Chip Muchin
Chip Muchin's family story begins with his paternal grandfather, Alfred, who grew up in Belarus under the czar. Around 1904 he found himself on a train headed to fight in the Russo-Japanese War, and like many Jewish men aboard, he jumped off to escape and made his way to Ellis Island. From New York he traveled to relatives near Sheboygan, Wisconsin, and settled in Manitowoc, where he peddled scrap metal, met Chip's grandmother from Ukraine, and raised seven sons. Chip's father, the youngest, took over and expanded the scrap business. On his mother's side, the family had roots in Ohio and Russia and ran a restaurant before the Depression, later supported by a successful bachelor uncle in real estate.
Named for his grandfather Alfred, Chip grew up in Manitowoc until age twelve, when the family moved to Milwaukee, where he was bar mitzvahed. He played junior high basketball, was active in AZA and BBYO, and served as athletic director for the city council through B'nai B'rith Youth Organization. He attended the University of Wisconsin-Madison, studying finance while pursuing a lifelong love of history. After his father strategically sold the scrap business, Chip joined him in a coin, stamp, and collectibles venture that grew into dealing historical autographs and documents, then a young and specialized field.
In 1988, buying the inventory of a pioneering Dallas autograph dealer drew Chip to Texas, and he married Julie, whom he had met in Milwaukee, before she joined him in Dallas. They settled in the Preston-Campbell area in 1991 to be in the Richardson school district, and adopted their daughter Ashley through Jewish Family Service. Chip ran the collectibles business, worked for a home warranty company, and has spent more than a decade with H&R Block during tax season. Active in the Jonathan Netanyahu B'nai B'rith lodge, he served as chapter president. The family belonged to Shearith Israel and later Anshai, and Chip counts moving to Dallas among the best decisions of his life.
Full Transcript
so good afternoon i'm interviewing chip muchon my name is joe reingold and today is monday march 22nd spring is in the air we're very happy to have you here thanks chip for doing this okay you're very welcome uh let's let's start with tell us a little bit about your background your grandparents your parents etc where your family was from where they lived where they were born and where they grew up sure my grandpa on my dad's side the musicians side grew up in belarussia under the czar in those days and of course desire with programs and all the problems very mean to the jewish people
but lo and behold around 1904 my grandpa found himself on the train going to the pacific to fight in the czar's army in the russia japanese war if you know the history of that that war went very badly for russia a lot of casualties they got routed so the story has a lot of jewish guys on the train the last thing they want to do is fight for the czar so gradually this all started deserting by jumping the train which took courage because could have been shot for desertion and my grandpa looked around he was about the only jewish sky left so he got up
the courage to jump off and somehow from there he made it to ellis island in new york and i guess in those days if you had 25 dollars or healthy you could get in so apparently he had that because he got in so i started out working a little bit in new york at a cigar factory of all places and after a few shifts of that he said this is not for me i didn't come to america to do this so he had remembered that his family in the old country as he called it in russia i told him if he could get to a
place called sheboygan wisconsin they had some relatives there wherever that was right and it's actually a little bit north of milwaukee along lake michigan but anyway he got there and they told him what you should do is to make a decent living a reasonable living is pedal scrap metal but they said to do that you need to go the next town north you'll have more opportunity in manual wisconsin so he went there and then that's how it started okay what about the rest of your grandparents well well i guess i'll finish my grandpa he met my grandma there she was from the ukraine they got
married they had seven boys and my dad was the youngest son and then on my mom's side uh i i really never knew my grandfather because he died before i was born but uh got to know my grandma she lived in milwaukee and uh she was person who told her like it is she was feisty so i always enjoyed talking with her and where was she from originally chip do you know well she was from ohio originally uh her side of the family did originally come from russia too so okay did they did the two sides of the family know each other i mean i
know it's not right next door in wisconsin but did they ever cross paths well after my parents got married they got along very well it was good uh is that what you mean or yeah well that's fine no i was just curious if they knew we had known each and what did your mom's side of the family do for a living well my uh my grandpa never got to meet uh well what was a well they had a restaurant but then the depression came and you know like everybody got wiped out with that so after that he did what he could uh just to get
by uh so did your grandmother ever remarry no she didn't but fortunately she and her family she had sent a whole bunch of sisters with several my aunts they were fortunate because their older brother louie was very successful in real estate in ohio get rental properties all over the place so you know i mean after the depression many of them were widowed or weren't really making a living so fortunately uncle louie really saved the day there and kept them all going and he was a single bachelor so i guess he was able to do it so so he helped carry the day for him very
good yeah a lot of jewish people came over and were sponsored like that's how your family ended up in wisconsin they were sponsored by a relative or someone and spread out everybody thinks everyone ended up on the east coast but it's not so cool so tell us a little bit about your own childhood where did you grow up where did you live as a child what did you like to do for amusement when you were young well i was named after my grandpa i talked about uh came from from bel russia his name was alfred so i was named after him and so we we
started out in mandewak i lived there thai was at 12 years old and my dad had taken to the business after my grandpa died even though he was the youngest and his older brothers weren't so sure he'd be skilled at running the scrap business but he was then he wanted to expand the business into milwaukee so at age 12 we moved to milwaukee i was actually bar mitzvahed in milwaukee uh so that's kind of how it started and we went from there what did you do in elementary school and junior high for fun what kind of activities were you involved in i i was on
the junior high basketball team uh started out as second string guard but then the first string guy transferred to another school so i just kind of moved up the ladder there by default so that was kind of fun i have good memories of that uh had pretty good luck with my shooting in those days so that was good then high school i got involved in aza quite a bit i was involved with the bbyo chapter and then later my senior year i became athletic director to city council which i very much enjoyed because i played a lot basketball and aza too so that was a
good experience what was the jewish community like when you were growing up in milwaukee very very closely knit uh some would say too close you know it's like everybody knew what everybody else was doing and not for my powers just a little too much you know but the cell was a good community costly knit several synagogues from all denominations so uh so overall it was very good what was your family and your parents involved in both jewishly and civically when you were growing up there well we were involved in the synagogue we belonged to a conservative synagogue so we got involved with that but my
dad he was really all business i don't think he took charities as seriously he'd do some work in him but it really wasn't his cup of tea and your mom my mom uh yeah she'd get involved in adasa and other charities but you never really became an officer or anything just just would stay involved as a member okay did you do any school activities i know you did bbio in hebrew school obviously did you were you on any committees or anything in your actual high school well you said your athletic director but that was for the city right yeah that's right through bana breath you
know byo yeah yeah oh okay uh yeah i was pretty much uh i i did i was on the uh was the golf team one year and uh did cross country one year but i did some things in high school but more really i was more involved in bbyl at that point okay very good so what did you do immediately following high school where did that take you sure i went to uw madison which is really just like ut and austin state capitol state school large campus went there for actually four and a half years in the business school but i took a lot of
history courses as electives because i really liked history and honestly history classes i think got my gpa up more probably inflated it somewhat because i was very good at the history classes at that time i didn't sense it was really a practical career being in history although later on which i'll explain it did become practical okay so what how and when did you decide on your field of study what you would actually do well i always had a an interest in in business finance uh going that route so i majored in finance with the idea maybe going in business uh just have to see what
happens with my family if i wanted to pursue that or not if there was opportunity in it so that's kind of what i had had in the back of my mind i wasn't completely sure well where i would lead me did you ever have any feelings that you would uh succeed your father and go into i mean did you ever plan to go into the family business well right my dad was a person of good foresight she had the ability to see ahead five ten years and about the time i graduated he said now would really be a good time to strategically sell the business
to a competitor and he said we wait five ten years it's probably not gonna be as strong a position to sell it so it really might not be worth it to keep it that long so it was that point for various competitive reasons it was just a good idea to sell it and uh so we sold the business lease the land and uh to the buyer and so it really worked out good for both sides for a long period of time so what were your aspirations and what did you do right after college soon after college well my dad he was kind of an entrepreneur
as a sideline he had this coin and stamp collectibles business he said now i've sold the scrap business why don't you come into the collectibles with business with me and we'll see where it leads so i did that and then along the way we got into historical autographs and documents which at that time was kind of its infancy it's kind of a new field really only a handful of dealers at that time but of course nowadays with ebay everybody claims to be a dealer you know so that's the way that so the field really grew and by 1988 we had a good relationship with this
uh autographed viewer in dallas who was really one of the pioneer dealers in historical autographs and uh we started buying some of his collection he had a huge inventory and we said well why don't you just sell us the whole business you're getting older maybe you want to retire and he said well i don't know what i'd do if i'd sell it but sadly shortly after that i believe he had cancer he died and his wife didn't know what to do with the collection so she said i'll sell it to you but i want you to move down here because it's just a massive quantity
to ship it to you it's not something i want to do and all this and honestly by then uh it kind of peaked out milwaukee really wasn't going anywhere i really wasn't happy there anymore so it seemed like a good idea to move on and right before i moved i met julie who lived in milwaukee of all things and uh we went out for a few months we were matched up by mutual friends and uh everyone out a few months they said girl by the way i think i'm moving to dallas either come with me or goodbye was that it well she said if we
wanted to she was a diplomat she said if we want to work it out we will so we got till then and obviously we did work it out and then shortly after we got married the family in august she moved here to dallas so you got married in milwaukee you were still there that's correct yeah okay very good so you both moved to doubt did you come here sight unseen or had you been here before well i i had been here many times and the funny thing was she before i even told her i was moving to dallas a cousin of hers was was marrying
a girl here from dallas the black family uh steve black i don't remember him he sadly passed away a long time ago but anyway my cousin scott was marrying this girl from dallas and uh so julie was gonna come to the wedding and i was pitching her oh you really like the house it's a great place to be because i hadn't told her yet i was thinking about moving here she came down though the wedding was at the adolphus hotel downtown they had a good time and so then later on of course i told her uh how'd you like dallas you know that was sneaky
that was good of you very good yeah right so how exactly did things unfold to come here to be here and to get settled in with with that new job and then what did you do from there well the unfortunately the business that we bought worked out really well uh we started out on those days in the late 80s didn't have the technology you do today so at that time we rented an office in preston center and really came here right at the bottom of the economy recall we had the crash here in the late 80s mid 80s to late 80s i'm sure was easy
for for families here and so that time you can get office space for for a song compared to what it was later so we're in this high rise in preston center douglas avenue and you know they did everything to get us in there build out everything so so we were very happy with it was ideal for this type of business a perfect location with storage closet so that's that worked out and what did julie do when she came down here she was she's a teacher in milwaukee she was in the public schools in kindergarten and uh here she had opportunity work at the j in
their school and she liked that it was related to kindergarten so i said well that's what you liked and then go and uh and she also wanted to meet people in the jewish community being new new to the area so that was the advantage of working there as well so she did that and she actually started out the north branch i don't know if you remember the north branch school and you know right yeah you know the story of course it's hard to have two j's in one community so then after that she worked at the north haven branch is still there wonderful so how
did your business grow and then how did you change courses at some point well the business grew uh quite a bit we had a good run in it for about eight years uh but after that and i just kind of had various reasons i wanted to make a change so i spent five years working for a home warranty company as a rep for the dallas area so that was good until they they sold the business uh the original owners sold the business and that all changed because the private equity company took it over so they withdrew from texas so my position sadly was eliminated i
liked the job but it was time to move on but we still had the business collectible business as a sideline i still had a lot of inventory so i ramped that up again and then later i got into to working for h r block and i'm still there during tax season as you know i've been there 12 years already so i've kind of had two jobs uh along the way here the last 12 years okay and you're still there that's good yeah i still see yeah i like it yeah where did you and julie where did you buy at home or where were you guys
living at the time and and do you have any children yeah we have a daughter ashley uh we adopted her through jewish family service at that time they they offered that service they don't anymore so that that's how we had ashley and as far as our house we bought a home here in 1991 uh the preston campbell area so and of course at that time fortunately housing probably housing prices were very cheap especially compared to now so so we were happy with the purchase and we wanted to be in the richardson school district that was really the the attraction of it that's a good thing
yeah that's a good one yeah exactly sir i went to redfield which is not far from our house brentfield elementary and park hill across the street and then pierce high school so right so that worked out well we're very happy with the school district what have you and julie been involved in since you've been here in dallas both again either jewishly and or civically yeah i got involved in a uh again with binet breath i got involved in uh he's in a lodge here uh the neighbor athletic or jonathan netanyahu lodge that's how i met stuart originally excuse me yeah he got quite involved in
it too along with several other people and uh you know i was an organization she started out and was kind of holding different offices and current presidents kind of begging me you know he says i got to move on to the district the neighborhood district southeastern district so please take the job at president you you know that's how it is here so i took it for a couple years and it was good experience we had a lot of good programming a lot of sports speakers other speakers so we were very happy with it was a good experience but like a lot of things eventually peaked
out and ended up holding the chapters but not not not after many many years have you uh did you join a synagogue here yeah we originally started out at sheriff israel because before we bought the house we lived in an apartment by walnut hill and central so we joined sheriff originally and that was fine but then we moved up north uh really with rabbi weinberg so to speak because he left sheriff moved up to anche or what's called ancient now and uh so we switched uh she also got closer to what do you think of the hebrew school there was it a good program did
your daughter go there she did she actually went all the way through high school uh taking hebrew school classes uh so she liked yeah i worked out well for okay well you've been here a while both you and julie you've lived here a while so tell us what were your impressions like of dallas when you first got here and how has the city changed since you've been here i have to tell you joe i'm dallas was one of the smartest decisions i've ever made in my life quality life is great here you have no idea how it is up north so living up there it's
a harder life you know so anyway here dallas cosmopolitan city good quality of life low taxes you can't beat it so we've been very happy and a great jewish community so what changes have you seen through the years that you can pinpoint well i mean the city has grown they keep the building building new housing farther north and far the north and the roads followed with it so uh it's clearly a city uh that's it's been growing ever since i've got here i'm sure the population has at least doubled since we moved here that's true did you find think back for a minute did you
really find that the dallas jewish was welcoming to you guys when you first got here oh definitely yeah we had a warm response to cherith they were happy to see us and uh julie got involved you know with with the jcc and uh got to know a lot of people and used to be involved in the cava rap program at the synagogue at sheriff so yeah we found people warm and welcoming yeah you know it's the culture you feel better here the climate's better you know i know if you ever saw that movie water math how grumpy old man where they live in minnesota in
the winter there's something to it you know you just you just feel as good you know it's a satire but there was a lot of truth to it i was in milwaukee in the winter i know what you mean yeah yeah you have to have a good reason to stay there that's pretty sure is there anything you can think of that the jewish community should do nowadays to make people feel welcome when they come here anything we're not doing that should be done not that i know of uh yeah i think a lot of is on the individual moves here to take the initiative and
then once they do it's important to be warm and welcoming and get them involved in the jewish community as much as possible but you know they have to want to do it it's really the first step right that's true okay um who do you think in your lifetime would you consider a role model for you i would say two people come to mind uh i know uh anwar sadat was a little bit on the other side of the arab-israeli conflict but he was a person of great foresight great courage and a man who really wanted peace and he risked his own life to advance that
cause and sadly he was shot for it at the end and then of course historically uh the great winston churchill proved that one one man can make a difference he really single-handedly saved the world and in my view with fdr so wow wonderful those were two great persons [Music] and leave it to you to think of people in history historian really yeah i love history that's great um on a more personal note what are you really really proud of either a work project or something that you've done in your in your lifetime well again i go back to moving to dallas really one of the
sharpest decisions i've ever made it's been a great ride here and uh you know like i say milwaukee i'd kind of peaked out i don't know where i'd be if i'd still be living there honestly what wouldn't have had as good a life really okay is there anything about your family that we have not covered that you'd like to add yeah i mean uh you know my family on my dad's side i mean seven sons orthodox grandparents they took traditions very seriously and i think that's been instilled in me and the idea that you strive to be successful but you also have to give back
and help others too that we're here for a purpose in this world not not just to have fun that's really not what it's all about we're here to do some good leave the world a better place than when we started is that are those traditions and values that you would like to make sure you pass down to your daughter and then do you think she will pass them down it's hard to say you know ashley is your own person uh kind of 50 50 with her but she's still young you know yeah yes that's true yeah what was your favorite jewish tradition when you were
growing up that you really loved and that you do want to continue with well i have good memories of passover seders in milwaukee i guess that's timely right now with passover coming up my grandma and her sister lived together after her husband's died uh used to put on seders like you wouldn't believe they'll make them like that anymore you know it's just uh you know what i'm saying about 30 people all the traditions and yeah just on and on it was really an experience and i have great memories of it that's wonderful well chip i want to thank you but before we end is there
anything else at all that you'd like to add to this interview no i understand i've been attracted to the dallas jewish historical society uh the history aspect of it is very very interesting to me and uh yeah i'm happy to help out the organization any way i can so well thank you and we're happy to have you and i appreciate your time and have a wonderful passover enjoy whatever you do this year you do joe all right thanks a lot bye bye