born, right after I got married, I think. So that was 1927 or something? I can't remember. It's 1929, was it? Ruthie was born in 1929. Oh, Ruthie was born... He was married in 1925 or 26. Well, it was right after I got married, you know, several months or so.
I got this job, and the office, they gave us a temporary office on the top floor of Neiman Marcus, where they had the offices. and the man I worked for, he was going to be the organizer and was going to raise $25,000 and his name was Arthur Adams and he was from New York and the executor of the project was J.K. Hexter, Victor Hexter's uncle, not Victor, Victor Hexter's brother. There were two brothers originally, J.K. Hexter and Lewis Hexter's father who was Victor Hex, Hexter and he was a lawyer and attorney, famous attorney and all the Jews used him because he was reputedly knowing all about the people, the immigrants who came over here and he and they were very very fine, very wonderful people really and I worked for them temporarily, let's see, for the extent of the campaign and Mr.
Hexley used to come up there and say, well how much longer is this going to take? Because they were paying me, I'd forgotten then. I would say a week but I don think I was making that I would say maybe or It wasn very much but I did all the typing and all the getting together of all the names you know Was that a good salary then? Well, I remember when $80. When I started at Higginbotham's, I was making $60 a month. Oh, a month. A month. Oh, all right. Then when you went to... When I went there, I must have been getting about $80, I would say, a month.
A month. A month. Not a week. Oh, a week. Are you kidding or something? Heavens no. and this Arthur Adams was quite a promoter and we did a good job and we raised the money. What did they do with the money? Well they were bringing immigrants to this country. How did you go back in or how did they go about campaigning? Do you know how they carried on? It wasn't campaigning. He was just they were soliciting individual businesses were contributing. there was no setup yet. Individual businesses, I mean. And all the pioneers of Dallas, and they were all from Germany. The big names were not Orthodox Jews.
They were German Jews. And they were the ones who organized, of course, before my time, they organized the temple. And it was on Irving Street originally. And they also had the Columbian Club. It was on Irving Street. And the Lynn's home was on the corner of Irvie, let's see what's the name of the street. Sanger, I think. And it was beautiful. They had lines out in the front. Yeah, but that was not-that was South Boulevard. That-oh, no, no, no. That was South Boulevard. No, wait a minute. It's a white, sort of a pale yellow with the lines out in front, across the street from the church on the north side of the street.
Yeah well that's on Irvey. It's on Irvey but Irvey and South Boulevard. Well that's the original Sanger home. I mean Lynn's home and also Sanger's the Sanger homes were on um I remember when the Sanger home uh Alex Sanger they lived on uh two two Sanger homes lived on Irvey street It was a it was what you call a real uh beautiful neighborhood and South Boulevard was the deluxe If you lived on South Boulevard you were the cream of the crop And the Marcuses, they lived on Wendekin. You know where Salma Benson and them? There was a two-story house there, a brick two-story house, and that's where Stanley Marcus' family lived.
It's about the 3,600 block. That's right. 35, 36, 500, Blanc, and Dahl. When was that that they would have lived at Udina? Oh you mean what year? About what year? Well let's see, Daddy grew up with all of them because he went to high school, Forest High with all of them, Stanley and all of them, and he graduated when he was about 17 I guess. So let's see he was born in 1903, be about 1920, see and he went to work for two uh the Epstein brothers wholesale cigars and they were bachelors and they had two nephews Harold, let's see Harold and Arthur Starr and they were his their heirs and they had the biggest wholesale cigar business in the southwest at that time.
And I finally coerced Charlie to ask them for a salesman job. I kept working on him. I felt that he had the ability to be. He was the bookkeeper and he did, but they were getting up in years and they worried. One of Mr. Mack's worried about me because I weighed about 90 pounds and he kept on telling me what I should eat so I can gain weight. Oh dear, let's see what else. And also, Charlie's parents were in the meatpacking business. They had the biggest meatpacking, one of the largest in in the state at that time. Newhoff wasn't here. Newhoff bought their plant from a man named Max H-A-H-N, and he had just a small packing house and of course they snowballed it into the millionaire class.
And the reason my father-in-law wasn't as successful as he could have been because he and his brother were in the business together. They were from Berlin, Germany, and where my father was the worker his brother was the one that was a gambler And he whatever Grandpa Lewin earned Uncle Amos spent And he gambled big seeing the thousands of dollars. And even at that time, he was just a real big gambler. So they lost the packing house. And he contacted asthma in one of the worst ways. had a beautiful home on Colonial, raised seven children. So when he contacted Asmund, they lost the business. They had a millionaire aunt that lived in Glendale, California on the main street, like on Elm Street.
And she owned this two beautiful, you don't remember her, do you remember Aunt Emma? She had this big two-story house and she had a phone even then, connection that connected every room of the house and at that time she had already made three trips around the world and she she sent for uncle Amo and she supported him and his family the rest of the years that he lived because he wasn't able to work but he broke my father-in-law you see so my father-in-law had to start from scratch and my father-in-law was a real pioneer in every sense of the word. They belonged to the Sons of Herman Hall, the biggest, Sons of Herman, which was the biggest German organization.
It's still in existence today. In fact, I was in that Sons of Herman Hall a couple of times and when I got engaged to Daddy, they gave me a shower in the Sons of Hermann Hall. And all these German ladies came to my shower, and every one of them brought me something embroidered, or crocheted. And I, and I, oh at that time, if you just got something handwork, well you were something. And I was so excited about all these, you know, beautiful things. And they were, they were really of the old school of the German Jews, and I had never associated with them because all my parents' friends were of the Orthodox Jews and they spoke mostly German at that time but I could understand them knowing Jewish and we didn't have any trouble and being that my mother-in-law didn't have any I didn't have any sons it was quite a treat for her to feel like she gonna get a daughter.
She didn't have any daughter. I mean she didn't have any daughter see. So my mother-in-law was the president of the sons ladies of the sons of Herman Hall for 25 years. In fact they were more German they were German first and Jewish second. But they were all Jewish? It wasn't non-sectarian. Yes it was. They were Germans. They were not Jewish. For the main part they were German. The Sons of Herman Hall was a German, Sons of Herman is a German organization. It is not a Jewish organization. But there are very few Jews in it. But my mother-in-law, she was quite a strong character and so she became the president of the ladies auxiliary of the Sons of Herman.
How did they come to, how did they happen to come to Dallas do you know? Yes. And when? Yes well Harry Ahrens, you know Rose Fite's husband's mother Matilda, Matilda Ahrens and family were living here already that many years ago and I think Papa Lewin, my father-in-law and his brother Emil then together came to this country. However, my father-in-law was already married when he came here and then sent for his wife. What was their connection with the Aarons? Why were they cousins? They were cousins. Our Harry Aaron's mother was an aunt to Ludwig Lewin and Amel Lewin to my father to my husband's father see.
About do you know when they came? You know Wally Aarons? No but do you happen to know about what year they came? Did they come before the turn of the century? Let's see if Charlie was born in 1903 and he was born here and Julius was older than him so that would be 1902 a year later. So they must have come here about 1900 1901 They sure did and pardon me nothing was paved downtown Sanger Brothers was the biggest department store where El Central now stands And there were I think originally there were four Sanger Brothers four And three of them were in Dallas and one was in Waco.
And the main one, the one that everyone revered and admired was Alex Sanger. and he was about five feet two, one of the most endearing human beings. Anyone that walked in there got a job and then they used to have cash boys and rappers and in fact Benny Cohen from the Cohen Candy Company was the one that applied and he was a he was a cash boy and they would take the packages, they would take the merchandise and they had an escalator then, the only one in Dallas I think at that time, and they would go up the escalator to the wrapping room, you know what I mean, and where they made change and all and he'd come down with a finish, they'd come down with a finished product.
And when the youngsters were about 14, 15 they started working and there was nothing fancy about it but Everybody was working, and when these young people earned $15 a week, they brought it all home, and they helped their parents that way. And in every family, there was a minimum of four children, seven, eight. And in the neighborhood where we lived, it was solid Jewish. Where did you live? Originally, we lived on Alamo Street, where all the factories and everything, the paper, American paper stock right in the back. It was an alley then. and now it's built up, but it was an alley. And in these alleys lived all colored families in just regular little one and two room actual shacks.
There was nothing to brag about, believe me, in very, very deteriorating conditions. Now, did Jews live in the same area with the Negroes? Yes. At that time? Yeah, right in the back of us in the alley lived the Negroes. They sure did. And of course our house was next to the shul, to the goodest, well what's now, to the Romanian shul it was in, the Romanian. You know there used to be a Romanian shul Anche Safarid And my father belonged to two shuls He went to the Romanian because he loved them They all were crazy about my father and he liked them So he was a member there and he prayed at the Romanian shul, but he was also a member of the Tiferic Israel shul.
So he was a member of both. And my mama was always afraid when my father was in the country to stay alone, so she had a lady to come and live with us, a single lady that worked in Graham Taylor's. I can still remember her saying it, and she was kind of a heavyset lady, and she was engaged to get married, and she couldn't make up her mind, and so what happened? He happened to marry somebody else. In fact, he married Benny Cohen's aunt, Ethel. That's who he married. How did she happen to find this lady that would come and spend? Well, she was, she had a sister living here and they didn't have room for her so I think Mama was glad just to have her and didn't, I think she charged her two or three dollars a week just so she would be in.
After all, Mama had four little girls and she was afraid, you know, to stay alone in the house. Did she stay anyway and live with you as a family? Yeah, yeah, she did. She lived with us two or three, several years, two or three years, and then we moved. Where? And we moved on Highland Street, and oh, that was a pretty house, and I was so proud of that house. Is that North Akard now? It was near Tefer, it was three doors from Teferth, Israel. Is that North Akard now? No, no, no, no, it was Harwood, right off of Harwood Street. You know where, used to be a kindergarten there, you remember?
It's a electrified water place. It's near the church up on North Hartwood, though, in the north part of town, right? Oh, yeah. Okay. Right off of Ashland, they call it. That's near where B.F. Goodrich Company is now. Yeah, it's right near Anderson's. And I went to that kindergarten. It's near Page Boy. And we lived around the corner then on Page Boy, where Page Boy is right on that hill. That's near Almond Street. Wichita. Wichita and Almond. Would you like to... And the Zelazneys lived there and the Weinbergs lived there and the Lynn family Sam Lynn Bill Lynn Esther Lynn all lived up there on the hill In fact they owned half of Wichita Street Were there a lot of Jews in that area?
Was that the area called Little Jerusalem? It was that... Which is Little Mexico now? Yes. It was all full, solid Jewish almost. About what years was that? Well, let's see. I was going to Cumberland Hill School. I graduated Cumberland Hill, and I came out with a straight A. From 1910 to 1917. Myra Chastain, who graduated some of the big names in Dallas, graduated from Cumberland Hill School. Minnie Marcus also went there. Can you tell us about the kindergarten? How is it that there was a kindergarten? Let's see how old I was. And then they used it more as a community center also. In fact, I was writing with my, I was writing with my left hand and she made me, I'm not writing, I was sewing with my left hand and she made me, turned me over and made me write a sew with my right hand.
So I'm really mixed up because half the things I do with my left hand and half the things I do with my right hand. And when I went to learn to drive a car, when I went to back out, I backed up wrong. I mean, the wrong direction, see, that's how bad it is to switch. Who ran the kindergarten? It was run by the city. The city ran the kindergarten? The city schools ran it. Did it have anything to do with people there being New Americans or was it just incidental? No. Just the kids in the neighborhood could go there and it was for free.
And I know one time I had, I think I had some warts on my, between my fingers, and I think they took us to the City Hall for two or three sessions and they burned them off with iodine. That's now they don't do that. But was there a health program that were also where they were able to catch that or did you just have a sharps teacher? No, I think they just happened to see them on my hands. What was school like? Great. We had the best teachers. I actually had some of the finest teachers that they've ever had, I think, in the public schools.
It was strict, I mean, by that. We actually respected our teachers, and when they said to get homework, we got our homework, and we wouldn't have dared to have come to school without our homework. And all the English that I ever learned, really, even to speak correctly, I learned in the fourth grade. My English teacher was Mrs. King and she was real prim and strict and tall. And when she taught you the English class and we learned how to diagram, we had to learn which was an adjective and adverb and noun and pronoun. And we also had to learn punctuation and we used to even have spelling contests and I was always the captain.
I was alone, but I had to be in the front, so you know where Debbie gets it from. I always was pushing. Did you ever, did your parents have to, or did they remind the kids about homework, or did you just feel that responsibility? No, our parents, we were so proud to go to school because my mother instilled in us the joy of living in America and having the opportunity of going to schools in this country and what a great country this was and what a privilege children were to have been born or to have come to this country's little folks and have the opportunity to take all the advantages that this country had to offer.
And my mother always impressed this upon us. In fact, she went to school herself, went to Temple Emanuel when they had the schools for the new immigrants, although she wasn't a new immigrant at that time, but she felt the need to want to learn to read and write English, and she went and she learned, and she was able to write English, and she was able to read an English paper. Do you think this helped you? Yes, my mother was very education-minded. I know the last half a year, we had some neighbors who were very jealous, old maid, lady, woman, and her three older brothers, the Levine family.
And the three Go on There were three brothers and this old maid sister and there were four which made four in the family And she'd sit on the front porch with an old scarf wrapped, shawl wrapped around her, you know, feeling sorry for herself. And she kept on worrying about me going to high school. One day she said to me, you know, senior, your poor papa works so hard. Why don't you go out and help him? Why don't you get a job working? And so I told my mother, I said, no. I says, I've had three and a half years. You think, I'll quit. I can go and, you know, I already knew my shorthanded typing.
And she said, no, you've gone so far, you'll finish. And so I, of course, graduated. And I could have gone on to college, but we didn't have the need. Because then very, very few people, young people, were college prone. They didn't, unless they actually were. In fact, at one time I wanted to be a school teacher, see, but I guess I just didn't have enough drive, I'd say. I was too anxious to go to work and earn money. It's as simple as that. But now you said you lived in Forney and then you came in town to go to school with the Interurban, I think.
No, I stayed with the Byers family for the week for about a year and a half before I graduated high school and my family was living there. Before that, I lived with, when my family moved to Farney, I went to live with the Fromman family. You know, the Gruber girls, one of them is married to a Fromman girl. Well, I stayed with her people over on, they lived on Browder Street. And right in that area lived all the Weil family, Izzy Weil. And next door lived the Yannick family with ten kids. But I was a loner. I never mixed with any of them. I minded my own business.
I got up at six o'clock in the morning. I slept on the couch in the living room and they had about four boys at home and a young girl, but I didn't bother them. I just got my lessons and got up at six in the morning and walked to the school line, caught the bus or streetcar, then transferred and went out to Bryan High because I didn't care to go to Forest High. As I say, I was a loner, I guess, and I had already gone started there. And I had two non girls who were my best friends and one of them became when we both graduate high school she got a job for Judge William H Atwell and she was his executive secretary for about 30 years as long as she lived and as long as he lived And when my mother and I were going to get our second papers, citizenship papers, she was the one that swore me in.
Well, then, did you live in Dallas, and then your parents moved out to Farney, and then did you... And then, so I stayed with the Frommons about a year or so, and then I wanted to get closer, and then the buyers, so I coerced the buyers' family to let me come and live with them. They had this big house with four bedrooms. So I stayed with them and I walked to school every morning and walked and I got my typing exercises at the school. I stayed after school and came home about 4 30 and then on Fridays my father would leave two or three chickens at the at the Shecherts and he would The Herman family, you know the Herman family.
Well their father was a baker and he baked the most wonderful bread of anybody and I would go down there, I would catch the streetcar and ride to North Dallas and pick up the bread and go to the Shekhet's and get the chickens and whatever else. And I had a big knitting bag and I would put them in this knitting bag and then I would ride back to town up in East Dallas, up in where the pawn shops are. And they had a little... Deep Elm? I had interurban and I think the fare was 75 cents and I would catch the interurban and just and it would take about a half an hour or so and I was in Farney.
And then Sunday night I would come back to Dallas. But how did your mother have time to cook the chickens if you went in the afternoon on Friday? Well she would sauce and bake them maybe on Sunday morning and then she would took them on Sunday. And then I think they were, and then I think they were, they, pardon me, they still didn't have electric boxes in them. She put them in the ice box and kept them until Friday? See, that was the problem. If they'd already had ice, I mean electric boxes, it wouldn't have been any problem, because they could have had the freezing compartment and they could have kept any amount.
But this way, Papa used to have to, like, twice a week. Well then did they move to Dallas when you were in high school When I graduated high school I just kept telling them that I wanted them to move back to Dallas see And so they did They found this home on Park Row and they bought it and paid cash for it. And then we moved back to Dallas. The family moved back to Dallas. Then they came to Dallas first and then moved to Tfarnie and then back to Dallas. Oh, yeah. They lived in Dallas many, many years before they even moved to Tfarnie. When did they first come to Dallas, do you remember?
You mean what year? Mm-hmm. Well, I was about, I guess, five. So that would have been 1909. Mm-hmm. So then they were in Dallas when you were in grammar school and then moved to Fort Me? Yes. Oh, yeah. And then had their business in Fort Me? Sure. And then came back to Dallas. I used to run home from school at Cumberland Hill for lunch, and Mom always fixed her heavy meal at lunchtime, and I'd put the chicken or meat or whatever it was in between two pieces and I run back over, over the hill. There was a big hill there then and I just, you know, there was no problem and we left Tumbling Hill.
It was a good school. It was a good school. Even then already it was up in years. But some very, very prominent people and also when I went to high school there were some of the best teachers there. there was Mrs. Copenhagen, there was a Mrs. Butler who was my shorthand and typing teacher, and she was the top teacher at Buford Business College before she came to Bryan High. And when you were in her class, there was no monkey business. In other words, when she said, Celia, have you got your eight pages of shorthand to turn in every day? I said, yes ma'am, I wouldn't have any more day to go into her class without those, without that homework than anything.
And then we had a Mrs. Let's see, what was her name? Her grandfather was in, was a general or something in the, yeah. Did she tell you about the Civil War? Yeah, she told us about her. Oh, and she was just like him. She even, she was mannish in every, in all her ways, just like a, from an army base, you know, having been reared on an army base or something. I don't know what was that name, I can't remember her name. But our teachers were such dedicated people. They were not kids. None of them were kids. In fact, this Ms. Roe, that's it. That's her name, Batuu.
That was another one. There were two sisters, Edna Roe and the other one. I forgot her other one's name. One taught at Forrest and one taught at Brian. See, but me, unfortunately, I didn't have anyone to, you know what I mean, to tell me what was the subjects to take, because our parents really were not aware of what, of the different subjects, you know. So I didn't take the last year English. I took the last year history. And all my life I regretted not taking that last year of English instead of the history, see. Did you have any counselors at that time? Nobody of the school staff would work with the students to suggest what to take?
No. Well, the teachers might have, you might have asked the teachers, they would make suggestions, but nothing like a, you know, form of counseling. Now, did Bryan High School at that time, that was not the high school that later became Tech? Yes. That is the high school. In fact, Mr. Crozier was my principal in our Crozier. I knew his boys. They sure were. And Richardson Scurry, who's a big law attorney here, Tom Scurry, they called him Dick Scurry. He's a cousin to the Clarks, Tom Clark. Okay. You know, Judge Clark and them. That's our whole connection. but when we had the the the 400 the ones that go to Hockaday now went to Bryan High then.
It was academically oriented then? Oh yes yes very much sure. And one of the girls named Peggy Fears she went to Broadway and I was on the stage and they had sororities in high school when I went. They had, let's see, what was the names of those sororities? The Phylo, can't remember, but anyhow these two sisters were just adorable. I don't know where they came from, but every day on the lunch hour they had the short haircuts and they were the first ones that came out with them and every day on the lunch hour they would cut some of the girls that belonged to their particular sorority and give them the short haircut That where the first bobs came in And one of them this Peggy she was just adorable So she took the shorthand in typing and every day when she came in she didn't have up her homework because she was so busy being so popular with all the boys that she actually didn't have time.
She wasn't worried about it. So one day the teacher says, well Peggy, where's your homework? She said, I'm sorry, I didn't get it up. So she said, go to the principal's office and tell him that I don't want you in my class no more, that you're expelled, and for you to take another subject because you're not going to make no stenographer, and I don't have time to fool with you, and this is it, and this is final. And also there was... What happened? Did she go to the principal's office? She went, and she never came back to the class. Then we had this famous young man.
We thought he was Sissy and he took out all these girls. They were all in this group. His name was Howard Shoup, S-H-O-U-P, and he's a famous designer in Hollywood right now. and we had quite some prominent ones going to high school at the time I was going and let's see there was also some famous baseball football players at one time Crozier had some of the some of the top athletes and everybody wanted to come to Krosia. It was an honor if you went to Krosia High. Now were there many Jewish people in the area? That was up fairly close to Ross. Well it was starting to break at that time and the Jewish community was starting to come out to South Dallas and they were moving quite rapidly as they were doing better and better and they were opening up new businesses and they were more successful, they started moving to South Dallas and they built their most beautiful homes.
Then if they paid $10,000 for a home in South Dallas, it was considered very very big And also if some they said someone was worth in cash or 15 he was considered a wealthy man He really was considered a wealthy man But one thing about Jewish people they always were very education and always have been To them, the important part was to see that their children, if they were tailors, they didn't want their children in particular to be. They wanted them really and truly to be lawyers and doctors and professional people. And they also very much wanted them to be learned in Hebrew and Jewish, not the German ones, because this was not of importance to them, the Hebrew part or any of this.
They were, well, even at that time, my father always said they were just like Goyim. What was the value of the German group? What did they want from their kids? What did they want from their kids? Well, their kids were the first to go to college, naturally, because they had the means. There was a Sanger family. There was a Cann family. There was a Bearwall family. Although the Rudys were not the Reformed Jews at that time. But the others, all the big names. Now, Volk's were not Jewish. the Dreyfus family. There was Saul Dreyfus, an only son and an only daughter and she's Mrs. Lawrence Pollock from the Pollock Paper and Box Company.
But they were very German and I mean, there was nothing. And at that time, actually, when the Federation was started by Germans, but it seemed like they ran it, but the ones who got most of the benefits were not Germans Jews they were Orthodox Jews. But yet the German Jew was not particularly interested in Jewish education? No, not about the ethics of, you know what I mean, about teaching them Jewish and Jewish, what you call it, like kosher and all this. Tradition? Tradition. Tradition was not of importance to the German Jew. They went to services on Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur and they taught them that you know what I mean Passover but it wasn what you call a big deal with them No it was not However one of the biggest most wonderful human beings as a couple as a family was the Lefkowitz family David Lefkowitz, from what I understand, was reared in an orphans home.
and he was a cousin to this aunt's husband, aunt's husband, my husband's, my husband's aunt's husband was a cousin to Dr. Lefkowitz and he was reared in an orphan's home and he and his wife were two of the most marvelous people in this city and they did quite a bit of charity. He was not money-oriented. He didn't care. He lived really on a small income. Do you remember where his home was on South Boulevard? Yes. Where that Rabbi Cantor Kaplan, the old Cantor Kaplan bought it and he raised a beautiful family. His son is Lewis Lefkowitz, is a lawyer and attorney, and his youngest son David is a rabbi in Shreveport.
His daughter Helen married Fred Florence. I don't want that on tape, but it's in the given I say good, but let's see who is the other one, and I think one of his sons is a doctor. Yes, and but he, all people were alike to him. My sister Rosa and Esther went to, were confirmed at Temple, and they just decided they're going to Temple. How did that happen? Well, it was around the corner from us, and they just decided all the kids, all the young people they associated were going to temple, so they decided they're going too, and no matter what my father said, it didn't help.
They said they were going. So they went, and when they were confirmed, here came Rabbi Lefkowitz and his wife, you know, after the services, he visited all the confirmants, and they walked in, and I can still see my father. He was so proud that Rabbi Lefkowitz, see, even though he said against the Germans, still he was proud. How'd your daddy feel? How did he go to Temple? Well, he used to try and say, They said, Papa, we like it and we like Dr. Lefkowitz and we're going to go. And they went. But do you know I went to Sheriff Israel when it was on Jackson Street where the farmers market is.
I walked, actually walked from North Dallas to go to Sherith's Old Sunday School. What was the religious education? Well, it was hit and miss. It was hit and miss. They did at one time have a Hebrew school even then, as I remembered, or some semblance of one. And my mama sent me because I was the oldest, and I went about four months, I guess, and then it disbanded. They didn't have the funds. It was no organization. So there was a shechet that was the shechet for the remaining shishul there, you know, where we live. So my mama had him come to the house and she paid him, I can't remember, maybe 50 cents a lesson or so.
And I went about three months and I learned to read Hebrew and write it. I learned it when I went to the classes. And then I just, it wasn't anything. But of course my parents took the Jewish Kuggerblad or whatever it was. They always subscribed to Jewish paper. And then when my Larry started going to Hebrew school and I was the room mother on Saturday and I had to go bring all the refreshments, and they had their own classes, and they had their own little Torah. I sat in all the classes, and I started learning Hebrew all over again, and I just picked it up, and I picked up the Jewish paper, and I just read it, that's all.
I just said, I'm going to learn it, and that's it. Did Teferath, you said your dad was a member of Teferath? Yes. And then he was one of the organizers of the Guddasana. That's right, he was. Was there any religious education as part of these congregations? at any time? Well, at first, at first they had the rabbis used to actually teach the kids, the children rather, and then there were two or three families. Of course I don remember much myself except from what I was told And when they after they organized the Good Esachim there was not Sherman Kaplan but it was Shirley Shirley let see Shirley Shirley Angus' father.
There were three families that struck oil. There was Jaffe family and a Kaplan family, I think. Let's see, Jeffrey Kaplan, a good, and that was, there were three families. They struck oil, and they gave the, they bought the land there to build the Hebrew school there. You remember the Hebrew school over there on the side? That's Herzog Haikal. Herzog Haikal. Well, the Kaplan family gave a lot of money. Well, Herzogheiko was the boy that they lost, and they named Herzogheiko Hebrew School after this young, this child. See, and that's when Levine was one of the best women. Dr. Paul Levine's wife was a Kaplan or a Jaffe.
Anyway, that's a connection. Yeah, and of course the Jaffes were big contributors, and from what I gather, the reason Rabbi, Abramowitz became independently wealthy because they gave him some stock in the oil, in their oil leases, and it struck, they struck oil, see, so he became independently well-to-do, and, but this was a successful Hebrew school, and all the children learned, and they had a Hebrew bus, and they picked up all the kids, including my Larry. I used to chase him up and down the alley sometime. He wasn't gonna go?" He said he didn't have enough time to play and I said, you're going. One day he missed the bus and I caught, I walked him to Forest Avenue and we caught the bus and he went to Hebrew school.
You mean colonial, don't you? No, he went to Hebrew school. No, but you walked him to? I walked him to, uh, to Forest Avenue from Grand Avenue. Oh, I'm sorry. Go ahead. See? And, uh, And he was great, he was bar mitzvah there, of course. But I'm a strong believer, and the more I live, the more I'm a more strong believer in tradition. And the idea of what you put in them when they little like the Catholics say you give me your child till he six years old and he won be anything but a Catholic It the same in every traditional religion If you give your child a background like that they throw it away but they always come back to it I mean, this is the way I think.
And I think the saddest part in these intermarriages where children are brought up and they give them nothing. They decide, well, they say that they will let their child make the decision when they grow up. Well, they can't do it because they've lost ground by the time they're grown and they have nothing to cling. They never have anything to cling to. and it's, to me now, this is the way I see it, perhaps I'm wrong, but I definitely think it's better to raise them, if they're Jewish, even to raise them Gentile than not to raise them in any, in any religious organization. I think, that's why I think you never find very many Negro, black let's say people who are suicides if you know because that's the first thing they do is to take them to church and you never saw a Negro that couldn't sing or that they didn't believe in an almighty or if they didn't go to church on Sunday and actually if you'll just read the list you don't find very many Negroes who are suicides.
And I think this is one of the reasons, because when even people who say they're disbelievers, that's not true. Nobody's a disbeliever, nobody's an atheist. If they love someone or care for someone, they've got a religion. What about Jewish education and your observances when you were growing up or in your own household? Well, we were steeped in religion at our house. However, the unfortunate part was that our parents didn't know how to convey this to us outside of just of the real, except practicing the real tradition. They couldn't explain why we did so-and-so or why. It's this kind of a holiday and that what you supposed to do But of course even we were questioning we say why you do this Like when they bring the lulaf to the house and mama would bench with a lemon and a thing in her hand and all saying, no, what's far, what's your name?
Because this is before Yontif, you know what I mean, and we'd give them so much money and then before Rosh Hashanah, you know what I mean, when you shluck a purse you know with the chicken and all that or you can give money you know you put in so much money and my parents were so very very traditional that my my father if we if we accidentally took the wrong towel or the wrong fork he had to go buried in the ground and he really almost have a a heart attack worrying about it. See, but my mother came, my mother's father was a, was like a rub and he actually earned his living by sitting at a table with 12 men and they corrected all the Torahs that came into him.
That was their job. Was it so fair then, is that it? A scribe was inscribed? Yeah, yeah. And they owned two homes in Europe. They never had a pogrom in their town. My mother's brother was a watchmaker in Lodge and he even made a watch for the czar. And my mother had a sister who was a famous seamstress and she sold for the Romanov family. And my mother used to go with her for physical support because she said soldiers used to get fresh, you know. and my mother worked in a tobacco factory once or twice a week to earn enough to buy her to buy the material for her sister to make her beautiful clothes because everything was made to order and even her shoes were made to order and when my mother saw my father and you know they had shop comes in and when my mother, oh she was a beautiful woman like my sister, like in the Zygmunt, like your sister Sarah, I was shocked she had her beautiful hair and all.
And my mother, they used to worry about her getting married so my father used to say, The teacher says, She brought my father and he still had on his soldier's uniform. He was a blonde with blue eyes, that's where Ruthie's getting it. And Mama says she peeked out the window like you see in the movies. She saw him walking up the steps and she fell for him lock, stock and barrel. and he came in a beautiful couple her brunette with olive skin and brown eyes and beautiful set of pearl teeth and he said they said you know you the glass him his name was michael yes yes glass and zeer phil so he says domain as i remember as a handler you know he lived with a widowed mother and a sister and uh you know on her husband and child in the small community but they owned their own home, they were substantial people.
She said she didn't care. She liked them best of all. And that's the one she married. Did they have a nod? Did they have a nod? I'm sure they did. I'm sure they must have. She had beautiful clothes and whatever she earned was hers. And she didn work but only once or twice a week because she said that the topic eats up your lungs And they knew that that many years ago But she had a dowry. Oh, sure. And she used to roll these cigarettes. They rolled them by hand then. And you know who her friend was? Mrs. Frauman. Not this one, but the one that Sarah Frauman's mother, That's Julius's grandmother?
No, no, no, Julius's aunt. She wasn't his blood aunt, see. His father and Mr. Fromm were brothers, but Mr. Fromm, and she was a blonde, beautiful woman. And that was her friend in Russia, in Grodna. And they both worked in the tobacco factory. Now that was just a coincidence. And they both came to Dallas? Uh-huh. I think it's very interesting. And they were what they call landslide. And landslide was almost just like kinfolks. See, they were this close. Because they didn't have their own people. And many a time I used to say, Mama, we have to come and do it to them lawn. We have to never see you mention your name And I said for what to say you brought your sister you not from your sister my dear And she says And she says That's hard for one person to take it.
Yeah, that she couldn't be able to take it with two. That's how considerate they were of their parents, and the respect that they had. And of course we've lost all this along the way, unfortunately. We have thought by, I think I read this article, by being pals to our children that we are doing them a favor, but that's not true. You have to, they have to know. I know when my father said, no, don't do something, and he said, don't do it, we didn't do it because we were really afraid. But he never touched us. He never put his hand on us. But he was the boss in the family until we grew up to where we could talk back a little bit.
Did you ever feel a need to talk back? Never We never did We never talked back to our parents I was the oldest so my mother used to meet me in front of Cumberland Hill and she walk arm we go to town together and being that I was the oldest I guess I was the closest to her really. What about the other kids when she'd come and meet you and then go off with you what'd she do with the other kids? Well there was a solid neighborhood of kids they'd go play next door all the mamas were home there wasn't such a thing as a mama going to work.
There wasn't there wasn't anything like that. Why they baked bread, they hung out their clothes, and my mother was was the prima donna because she would get the colored girl to do her washing for her for about 50 cents because she wasn't a very pastoral. Harry Sussman's wife, Roxy Donosky, and I and her cousin were started to low first grade by Meyer Donosky, who was the executive officer of the Dallas Morning News. You mean he took you to school? Mm-hmm. He started us to school, to the low first grade. He took us to enroll us. Oh, that's what I want. Yeah. Okay. Yeah, he enrolled us in school.