September 20, 2005

Don Fielding

Don Fielding's family history in Texas ran deep. His paternal grandfather, whose family name was Finkelstein, came from Poland, possibly by way of the Warsaw Ghetto, and settled first in New York City around the 1880s working as a tailor. His father, Nathan, was born in New York in 1898, and the family moved to Dallas around 1901. His maternal great-grandfather, Messeroff, left a small farming village in Russia after repeated Cossack raids and arrived in the Galveston and Houston area not long after the Civil War. Don's mother, Bessie, was born in Sugar Land in 1898. His mother, who had gone through high school and was very bright, taught Don and his older brother Paul to read and write before kindergarten, instilling in Don a lifelong intellectual curiosity.

Don grew up in South Dallas in the largely Jewish neighborhood around South Boulevard, Park Row, and Grand Avenue, near Temple Emanu-El, where Rabbi David Lefkowitz served. He recalled both the warmth of that community and the antisemitism of the era, including being beaten and ambushed as a boy. A gifted student, he graduated as valedictorian at age 15 and, with encouragement from Dallas business figures, attended the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania, where he served as president of his fraternity chapter. He married Jenny, a young woman from Ardmore raised Baptist, who converted to Judaism; together they raised a blended family of children from her first marriage and their own, and hosted large New Year's Eve parties for hundreds of guests for many years.

Professionally, Don worked for 45 years in the shoe business alongside his brother Paul, a company their father Nathan had started in 1929 after working as a top salesman at a leading Dallas men's store. Yet Don considered Scouting the work he cared about most, serving 15 years and earning the Silver Beaver award. He was the first Dallas Scouter to lead troops of different ethnic and racial backgrounds, establishing troops in West Dallas and South Dallas and working closely in the Black community with figures like Juanita Craft. A committed advocate for Jewish causes throughout his life, he was proud that his daughter and his son Paul both served on the Dallas City Council, and he remained close to his four children, seven grandchildren, and three great-grandchildren.

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