Corinne Tycher
Corinne was born in Chicago before the Depression into a large, close-knit family. Her grandfather, Max Feldman, a furrier, moved to Dallas in 1930 with some of his five sons, and gradually the whole family followed. Corinne, her mother, and her younger sister came in 1935. The family worked in womens ready-to-wear and furs, opening the Parisian Fur Company on Bryan Street across from the Southwestern Bell telephone exchange, and later operating several dress shops in Dallas, Oak Cliff, and Corpus Christi. Her mother, known as Miss Rose, and her father, Mr. Dave, were beloved by their customers. Her mother had survived leaving Europe as a young woman and later reunited with a sister and other relatives after the Holocaust.
Corinne grew up in South Dallas, attending Brown School, where she was editor of the school paper, and Forest Avenue High School, where she edited the Forest Echo and interviewed vice presidential candidate Barkley at the Baker Hotel. With the family later moving to University Park, she attended SMU as a journalism major. In 1946 she met Fred Tycher, a good-looking young serviceman connected to her uncle through their shared Chicago roots. After a courtship carried on largely by letter while Fred served in the Army of occupation in Japan, they became engaged and married in Dallas on December 23, 1947. The couple lived briefly in Fort Worth, then moved to Amarillo, where Fred ran the Lucille Style Shop, and returned to Dallas when their eldest daughter, Linda, was three.
In Dallas, Fred moved away from retail and into real estate and construction, drawing on his fathers background in Chicago property. He traveled as a salesman for a New York dress line to support the family while getting started, then built and leased apartment buildings, including many near the Jewish Community Center. Known for quality work and the philosophy of doing whatever you do well, he became a successful builder. Corinne and Fred raised three children, Linda, Michelle, and Marshall, and passed on values of hard work, learning, and generosity. The family's commitment to the Dallas Jewish community is reflected in the Tycher Library and, through their son, a synagogue library in New Jersey.
Full Transcript
good afternoon this is Karen tier and I am Pauline graier I am a volunteer with the Dallas Jewish historical society and this is September the 23rd 2013 and Karen would you tell us and share with us uh something about coming to Dallas or or if you want about your life before you came to Dallas give us a short background well I'm going to give you a quick depression background I was born prior to the depression but was a small child in Chicago and my grandfather who had a great deal of spirit in him the father of five Sons decided to come to Dallas in 1930
with one son two sons and that is how I got to Dallas and what was his name his name was Max Felman Feldman f e l d m an and brothers uh Dave Morris Lou Harry Dave Morris Lou Harry Sam and did they all come to Dallas came but gradually two came at the time when my grandfather came we didn't my father did not come so I stayed in Chicago until 1935 when we came to Dallas we lived most of it in South Dallas my elementary school was right across the street from where we live cuz my mother did not drive and where was that
Brown School on Park R off of Oakland and uh that was my that's I graduated if you will from that school I was also by the way the editor which began my journalistic career of the brown news and uh my sister who was just a year younger of course was with us when we came and then the state fair was in 1936 and I just thought that that was the most wonderful thing I had ever seen well you were walking distance down to the fairgrounds exctly exactly and uh I stayed at Brown as I say until I graduated by 1938 all of the sons the
other two also made their way to Dallas with one of them going to Fort Worth four of them lived in Dallas it sounds like you were part of a very close family close family the brothers are very close and they were in the women's ready to wear was the family occupation and in fact the store that my mother had in Chicago was called the Corine Style Shop anyway all the brothers finally came here in by 1938 they were all here and the family my grandfather was a fer and so he opened Parisian Fur Company it was on Brian Street and has right across from the
telephone exchange Southwestern Bell which of course that was not automated in those days and there were literally thousands of women that worked there so that's why they decided to open right across the street and so it was Parisian Fur Company my father was not a fer there was only one son that followed that was a fer also but there were other things to do and uh but they all the other ones opened up the women's clothing store because that's what they knew my uncle in Fort Worth and uh Harry eventually the younger one and so I graduated Brown and of course in those days it
was only one high school to go to Forest I went to Forest and spent my four years at Forest in the meantime my parents had bought several small dress shops all of bont Corpus Christie so they had a small chain not very big and not a high Finance but that's what they had they had several stores in Dallas they bought a store in Oak Cliff called Pon and hence came the name Parisian pons because perisian the name had been here much much longer and they didn't want to totally give it up the war came impossible to get men to sell furs so my mother not
that she sold first particularly but she went went to work and that was the first time that my mother since she had the little shop in Chicago where we used to be in the buggy uh worked away from home and uh they couldn't get Furs during the Warriors so they began to carry dresses and then they began to have men's clothing I in the meantime have graduated high school pretty good student not the best I also was editor of the forest Echo because as I say I had decided that my life's work would be in journalism I was the only High School press that interviewed
Barkley when he was running for vice president I was the only as I was in high school and it was at the Baker Hotel and here are all these people from the main newspapers and magazines and there I was I had three questions prepared to ask and he patted me on the head Mr Barkley and he liked my questions and I told him I was interested in journalism and that was my first really decision of what I wanted to do with the rest of my life but of course I graduated high school the war was on 1944 the war was on and there really wasn't
much of anything including men I went to the Jewish the center had a Uso Branch Jewish Branch so I met some fellas but other than that there was not a whole lot of social life I had planned to go to the University of Missouri that is the finest still is today the finest undergraduate program in journalism but with no fellas anywhere no social life anywhere I decided I best stay home so I started SMU as a major in journalism at that time journalism was very much mistreated as SMU we were in the basement of McFarland Auditorium terrible and uh and then they had a B12
program there and I met a you know a cute guy and so I had some social life when I was at SMU then one day I get a call this is in [Music] 1946 I get a call and the young voice says this is sory tier I says yes it is he says well my dad knows your uncle and that's how friend and I met so from Chicago it was a Chicago Connection exactly he knew my uncle and this Uncle had two boys never had I was the you know they had Sons most of the brother were very few girls in the family and I
was the oldest and my Uncle Lou Who doed on me and Fred saw my picture on his piano one of the very glamorous you know the kind over the shoulder and he said who is that and my uncle says that's my niece I will introduce you and she'll introduce you to all the young people you know in the community he was coming to live in Dallas no he was in the Army in the Army he was in Paris Texas okay it was a temporary the wartime base and um he couldn't get a room in a hotel one weekend coming in and he says to this
non-jewish young man he was with I mean Fred related this to me later he said you know he says I have a card that my dad gave me he said there's some fellow living in Dallas that my dad said if you ever need anything I should call him and that was my uncle L and so he called him and that's how he saw my picture and you know we dated but just a few months because he was sent to the Army of occupation in Japan and uh we corresponded but not much and uh but he was so goodlooking six one and a half just really
really good-looking man and I've always liked tall men so I thought wow this it's really something special but time passed and the same he came home from the service and invited me to come to Chicago well in those days single girls didn't go to visit fellas today it would be considered nothing but in those days so my parents said no you can't go and the following summer my uncle same uncle says to me you know he he still had family in Chicago he says I'm going up to Chicago you want to come with us and you can see the young man again so I thought
wow so I said sure it's great so anyway I did and we spent two weeks together not together together as today I stayed in the hotel with my uncle and um came home with already this is 1946 came home already with a very really heartfelt feeling for Fred and he likewise I mean we just happened to hit it off and so he came to Dallas in August we were there in June and spent some time together and he asked he had a ring in a box and I opened the box and it was a huge Stone from the dime store course he didn't have much
money by then you know with the Army and everything but you know he we went through the whole parody of oh it's so gorgeous and he was on his knee and as I say it was a din story but in a velvet box I might and so this was uh 407 already and um he went back to Chicago and you know I still have stacks of letters to this day that we wrote each other in the interum two months and and uh we were engaged on November of 1947 at an legation party at the stonely hotel and December because Fred's brother was still in college
and so we had to get married at a time where he was at fall break and uh so we were married December 23rd 1947 in Dallas Texas Fred was had not turned 21 yet January he would have been 21 I my birthday being in December was of course Fred's dad had to sign because in those days the male had to be 21 to get a marriage license of course later it went down to 18 I think but it didn't then and of course Fred's dad throughout his life always teased me if it wouldn't have been for my signature you couldn't have married Fred that's pretty
young even for those days to have a man that young and and as I say he turned 21 so we're we 11 months apart Fred and I so we're technically born the same year and uh he chose I would have you know gone to Chicago his father had had owned some apartment buildings so real estate was not you know not unknown to Fred he said he swept many upstairs when the snow fell uh for his father in the apartments that his that on anyway and but he said he'd rather be a start out as a small fish you know in a bigger Pond but not
too big and he felt Chicago was not a place for him to start let me ask you what did Fred do after after he came home from Japan he went to college where was that in Chicago okay and one of the things that bothered Fred was that men were already I mean men and then now he was still very young as you can see and uh he felt left behind you know that other men had already were men and had already begun their life's work cuz not everybody went to college in those days and but he did go he went for a year but it
bothered him later in life that he didn't finish college and consequently he was an Avid Reader and I think part of the reason that he liked biographies and things like that because it was the real world and he could learn through Reading he had a better vocabulary than I did with my college because it was that import important to him and my kids knew it so it became important to everybody so he after we got married in December the following year 1948 we moved to Amaral Texas because my parents had had as I said before had opened up stores and there was a store that
they had opened up in Emerald so we went no children um and you know no family no anybody we didn't know a soul in Amil and U but we went Fred went first and I in the meantime was working I was a legal stenographer not knowing much but I could type and I went to the library to study the Shand that had legal I knew regular short so I worked for a Jewish uncle and nephew in Fort Worth uh cuz we were living in Fort Worth at the time and the the one I worked for uh who just started this practice with his uncle his
uncle was not happy that I was from Dallas because they had a lot of clients I can remember the uncle at leury but reminding me like they say today what happens in Nevada and state or whatever they say and it was the same thing of his he was a lovely man the one I worked and he was very patient because he didn't know as far as verbiage it's much more than I did and so I worked there for nine months and didn't get pregnant at the end of 9 month but I told my husband I told S I can't leave he left in February I
said I can't I'm going to stay until I give Apple notice and until you get us settled in am to me that was the end of the world and uh so he did he came back picked me up and we had a apartment near TCU in Fort Worth and you know very small with the walls so thin because it was built prior to the end of the war and we had a wonderful Neighbor Next Door Willie who worked for the Fort Worth newspaper and whenever we wanted to talk to each other we would just knock on the wall you know and that man come over
cuz it was paper thin but that was our first apartment I still have the key to that apartment I might at and then we moved to am where we knew no one and it was he hadn't found us a place to live CU he had been busy so we lived in a hotel have you ever tried doing wash in a hotel sink not good and we lived in the hotel for uh several months while we looked for up the house and Fred with this GI Bill we were able to afford I might add because money was scarce Fred had made you know know nothing in
the service and of course was trying to be in school when he got out so he had little nothing and uh funny as side he had a cousin that was in the diamond Market in Chicago and I knew Fred well enough he calls me before he selects the ring cuz he's going to get it wholesale and he says you have a choice he tells me on the phone you can have a larger this was was Fred's philosophy period you can have a larger Stone but it has a flaw deep inside but it's big or you can have right under a carrot stove perfect a perfect
blue white down and I knew Fred well enough and I said oh of course the perfect Stone and that was F's philosophy what you do you do well what you have and you know that showed Fred to me early early in our marriage what a wonderful philosophy he continued that literally all his life you know in everything or anything he did and as I say my kids were fortunate that's all they saw was you know in anything they did and anyway Linda was born in amarill she's not too happy she she say she was born in Texas when someone asked her I said Linda amarill
was a nice little town no she doesn't want to tell anybody she was born am and when Linda was three we came back to Dallas and and now what was Fred doing in amarill amarill he was running what he ramed which was one of my H the Lucille which was his mother's name the Lucille Style Shop okay it was an existing store that had been there since the 30s and there were sales people that were old as old as Fred's grandmother you know what I'm saying cuz he was very young he was very young so we lived there four years you know made friends and
you know had a nice wonderful life I had remember we only had one car and that but I only had help in the house only a half day one time a week so it really worked out so we moved back and then um I was pregnant with Michelle second daughter uh on and the he said the doctor said don't fly I'd rather you take the train and so I took the train I came we came to Dallas in October and he had recommended a friend of his from medical school that was was practicing in Dallas uh I called him and said I'm sending you you
know a patient and Michelle was born four weeks later so um you know that was but by then I had made contact with a lot of old friends and were your mother and father still living mother oh yeah mother and father were still here are living and uh you know I had a lot of old friends since I went to SMU and Forest and you know my life was actually spent in Dallas most of my life sure the others were little sojourns into you know other places but you know Dallas was my home my mother says when they came in 1935 the population of Dallas
was 180,000 people so to her it was a small town compared to Chicago but in later years as Dallas got bigger and B bigger my mother always used to say well it's really caught up with me I'm living in a big city again so but they they love Dallas and they had lots of friends and uh did your mother ever work only during the time of the war my mother played ma which is very popular today she wrote a bicycle for exercise and um so she oh only uh but she still you know once you get in the habit of working and we grew up
uh she still worked she enjoyed it they called her Miss Rose MH and they called my father Mr Dave never called her by their last names and they were little people my mother was 410 and a half and my father was like 5'3 so they were little loving people and all the customers loved them and so you know they enjoyed uh my father had no Hobbies he worked until he died and my mother other than you know raising kids and cooking and as I say playing Ma and she had they had no Hobbies did they remain in Dallas I mean in South Dallas they moved
when I was in my it must have been my oh let's say my junior year in uh uh in high school at Forest I you know met people and I have to say some of it was vanity I admit you know if someone really asked me the question because I didn't want to live in South Dallas anymore my uncle my benevent uncle the one that fixed everything for me he had moved to University Park and my folks had never owned and we always lived in apartments and when he moved to University Park it kind of you know churned and I thought my parents should live
in University Park too so I began to know I you know was able to make my point even at a young age you know vly almost but not V but I mean I I convinced my parents that we too should move to University Park and so one time we went to look and I can remember so clearly University Park and there was no Colgate there were University Park ended practically like a Southwestern open land Beyond going north really and I can remember my dad was upset I I I I'm nervous about this and I say why he says because because if I'm busy at night
three women I leave and you're facing the country he says I don't like that he says we have to look somewhere else so we did we went South in University Park and bought a house on Hanover on Hanover on Hanover was way Highland Park no Hanover is University Purdue you know all the universities the streets are named after University and and so um by the time I was I never went to Holland par cuz I didn't want to transfer because you know I was by the time we got the house I a senior Wonder sure and so I finished at uh forest and then uh
um you know there was never had anything to do with the schools in University par sure and then of course and But the irony of things my mother uh lost her hope I mean she thought at the time early that she lost her whole family she had a grandmother in the Holocaust she had a grandmother and a grandfather and she had two younger brothers they sent my mother away my mother came via Cuba and she was 18 because things the Russians were bothering them the kazaks would cross over into Poland my mother was cute little thing and she sang beautifully in fact in Chicago she
sang on the Jewish hour so she had a lovely voice and they would she relates to me that they would you know put her on the table and make and make her sing anyway her parents were very concerned but she couldn't get into the United States where there were relatives but anyway they a they were able to bring her into the United States but it was and my mother was really because she remembered several of me because she left when she was so young that um the two younger brothers she hardly remembered they were children I mean little children and so lo and behold she
gets communication from the Red Cross from the Red Cross Red Cross from the displaced person's camp in I think it was in Germany she has a sister and the sister has a child little girl and she lost her husband was in the Polish Army never returned her sister and and but she had married someone she met in the camp who saved her life because she had she had all kinds of things he wouldn't have sto literally stolen food for her healthy food because the rations that they gave you know I don't know what she had that was very bad whatever and so she married him
and of course my mother was you know beside herself and you know sent for her we were in univers Park and because we were in University Park her niece had a wonderful schooling in high school because she went to l oh so let me see if I've got that the Red Cross tells her that she's got a sister who's in a displaced person's camp in Germany and she has let me tell you what the sister had done which was remarkable my mother had dark hair uh you know dark not real dark but sure he not light like my father or like I had and this
sister looked like a typical polock she had a very broad face had blue eyes and was a blonde no Jews were blondes and so she had the guts to take this child who at that time was probably seven or 8 years old is that old and went to Russia on the trains walking on the trains cuz she had no papers and she spent a great part of the war toward the end in Odessa in a in Odessa in Odessa really War is Over 1945 she begins her long treack not so long back she wants to see what's happened she's been gone no trace of any
of the family none and Gentiles living in the house and where was that that this was in um kelik which was a fairly good size uh uh Jewish Town yes and and uh in fact they later much later someone published a directory of the Jews from CU they notified my mother did she want one and it listed where they lived and what happened to them the best that they could find anyway so the war is still on I'm backtracking the war is still on she knew of one brother who lived in Poland who was a communist he survived with his wife who was not Jewish
she never knew if they had children uh until much later but one brother who was an attorney now to be an attorney in France or anywhere is a very not like so much attorneys we have here and he lived in Paris went to school in Belgium and so when the war came you know belgi later did have problem but not when he was there so he finished his education and then went to Paris opened an office which in those days you open an office you have an apartment and that's where your office is and this is early in the war and he knows what's coming
Hitler is marching across Europe and he finds my mother and maybe they had corresponded before I don't remember and he says could she he wants to go into Spain and has to cross what the Pyrenees Mountains without any papers he will do it at night he was you know fairly young but could she send him money he didn't have any money and of course she did and the next thing she heard from him he had indeed crossed the Pyrenees and was in Spain and then of course in Spain happened the Civil War so he really needed to get out of Spain and again my mother
sent him money and he got to England where he worked he taught English law at a English University if you can imagine that's how bright he was was extremely bright and he also did some work with the Polish underground which we never knew too much about he came to the United States once when we lived in Amarillo and Linda was a baby and uh you know my mother says why don't you she remembers that he had a wife and several children but he never talked about them so she never asked asked she never asked because she doesn't know what happened to them and he's not
forthcoming with that information she's not going to ask what a story so anyway he came to the United States once he says I couldn't live here and the thing the climax had bother you know ARA was not so big and we're walking in the street and in a barber shop in a barber shop window low at the bottom bot of the window is a sign that reads so and so and so and so attorney at law evidently the Barber's son had gotten a law degree and in those days you know he didn't have the money so he practic used his father's barber shop and this
unle was just he said what kind what kind of law do you have here but anyway so he never came back never came back died in in in Paris never came whether he remarried or anything he never said and uh now the brother in uh Poland is alive and has a daughter going through my mother's correspondence when she passed away was a card from this brother in Poland to my mother saying that uh his daughter will be going to college in Paris and does she get to par anyway she said had we known earlier I could have at a time you know seen her in
parent didn't know until we went through my mother's mail and had the address at that time where she was living in Paris and uh of course those addresses are not worth anything now we also found out reading my mother's mail that a branch of the family couldn't get into the United States either and ended up in Buenos Iris could we go back to the story you were telling me about the sister who had the child she looked like a a shix is what she looked like she looked you know she didn't look Jewish at all and she went back to the town went back to
the town nothing M nothing's there and she really you know here she has his child uh you know and she's been she had no place to go so what did she do she went to they you know they had places to help displac people um you know and what happened to her well my mother brought her to the United States see and the daughter went to Highland par was of high school age uhhuh and the interesting thing how you can work things out with families a brother Mory was in the Army he never married but the GI bill allowed so much money to buy housing
after you left the Army like we bought our first house sure and when she came to back to came to the United States my aunt uh with her relatively new husband and child a young lady I should say he's my uncle was very giving and he said to my mother he says you know he says I can buy a house because I not using and so he bought them a little really Cottage um in East Dallas off of Easton uh pretty far from where we were but it was a cute little house and the money he had paid for most all of it and uh
I think later years he deed it to them as a gift and so they lived well he worked for my grandparents were gone by then but he worked in the store so we had a job reine reine that was her name I just lost my friend reine but she didn't have to work had this you know nice little house and my mother was very pleased and so she when she passed away our relationship with Sam her husband was maintain the same you know we helped him and and he you know I think he joined the center and you know met a few ladies you know
that type of thing but uh the family uh now my father's parents were here in the United States I don't know exactly when they came U it was because of them that we actually ended up in Dallas um I don't know when they came uh came to Dallas I think they were about in their 60s and lived in Chicago but I don't know exactly when they came uh my father had no other living relatives uh except you know the brothers and uh and of the five brothers three of them were born in Poland only two were born in the United States so it must have
been at a time before Hitler you know what I'm saying that they came to be my father that they came to the United States um because I don't think they went through Holocaust I think my dad lost other relatives but I I I have a feeling he lost other relatives in the Holocaust and but I have a feeling that my grandmother and grandfather came maybe in the late 30s before things got when they could still leave yes they had a sponsor in Chicago and so that's where they went so Chicago is very much in your background absolutely okay very much in other words uh it's
a family background if you will in fact Linda my daughter who's a landscape architect had a young man inter interning One Summer know one whole semester with her from Texas A&M who now has a program and his hobby really nice young man his Hobby was you know looking up and he was young so I don't know who unless there was someone in his background way back in the United States anyway he mentioned to Linda something and she went Bonkers as they say because she asked him could he begin to look up you know on all these you know on television today there's so many you
can't look up well he looked up you know how they got I'm sure in there is the time which I don't remember uh he looked up everything and you know you can find everything what street Fred and I both being born in Chicago and so close and age we'd live two blocks from each other when we were children you know he found out incredible that's amazing we probably passed each other in Karen uh tell us a little bit about now you and Fred came back to Dallas right how did Fred get into the construction business Fred's father as I say always owned property in Chicago
never built anything but bought existing the war gave him money as it did a lot of people on contracts that he had and he believed in real estate for Dad so whenever he got you know quote ahead of the game he would buy you know an apartment building or this or that so it was in Fred's je not jeans but it was in Fred's background when Fred came to Dallas he decided he didn't want to do ready to wear in stores he really didn't cuz his saying was took all your time and it took all your money because you know it was a six day
a week you know especially in in the beginning and you always had so much money tied up in accounts receivable and in inventory and you worked really hard and he said you know I don't like it I don't like it and he you know and he said literally to himself and to me and you know he says I I I want to do something in real estate he says but I want to build so in the metime we needed money so he got out of business with my parents and he had invested already took his little bit of money out but not enough for by
then Marshall had been born so I had three children you know one five one3 and one born and he says I've got to do something to make a living so he decided to travel on the road with dressings because he was a little more in control of his time than if he had a retail situation so he had never traveled like that and he says I can still see it he says you know one of the best lines that I carried in Amarillo was a junior dresses by Jerel of New York he says I'm going to New York he says I know the merchandise you
know he says emiry they never had a Salesman on the road ever if you bought your rail you went to New York so but FR is is good stuff it it would go well in the southwest because it's really you know what's what's showing they always have so sure enough he went to New York and met the son first and you know Fred was a smooth talker and he knew what he wanted and he said talked him into I'll be a Salesman and I'll have Texas Oklahoma and Arkansas and I will attend the shows as well as traveling now you know Dallas had a lot
of shows and he says and then so they brought the father in and the father agreed so when left he was the first sales person for Jerel uh and uh but he could control his time a lot different than retail a lot different than opening and closing of retail and he did very well uh he didn't know customers you know but he would pick out you know nice stores that sold to young young girls and uh he did very well some of his accounts uh even flew into Market because so they could actually see the full line so he did very well and uh in
the meantime he went to New York to the big Market which was always in January he went to New York twice a year and met you know some of his people there uh all always checked the books to be sure he was getting the right amount from his percentage and uh and he would begin to take a Friday off first of all CH 17 weeks a year which leaves lots of time and then he began to take a Friday off later on maybe in Monday off but he still continued to show he still continued to travel didn't have a contract it was just a handshake
and he you know would travel some but it became you know 15 weeks but he never took weeks off you know he would take days maybe that start out on the Monday you know so he finally worked it uh to where he built his first apartment which was behind the wall and now his father buil some homes before the apartments and Fred didn't do much in that building but he helped his father and his father built all in North Dallas all north of Royal a so uh kept his father he he loved it and Fred hooked up his father with a young a young uh
Gentile who owned a lumber yard and was friended was still traveling you know and his dad had a heart attack so he needed to make arrangements to where his dad didn't have the full load and so this nice young man he been you know put together a partnership and uh it worked out very well and that went on for several years and then as I say fredd gradually just gradually uh as I say he kind of helped his dad with the few homes that he built and then actually before he built behind the wall North Haven opened well you see all the apartments today near
the center and his father was very concerned he said that Fred is too far out this is a long time ago did not have transportation and he say it's too far out I don't think but Fred was determined he said no I'm going to buy a lot and I'm going to build they didn't know that much about building either the actual you know but he says I'm going to do that and that's what he did and his father was you know really very concerned and those are the apartments that literally face the center but the center was very small then wasn't this beautiful thing we
have today and Fred eventually built all of those apartments you build all of them they're still goodlook they're one but that's what I'm saying his thing was you build you build the best and Fred closets were that's why they're still there most of them condos now and he knew what people wanted want closets they want beautiful kitchens I mean he knew and that's what he did and he did his first one and it rented and then he just bought up that whole you know all of them and they weren't big you know 12 Apartments I think was uh 24 at the very end was the
biggest that he ever built so they were small two story he had uh but he sat every Saturday every Sunday leasing them he says they have such an easy time he says you know they hire companies and the last one he did have a live in that was the most rant and he had a livein manager but other than that you know they were too small for managers I mean you know they so Fred you know and his dad too for that matter but his dad they had to be very careful because he always told it like it is because he always always friend dad
as he got older he and not well he was very crotchety so Fred did not encourage him to sit to lease because he would say things like we had a tenant come up a man and was on a Sunday his father was there and he says to Fred you know there's something wrong with the washing machines you know he complained about the washing you know the building that had the washing machine and my father looked at me he says what is a man like you doing a wash anyway that's the woman I mean so my father so Fred did not encourage uh his father to
sit on the job because he can say things said but Fred sat he's sat today young people wouldn't sit but he sat and you know show departments and you know really worked really worked hard and then he had a cousin that lived in Chicago by and she was married to an old good Jewish man which was rare in those days he really was not nice to her but she had a son that was about seven years old and Fred for his cousin was very unhappy because she was so and the cousin's father was very close to Fred's father so they decided that Vines to leave
Chicago and Fred was going to give her a job to manage one of the apartment buildings she couldn't drive she can do anything to be honest and so Fred told her to come down she had no money and they lived with us with the little boy for about very was con instructing and they lived with us let's say I don't know 6 months and the little boy who lives here now who is not a little boy obviously who has grown sons and he's a grandfather uh he came I'll never forget this he came when they lived when when they lived with us and he had
on a you know a button shirt shirt you know t-shirt like button Immaculate pants shoes not regular shoes and socks that drove F Grace so he said to th he said I said I'm going to tell your son and I'll find the right clothes to get in the yard and get dirty and of course he today came in a cab and is married to Rabbi Cent daughter has two fabulous sons who are both married anyway so her life totally changed she remarried and just died recently I love that story that you just said about Fred telling this this boy to get out and to get
dirty because that represents so much I think Fred's philosophy of getting dirty do the work work hard take responsibility don't just stand there all dressed up and sure enough you know he was quite remarkable you know Karen I could talk to you and you are a fabulous interviewee we have gone almost an hour and and I mean obviously you have so many stories I think we should end on this okay and I would tell you that it has been a delight because what you have told us is a so we have four or five generations now of the tiers it's just remarkable It's a Wonderful
It's a Wonderful Dallas Jewish story and it's so and Dallas has been so great that's why you have a tier library and that's why we've always in my son in New Jersey totally did also a library in the synagogue uh in where he belongs so you know it goes down to it really does cuz that's how my kids were raised and that is your legacy and hopefully fabulous but it is already thank you so much and thank you for giving me the time to reminisce wonderful