Dr. Adrian Meyer
Dr. Adrian Meyer's family roots reach back to Europe. His paternal grandfather came from an area near the Austria-Poland border, settled in South Africa, and was interned during the First World War as an Austrian citizen, later working as a cabinet maker and running a furniture factory near Cape Town. His maternal grandparents came from Russia; his grandfather was a tailor, and his mother was one of six children. Adrian grew up in a railway town outside Cape Town alongside an older sister. His father, who had studied pharmacy in England, worked as a pharmacist. Though the town was lower middle class with a strong Afrikaner presence, it had a warm and supportive Jewish community of about a hundred families.
Adrian attended local public schools before his parents sent him to a Jewish day school in the city, requiring a long daily commute by train and bus. He remembered a colorful Russian rabbi and a well-knit congregation that gathered for holidays such as Simchat Torah. After graduating medical school he began practice in the coastal town of Port Elizabeth, where he met his wife on the beach. They married in 1984 and, concerned that apartheid-era South Africa offered no good future for raising a family, decided to immigrate to the United States. He had already qualified through the American licensing exams years earlier.
In Dallas, Adrian was helped by fellow South Africans, including a longtime friend from Port Elizabeth and a former classmate who assisted him in securing a residency at St. Paul Hospital. After a period practicing in Stephenville, he returned to Dallas to complete his residency and earn American board certification, building a large internal medicine practice. He and his wife raised their daughter here and became longtime members of the Jewish Community Center, which supported them in their early years. He takes great pride in being among the first in his extended family to graduate from university, and in the opportunities his daughter, a strong student and accomplished tennis player, gained by growing up in America.
Full Transcript
okay well today uh is February the 5th 2014 we're at the Jewish Community Center and I'm interviewing Dr Adrien Meyer as part of the roots to boots project for the Dallas Jewish Historical Society Dr Meyer thank you for being with us would you mind if I call you Adrien thank you so much well let's start uh if you wouldn't mind tell me what you know about the history of your grandparents on both the maternal and paternal side of your family coming uh starting in Europe if you know some history of of that sort probably very little um my paternal grandparents I didn't know too well
um my grandmother I never met she had died already when I when I was I think before I was born um and in fact my sister was named after her so that was so I never met her but uh my paternal grandfather uh who was from um lamburger lamberger I believe was part of Austria and I think it was Ann nexted by Poland um or vice versa um and and then he came to South Africa and he failed to become a citizen and was still Austrian when the first world war broke out and he was interned um and his property was seized and subsequent to
his internment he was banned from living near report and lived I think had to be more than a certain number of miles from cap town where where he lived in stos which is outlined from Cape Town and he had a Furniture Factory and he was a cabinet maker for many years until lat years he came to Liv in Cape Town and then he went to the old age home in Cape Town um uh so he uh died really in my youth on my mother side uh my grandparents both came from uh from Russia and uh I think it came from kand and um my grandfather
was a tailor uh and my grand grandparents had six children um and uh so my mother was one of the six that with four sisters and two brothers do you know how your parents met um I suspect it was at mberg mberg was a a sort of seaside resort where many young Jewish couples met I think they met there I'm not not quite sure about that I suspect that was a story and so where did they where did they first live when they were married uh well uh my father had studied in England he' started studied Pharmacy and then when he came back he went
with a friend of his they both settled in the same little town outside Cape Town and he became a pharmacist he was a pharmacist in and so I I think they lived in in from what I remember that they lived in pero since their marriage and how how many children are there in your family just myself and my sister is your sister older or younger she's older she two two years 10 months older than me what can you tell me uh about your childhood um about your the what what it was like family life uh schooling uh the neighborhood you lived in whatever you can
recall so um we lived in the main road um it wasn't uh a very um upscale kind of place was anything but in fact um it was a railroad or Railway area so um the government workers were the white workers were employed by the government to a large degree and they used to move them around to maintain the political status perah was one of the large Africana areas where a lot of raway workers lived it was not very expensive to live there um so there was a strong arrion element in the area and um it was probably lower middle class wh remember of course you
were know blacks living in white areas uh I remember that there was a fair amount of alcohol that used to flow number of bottle stores and people used to be fairly inebriated Friday evening when they got their pay um the schools well I I suspect the schools were weren't that bad because um went to public school from preschool to Middle School to middle school and then High School which was from standard six which is a part of Middle School um my parents sent me to Jewish Day School which was in the city so I should take a train from where I grew up to the
city and then catch another bus to go to the Jewish high school and how far was that from your hometown so um it's probably about 15 or 20 miles the trip tire tire trip were there other Jewish families in par yeah there was it was a quite a nice shle really from that point of view there there was a Sho there um and subsequently was rebuilt and interesting story is that the replica of the sh was built in herzlia in Israel really and one of the members of the sh when the sh closed down took the Torah from parah and took it to the H
to HZ Israel and I assume I've never seen been there but I assume the same Tor as they now so and there was I think about 100 families uh and we used to have a Russian rabbi and he if you read the stories about the old haer days I suspect that he was the original form of the rabis of those days they used to give you clip if you didn't do what they wanted you to do and he didn't follow the lessons very well or if you didn't come up with the right answers so he was he was quite a character uh what else can
you tell me about Jewish communal life uh and so it was actually quite a quite a well-knit community you know people all got together when it came to the major Kim like like simp Torah and and um excuse me so so they got together and they used to have a a Community Hall the old sh became the Community Hall and uh so it was pretty close um uh and it was very very pleasant you know the people Al very supportive of each other did you have um did did all the children go off to Jewish Day School or did any of them stay in the
public school oh I think I was the first one to go and then subsequent to me there were a number that followed also going to the Jewish Day School but a lot of them didn't go to Jewish Day School a lot of them went to um to the city but went to other schools the larger schools did would would you consider your family Zionist in nature or was the or the community Zionist in nature um I don't think there was a strong Zionist influence although I remember going to badion as a as a as a child but I don't remember much about that I don't
remember having any particular Zionist influence that's interesting as many of the people I've talked to had had a very Zionist upbringing so it sounds like perhaps this community was different than some of the other South African communities do you think so or or or is this just a I just wasn't aware of it you weren't aware of it no um and when I think about my peers I don't recall any of them sort of immigrating to Israel or or much activity in terms of of of Israel I see I mean we all bought trees you know or forests but you know but as far as
immigrating or strong zist movement no no not a no youth movement of any kind they were as I said there was B and know outside perah there was herborium which was much more uh active but in parah there was just SP and that didn't I don't think it lasted long I think one or two enthusiasts and then they faded and the whole movement faded so so you grew up there and you went to school um first locally and then I went to the city then you went to the city and then at what point did you uh meet your wife what how did that uh
how did that come about well after I graduated med school I went um I left the city and I went to another town which was a coastal town called Port Elizabeth and I started practice there and while I was living there I met she'd come home from uh from I think she she was working in Johannesburg and she came home from Johannesburg to spend some time with her parents and I met her on the beach beaches seem to play a large part in the room because everybody spent their time on Summers on the beach I see okay uhhuh so you met on the beach and
yes and you married yes and um and what year was that that we got married well sorry can we K her off um so what year did you Andi married 1984 you haven't got me on if you got me on recorded now you have um yeah 1984 just before we immigrated well and so had you talked about IM about immigrating before you married that well yes um and what happened was um I'd come here and I'd written the exam in fact I wrote In 1978 uh in fact at the same time as people that had come in the first wave immigration that a number of
doctors including Brian and Brian Elman yes so we were there in Austin at the same time writing exams and after after that I i' travel around i' look for a job I got a couple of offic and then they had to advertise the job and then I went back to South Africa while I waited for the job to mature which never happened but in the meantime I was working in Johannesburg um and um and while I was and but I met Binky before um and um we we' moved to she we both moved back to jur it was was in jisb um so while I
was working there I decided to subspecialize in Internal Medicine which there is not a primary speciality um so we we plan to uh get married and go on vacation so we started thinking about we would go for a honeymoon and so win to this travel agent and that we describe what we want to go to this nice quaint a beach resort which was quite far out of the way and I stepped outside and I said you know this is crazy we should go to Amic and go and look see I mean I had this license and in fact I was grandfather in so I could
come and open doors right right away I didn't have to do any other exam um so we talked about it we decided that would be a good idea so we got married and we came to have a little L SE and he dead well we when we came to have L SE uhhuh there was an enterprising uh uh lawyer who' taken the list of all the people that that had passed the fle the the licensing exam and sent me a letter years earlier to say If Ever I wanted a job I should just call him do you call his name so um Wellington Smith uhhuh
he was from Austin uhhuh so I finally up and I said you know we're coming and we might be interested in a job so we came to Dallas and we met him I remember we went to the to the Omni and I was so impressed with the size of this hotel just just unbelievable I mean coming from sou AF nothing like it and all the statues and and he took us up to the the restaurant at the top you know any so he he had a job offer somewhere out in Stevenville uhhuh so in the meantime I found the local medical association and said well
it might be an opportunity here and I was interviewed and they offered me a job but subject to me getting uh getting the getting U accepted to a hospital which happened to be St Paul Hospital um but St Paul wouldn't accept me just before was leaving America they wouldn't let me uh give me privileges unless i' worked in America all it just a catch 22 so I couldn't accept that job but I had a job offer in Stevenville so I decided I wasn't going to leave America without a job offer so left America and 6 months later we came back cuz I had a green
ticket then right and I went to work in s uh inen Steven uhhuh what did you think of that that small little town well you know there was something about working in small towns in South Africa mhm uh it it could have been very exciting but it didn't pan out to what id expected um particularly having come from quite an academic hospital to land up in Stevenville was sort of like a setback you know it wasn't this kind of academic stimulus that I was used to and uh found I found like you know my ideas didn't exactly job with the locals in terms of practicing
medon was there was quite a gap um so that that took some getting used and of course it was also the cultural shock or gain from Johannesburg a major city to a small place like Stevenville which at that time I think was like 10,000 people with about 5,000 of them being students M so so that didn't last very long how long were we there we were there for 2 and A2 years and then I got a position at St Paul as a resident so I could get American boards I real I want to come to the city I better get American boards and this is
before you had to be children am I correct that's correct no no no we we had a child when we were in Stevenville oh he did yes yes okay and was was Binky working at all at the time or well when I when I went to to senul she was still in Stevenville and so she took a job there um she worked in a TR and said B you also used to go to the chalk there so so then you came to Dallas right and when you came to Dallas at that point um how many of the how many other South Africans were there here
in Dallas or were you were you uh part of an established community at that point when you came in or well I was being Brian okay so you knew Brian so in fact that is one of the reasons I landed up I think in Dallas because Brian was here Brian and I go back to Port Elizabeth days Brian was a radiologist in Port Elizabeth and then he came to America and uh and so I was communicated with him and you know encouraged me to come was there anyone else so he had quite an important role in in me being here was there anyone else that
you knew in Dallas besides Brian when you came here um yes I had um classmate well semi classmate from Johannesburg Steven Perkins oh my gosh so Steven Perkins was yeah in fact he was instrumental to me getting the job at St Paul because he'd also been to St Paul so he in fact he played a major role um because he got me that job um so Steve and Steve was played a role and then there was um also Ellen piser who we became friendly with through Steve in fact you know Steve and Ellen used to come visit us in in in Steven Bor so so
that was a big thing um to coming here with that that sort of support and you know I think support when you're coming from a small place like that to to Dallas was really very very helpful so so all in all from your experience then the the South African Community was welcoming oh yes and then we had a group of friends about in a similar situation number of doctors and other and so they were the Perkins there was piser there was um um it was uh what's his name feel like used to do sports medicine at at Cooper Clinic um and there was a um
another radiologist uh a me how did how did you find the rest of the Dallas Community outside of the South Africans in terms of the Jewish community in general was that a welcoming well because I don't think we were here except that um because buta needed to go to slay school or preschool um we got involved with the J uhhuh um we had been members of or have um no shil we were country members of shil the first country members oh so we came here we used to go to sh toila uh although I don't think there was sort of any extension to when we
came to they didn't extend any particular welcome when we came to the city but you we became members but we used to come in for y tab to show to and then of course the J was very helpful to us particularly at that St because I was a resident I didn't have much money to pay for baa to come to preschool um but we we've been uh members of the J ever since I think we going to be double bom mitzvas uh very soon with the J but the J was pretty much helpful in terms of butet do you have other children as well butes
butes the one child yeah and um so the J played a big part in in your um acclimatization I go my my pronunciation is terrible climatizing to the community and obviously it sounds like it plays a big part in your in your life still to this day is that I don't come much the J but pinky does she exercises here rly I used to come here for tennis and then I started playing elsewhere didn't come very regularly after that did you get involved in anything else uh from a community standpoint here in Dallas other than obviously you're very active uh Medical Practice well no didn't
no I can't compare myself to sa I don't think anybody can compare themselves part your sa um what about your wife did she get involved in other things uh yeah well Micky's with she goes to the the book lab um I don't think she's got any significant other involvement so from a overall perspective I guess we would say if I'm correct that your your reason for coming here was to the to Dallas and the United States was for business reasons no not for business reasons was it for for politic for political reasons okay we haven't talked about that so tell me tell me about the
motivation so when we getting married the other part of the consideration was that it was wasn't didn't offer a future for raising a family as far as I was concerned at that stage the AF frana government was entrenched this was be way way before Mandela's release and it didn't look like the government was going to change anytime soon and I couldn't see that this was a place to bring up a child under these circumstances and that was the major motivating factor to leave the country I think many white people particularly Jewish people wanted to avoid the continuity of being involved with the afriana government had
you been involved politically um in any type of protest movement or but you just thought you couldn't stay there no are there are there Customs that you brought along with you that you that you still practice today that are particularly um that you're particularly fond of that remind you of your home country um I don't think so other than following the Jewish tradition that we had in South Africa but there I don't think anything specifically South Africa I mean you barbecue here and we pry there but you know other than that I don't think there's any major difference in our [Music] lifestyle any any foods
that you that you uh well you know there's South African foods definitely M and um until we recently had uh South African store you you know people always were saying you're going to South Africa you know bring back this or bring back that you know terms of foods that you got used to the candies and so on so there's a store here and here's a store here where is that that's that's uh sells Foods it's up on qu what's it used to be at it used to be on Frankford and and Ohio and then it moved what's the name of the store um I don't
know what it's called um are there significant things about your life that we haven't talked about that you would like your your children to know um either about your family the family history things that you think are particularly important from a personal historical standpoint things that you'd like to leave as a legacy that we haven't discussed we call leave as Legacy but um I think um that I represent um in our family a certain milestone in that um there was there were a number of grandchildren but of all the grandchildren um only myself and a cousin graduated University and so we were the first in
the family to go to university and graduate U you others did well but I I was quite proud of that uh and um you always believe that your children will do better than you and I I like to believe you know that my daughter has got as far as she has to some degree because I was benefited from this education and the ability to be mobile and to come to America and and I think that the opportunities that she gained by coming to by growing up in America were some opportunities that she would never have had from both an educational point of view and a
sports point of view tell us about your daughter what what um what she's accomplished a little bit about about her life well first of all we called her baa and um like the name baa because was a a good Hebrew name and um and we felt comfortable calling a Hebrew name in America we felt that there wouldn't be any restrictions because she had a Hebrew name as opposed if she was in South Africa would have been a problem um buta um was always a good student and then um around about six she started playing tennis and she became very Adept to playing tennis and she
was in the state finals four times when she was playing for Plano West and she started playing for Plano West when she was in Middle School she played for the senior school um and she was pretty highly ranked and uh she had some office from universities but she decided to give up tennis and rather concentrate on academics and she did pretty reasonably and in at University she went to Kansas and she did U advertising or what they call it marketing marketing um public relations no it wasn't public relations um there's some other term for it um I can't what they call it but yeah it
is basically marketing and advertising what selles that so now she she's uh working for a company downtown and she's doing very nicely there and she's very happy in her job there excellent why do you think um you were different from the rest of the um of the cousins what made you succeed as much as you did where the others did not quite get there um I don't know I don't know that's maybe opportunity uh anything else you'd like to add um no terrific you've been you've been wonderful it's been great getting to know you I really appreciate your time and you're coming out after such
a busy day at work well thank you for having so much thank you suful that might be I don't know prevent you from getting involved in other things yes yeah do you think you would have done it differently so if you thought about it afterwards I don't know maybe I'm just you know it's just me the way I socialize I'm not a a social butterfly well not everybody has to be yeah but you know I think to do these things you have to be um more outgoing perhaps um that's a difference in personality is that something I I I don't suppose that my personality is
to it I think Adrian's being very modest um he's he has a a very large practice and he has done a lot of things lot of areas so yeah that I'm aware of I I think you might want to I don't think that belongs in there no I so he's but you know you you look back as you know about to 1070 and I think you know that's something maybe and uh and I was in Pre at school and so I sort of felt like I was heading the right way at one stage and then I don't know what happened I suppose it's all the
change that came about but other people had the same changes you know yeah but you had a SP you came out with a very successful um Medical Practice I me I don't know where you think you failed well you know I look at Saul and I think you know Saul was I mean Saul really was exempt it was um was more than a a great example s was exotic you know but he's also compe to me he was much more sociable kind of guy in a Hil fellow and and I don't think I'll fall into the same category I don't know that anybody can compare
themselves to S and measure up I don't think that's a fair comparison for any of us well you know you always got to look at other people and say well that's a good example well absolutely a good example but to to get consider yourself less of a man because you don't match up this Sol lry you know I I just feel like you know the way I grew up um having gone to a Jewish Day School and that it was sort of meant that you should have done more in terms of yish kind well you still have many years ahead of you true but not
in a very active way when start 70 you know you're not going to that much influence you know most these people have had influence have had it during the height of the careers oh I think you still have opportunities well maybe present so