Dianne Martin
Dianne Martin's family history spans several countries. Her paternal and maternal grandparents were connected to London, though her mother's side traced back to Poland and her father's family had Sephardic roots believed to originate in Spain, with her grandmother's family coming from Amsterdam. Her maternal great-grandfather, a rabbi, left England in the early 1900s and settled in South Africa, working on a horse farm in Bloemfontein, where Dianne's mother was born. Her parents met in Johannesburg. Dianne was born in Pretoria in 1948, and her older sister Sandra, a speech pathologist, remained in South Africa. Because her father died young at age 50, much of the family history was lost, prompting Dianne and her sister to research their roots.
Dianne earned a BA in languages and an honors degree in classics at the University of Cape Town. She taught school and also served as an interpreter and communications officer with the State Department, working during the era of the previous president and Nelson Mandela as apartheid was dismantled. Encouraged by American friends Ray and Bert Brown and a State Department contact, she immigrated to Dallas in 1997. When an expected job fell through, she taught for a year at Solomon Schechter School, then spent a year in Chicago before returning to Dallas. She has taught Latin and English for many years, including at Greenhill, Lakeview Centennial, and Ursuline, and lives in Richardson.
In Dallas, Dianne found a welcoming Jewish community and built lasting friendships that became her extended family, including the Rosenbergs and a beloved friend she described as a mother figure. Her daughter Jody attended Texas A and M, works in fashion, and married into a warm Jewish family in a wedding that drew about 500 guests from around the world. Dianne, who spent time on a kibbutz in Israel after the Six Day War, treasures a Seder plate given to her at her Bat Mitzvah and many mementos from her mother's home. Active in international organizations and student travel programs, she became a United States citizen and reflects on the bittersweet blend of gratitude, opportunity, and longing for family far away.
Full Transcript
here we go okay okay my name is Diane Martin today is October the 13th 2015 and we are here in Richardson Texas very good Diane tell us a little bit about where your family originally came from and why they emigrated to South Africa if you know right my paternal grandparents and my maternal grandparents were all from London however on my mother's side they came from large in Poland and my granny was she was from actually South Africa but my grandfather's grandfather was a rabbi and he left England in the early 1900's came to South Africa worked on a horse farm for a long time in
bloom fantine where my mother was born and he had two other daughters and they moved to Johannesburg when my mother was a little girl she met my father in Johannesburg and he was from a family who actually had lived in London for many many years and strangely enough they all seemed to have known one another even before they immigrated but meet up again in South Africa my mother's maiden name was scolds my father father's name was Martin which is still my name which I'll explain to you my grandparents on my father's side we think and unfortunately my father died very young at the age of
50 he had a heart attack but we think my grandfather San Martin the family originally were from Spain there was Sephardic my grandma then her name was Hannah Martin Hannah cross was her maiden name her family were originally from Amsterdam and she must have moved to London when she was a little girl unfortunately because my father died so young we didn't really know much about the family history and that's kind of being lost but my sister and I have been doing a lot of research I was born in Pretoria and in 1948 my sister was born earlier she's Farias older than I am she actually
has remained on in South Africa her name is Sandra she has reached we grew up in a city called Pretoria and she married and moved to a city called Port Elizabeth and she was there for a number of years she married a douche into a Jewish family her husband was one of a twin and their names were Tolly Michael and uncle toddy Angeles subsequently emigrated and he lives in Denver and they were both doctors and their father was a doctor Michael unfortunately died about 15 years ago but he had remained on in Port Elizabeth he was there forever he never left my sister unfortunately divorced
him moved away and moved to Johannesburg with two of her children were living she still lives there today she's a speech pathologist and she looks very well two of his sons live in Cape Town and they have they run their own business and have done extremely well in Cape Town and her daughter lives in Johannesburg she works for a headhunting company but they're all still there in Johannesburg my mother died in 1991 and I had been to America a number of times to visit on my own and even with my daughter when she was little and growing up we strange enough had met a couple
by the name of Ray and Burt's Brown who were not Jewish but I had met them when I worked as a tour guide because in addition to being a schoolteacher and I qualified at the University of Cape Town of the BA in languages and then went on to do a BA in honors which is not really recognized in America but in Canada in classics but I told him South Africa until the early 1980s I've enjoying the State Department and I worked as an interpreter and a communications officer and worked under declare the previous president and then Nelson Mandela who was became the current president when
apartheid was dismantled Jodie and I visited America a couple of times after my mother died my mother died in 99 she won and thus couple ran Bert Brown lived in Dallas Texas and they encouraged me to come here and through a contact that I've had in the State Department by the name of Helen Giddings who was a state representative I was a offered a job in Dallas ran Bert of course encouraged us I had a cousin living here had emigrated long before me and he lived in Los Angeles where he still lives his name is Keith Levene it was strange coming to Dallas because I
didn't even think that there were Jewish people living in a Texan town tell us you know I thought there were only Cowboys there and strangely through contacts that I had I actually met up with somebody in South African before I live just become and is still one of my dearest friends Halina Lefton I started meeting the Jewish community I met the Jacobson's I met many people who had immigrated long before me in the 70s and the 80s unfortunately when we got here the job that I thought would materialize just didn't happen Helen Giddings literally dumped me she doesn't read he wasn't really interested I you
know I searched I struggled and eventually went to work at Solomon Schechter school I was there for a year and it wasn't a very good fit because I was a high school teacher however and I you know I was fluent in spot languages and it just wasn't for me fortunately through a contact that I had in Chicago was a South African I was able to secure a job and move to Chicago for a year and I worked on the south side and a temple called brought faith city which was a conservative synagogue but my friend's name was Thea Kroc and she tried to sruthi to
keep me there but unfortunately they couldn't sponsor me and that was the big you know big question I had to stay and out of the blue through the contact that I'd had here before I left Dallas I met up with woman called Jean Underwood at Ursuline college at school and she offered me a job teaching part-time Latin and I said I can't believe they teach Latin in Texas however she then called me once someone she said you know into a job fair there's a schooling gardens I said where's God and she said it's on the outskirts of Dallas and they're looking for a full-time Latin
and English teacher and I said oh my goodness I didn't I didn't realize it was that popular and after a year I moved back to Dallas I was rather sad to leave Chicago because I've made a lot of lovely friends and I I enjoyed the culture of Chicago but Dallas was kind of home in a way because the Ray and Bert were here not that they could do anything because they were an elderly couple that they were just very single people and not well they have no connections in the Jewish community and this is where I came back to and my daughter went to school
here she grew up she ended up at the same high school where I've been teaching for 16 years name and forest I actually teach it to schools and I teach at naman one day and because there's such a dire need for a Latin teacher that they can't find in gardens and I'm the program has grown in leaps and bounds I've got over 100 students taking that and now I teach at another school on every alternate day could Lakeview Centennial which is on the outskirts of the Garland area I've been living in Richardson for the last 11 years I have just earned this condo which I
bought and my daughter went to Texas A&M and she has her degree in communications and marketing she's very talented in the field of fashion and she works a lot at the fashion mark downtown and she also goes up to New York very often she's doing a lot of work in that field we're very close she's a very special young lady and three years ago she was very fortunate to meet a wonderful young the matzo ball which she used to organize and convene and his family or should I say the company that his family heads now called Blazers were the sponsors and she met Kyle Stein
wasn't really interested in Italy but they eventually got together and I knew this was it and just before well about a year later they got engaged moved to San Francisco look there for a year and he did some work for gallo she worked for the Men's Wearhouse which is connected to his father and she's now there now back in Dallas they were married at a wonderful wedding last year there were about 500 people and people came from all over the world including my entire family some of whom I hadn't seen for over 20 years I was gonna ask you if any of them had come
to the States there they're still my entire family came you can see them over there my sister's grandchildren couldn't come cause it was during school time she has eight grandchildren and she's got three wonderful children but my cousins came from Australia and my cousin who lives here he moves between Los Angeles in New York he's back from now and so he was here friends who I had known all my life who looked all over the United States and I've connected with in Chicago and in Salt Lake City and even in Canada and all my sisters found me on her husband's side and in people from
Boston they came from literally all over the United States people came from Israel they came from Europe and one of my friends from South Africa couldn't come because it was just too far in too expensive but it was one of the most special times of my life and I can honestly say for as much as I love Dallas and I'm very happy here and I made wonderful friends in the Jewish community people like the Hellas and the Jacobson's and the legends have been incredibly wonderful to me and I had a very special friend by the name of heaven Newberg who's just recently passed away it
was like a mother to me I've known her for eighteen years from the time I arrived here we were as close as daughter and mother my friends have been incredibly wonderful to me but I do miss my family my sister comes quite often because she's able to travel the sons have been here for a few times her daughter came for the first time last year to the wedding and was just amazing to have her here I've only been back once and I'm actually going back next year my sister's one of her grandsons she's got four grandsons four granddaughters and they're very entrenched in Jewish life
there they will go to Jewish day schools her grandson who I'm very close to his having his Bar Mitzvah and I'm going in August 2016 God willing what I'm gonna ask you a question about that what if anything besides family and friends what type of culture customs etc do you possibly miss about South Africa if anything I miss the warmth of the Jewish community there was a much stronger bond between all of us and the traditions were very much the same but people were maybe just because I've grown up with most of them but people were very caring of you you never sat alone on
an on a show but you never you would just never alone and you could always pop in and visit people on a Sunday afternoon which I find it's a little bit different here I want you to just mention one other family that will really what have really been wonderful to me since I've been here I've only known them since I returned to Dallas in 2000 because I arrived here in 1997 winter Chicago came back a family by the name of Rosenberg Shelley and Rockley Rosenberg they are also like home from home but it's different because I'm not Orthodox but I do spend a lot of
time of them I've just been at their my son's Bar Mitzvah I've been with them for all their sinkers but the thing about South Africa that Armas is just the closeness I was community which America doesn't have have you gotten involved in Dallas specifically in any other things in the Jewish community per se well I did join hurt us at one stage with Helen and I went to a number of meetings I used to go to a lot of Jewish singles organized you know things that they organized and I've kind of stopped doing that I don't know why you know I do the shower tour
now which I'm doing with people family by the name of Louie I think because I'm on my own and sometimes a little bit difficult to get involved because I see especially with my daughter's felony the stands it always seems to be couples and couples involved so no not really but I've become very involved in international organizations I'm a member of the world council of international affairs and I've joined an organization called DFW International I love different cultures and different nationalities and I think that's been a part of me that's kind of you know I've enjoyed here I've also now in the last five years and
it took me a long time to get my green card in my citizenship it took me eight years to get our green card simply because heaven getting's pick me up and then she dropped me and then I was sponsored and REE sponsored but after eight years in 2008 we got our green cards through a lot of child and tribulation and losing papers and going through hours and lots of expense and then we simply had to wait five years later I got my citizenship in what two years ago two and a half years ago my daughter didn't get us initially because I told her to wait
because she was engaged at that stage and she got your citizenship at the beginning of the series ready Stan or does Jody Martin so we are now fully fledged American citizens but it took us all together 13 years I've also now part of my teaching got very involved with a company called EF tours and from the time I had my green card I've been taking students to Europe every summer and I've done three trips to Italy to grease on a trip to London and this year coming year I'm taking a group to London Paris and Barcelona and in 2017 a group to Cuba and I
really enjoyed that part of living here because I know to be in South Africa I could never have afforded to do it students were too far away to take trips of that nature and the cost of living now and the economy is so bad down there and that's one of the reasons I would never go back as much as I miss my friends that it's just it affordable to travel for most people who don't have a lot of money of their disposal I'm glad to hear that at least yes but I do miss my family and my sister and I are very close and we
share a lot about our parents because you know there were things that I really remember so much about my grandparents my granny you know making fish on a Friday and matzo ball soup and my mother doing the same and you miss those things that you remember about growing up although it's the same but different I think Jews the world over are kind of United in that we have the culture that keeps us together even though we come from different countries do you see your daughter Joanie carrying on some of the culture and customs that you had in South Africa that you've brought over here with
you oh yes and in fact even though we were we've always Jews first never South Africans where I think here you were you are first Americans and then Jews I don't know but I get that impression that people are much more patriotic care about being American we weren't that patriotic particularly as we lived under government than you know we knew couldn't last and be now the government that is just so corrupt and that we don't identify with at all it's made Jews in South Africa more and more conscious of being Jewish and more isolated in fact you know Jews have become much more religious and
much more aware of Judaism than they ever were before and I see so many of my friends who've become Orthodox that were not at all that way in client I think assumes that you'll keep going will be the traditions if we kept Rosh Hashanah Yom Kippur you know those are things that you've just had in your home so say to the Pesach Seder but she will sense a lot of South African traditions that she won't let go which I've forgotten about you know things that we used to cook and things that we said and things that we did that was typically South African I seem
to have lost those although I still remember them it doesn't really it's not that important to me anymore because I've tried to immerse myself tightly in being an American tell us about the seed or that's in your lap there well what I can say is I was given giving it at my Bat Mitzvah and I don't you may know correctly we can say yes lemon tiny yeah I don't remember much more about it but I've had it ever since I was 12 so it's become a little bit tarnished and I lived in Australia for a year and a half I went to astrologist after the
Six Day War I was kind of very enthusiastic about going and my mother thought I was crazy to leave home and I spent two yeren happiness John I was on an opening karmiel which now is a huge town it was a tiny little sniffle in those days I met a young Czechoslovakian man from a very Orthodox home and we were planning to get married and my mother came over and brought me homes as though they don't good she just said that she doesn't think it would work and I think in a way now maybe it wouldn't so funny enough he lives now in Crown Heights
and is in a very Orthodox community in New York well design is important growing up with your family yes it was but not to the point that everybody wanted to go to Israel but you were always very aware of being Jewish and very aware of the situation in Israel and it's still the same now you know we relate to one another very easily about how we feel here and how they feel there particularly in view of the terrible events that are going on now and it was the same last year they had huge rallies just as we did in fact massive rallies for you know
the safety of Israel with the suggestion in Gaza so I think that Jews no matter where you are we have that spark that keeps us alive and yes I'm you know I miss my family terribly I think as I get older it's harder I see my daughter much more involved with her new American family and I haven't brother alone but I have good friends here and I have a cousin who I see at least twice a year although he's all over the country but you know we are very talk almost every day on the phone and now with Skype and vonage and I can talk
to my family every week but I do miss them I do miss then it's a long way from home it is overall just to sum up tell us are you glad you here and if so why it's a hard question because there are times that I say yes I am glad there are times when I feel I'm sad that I have to leave everybody that was so close to me but I think the opportunities that have been afforded to me and the cost of living and the way of life is a lot more affordable here I don't know if it could have been so in
other cities because probably if I'd gotten to New York I would have struggled I've just been come back from Seattle and I found that very very expensive but I think generally I do have a better quality of life here and a safer quality of life I was attacked and learned a couple of times in South Africa and I lived in a home on my own on a property where at the end I had all sorts of safeguards a wall that was six foot high barbed wire around the circumference of the property you know burglar proofing you name it alarms because we were always so nervous
about going anywhere and I was I was attacked a number of times so yes from that point I'm very happy to be I'm also very very glad that I folded my daughter the opportunity because eh I don't think she would have had the education Roger do you know she didn't go to a private school but she did go to one of the best universities I think in America Texas A&M which was a State University and she's married into a wonderful the only that I don't think she'd have had the opportunity to meet if she lived in South Africa so yes I think you know as
many Jews coming to a new country luck they probably did way back when when I came from Russia we came for the sake of our children and even though I had one child and I am a single parent and I've been on my own most of my daughter's life and I won't go into those details because he wasn't Jewish she was a Catholic from from from Italy and wasn't very firmly conscious but well though we are still in touch with the family I think from the point of view of giving my daughter a better future yes and you know there still are lots of memorabilia
that I have brought with me that are not typically Jewish my mother's chair that she actually that was her tapestry chair which a lot of her furniture I still have pictures of my parents and my family all around the house I have a lot of mementos that my mother had in her home so I've brought virtually whatever I could that reminds me of home but it's here I'm a different continent and I hope the journey will continue you'll keep these things I don't think she'll let them go and that that will be given to her children as a link to where we came from my
legacy is certainly very important it is and we did have a very rich legacy in South Africa I thank you very much Diana wonderful in a million for terrific needed appreciated thank you I do get sometimes squatch emotional because all right when I saw my family last year and all here they all flew in on the that week and they were all coming in and drips and drabs and then sister said she was down at the hotel where the wedding was well everything was taken then she said hurry up get into the hotel and I walked in and that everybody will say I just burst
out crying it's bittersweet but it's a wonder it is bittersweet and I think you talk to everybody who comes here and they've got their entire family they'll tell you but they've had to make a new family in the United States and these people that I've mentioned they're all my family I think you'll find that that's not unique many people came with just a few people or no one just a little one clothes on their back and their spouse maybe and that was it we kind of choose suitcases and yeah I shipped a lot of stuff but at least you know this is hard yeah yeah
and my daughter little stab you're not used to know I'm so going my daughter lives down in Preston Hollow mm-hmm and she has a magnificent time which is very different from the way I know but yes I'm very glad that she's got that laughs and it's gonna be a good laugh for that I think he's into a very good family so I'm here and wherever that bury me I'll probably be buried here you know that will be where my remains will be but my my family and everybody is still way back there okay