Dr. Larry Genender
Larry Genender was born in 1934 in Montreal into a family that embodied the immigrant success story. His father, born in the country of Georgia, arrived speaking with an accent and unable to write a full sentence, yet rose from small manufacturer to a comfortable middle-class living, moving the family to progressively nicer neighborhoods. His mother was born in Poland and never worked outside the home. Larry recalled a large Jewish community in Montreal, being beaten up as a child for being Jewish, and grandparents who spoke mostly Yiddish. The family was close but not warm, marked by frequent bickering, and Larry, as the bright eldest child, was the apple of his parents' eye.
Larry knew from the ninth grade that he wanted to be a doctor, strongly encouraged by his parents. He graduated high school at 17, earned a science degree at McGill in 1955, and went straight into medical school, drawn to surgery the moment he walked onto a surgical ward. Seeking more hands-on training than Montreal's aging programs offered, he spent five years at a large public hospital in Brooklyn, part of the New York system. There he met his wife Jodi, a Canadian nurse from Northern Ontario, and it was love at first sight. Visa restrictions forced the family to return to Canada in 1966, where Larry practiced under socialized medicine that he found stifling.
In 1976, frustrated by socialized medicine and a Quebec school system paralyzed by strikes, the family surveyed several American cities and chose Dallas for its quality of life. Larry opened a successful practice, eventually focused in Plano, with Jodi serving as his nurse and business manager, and he embraced the medical oncology field as it grew. For many years Larry considered himself a Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur Jew, but late in life, through a young rabbi who taught him to pray and study, he found a deep and lasting connection to Judaism, even reading Torah at his temple. He and Jodi, longtime members of Temple Shalom and later Temple Emanuel, raised three successful sons and take pride in the Jewish family they established in Dallas.
Full Transcript
Larry 1934 Montreal let's go back into Canada when you're a little kid what was life like for you life was good we were my parents were born not in this country and my father was born in George I believe look not you all Georgia but Georgia and down where Putin was working whether i think was born in poland they emigrated here in the 20s if i'll call right we had as a little kid my father was living the American Canadian success story and he started off as a small manufacturer we lived in apartments that seems to me we moved every over the year every time
to a little nicer neighborhood to little nicer apartment change schools several times because of school districts schools were very important to us because schools really one of the two reasons we moved to Canada and Jewish community of Montreal was a bit of a that a bit of a staple mental thing really did it was big it was a city of perhaps a little over a million there were been a hundred thousand Jews we sort of kept to ourselves I lived in areas that weren't completely Jewish I remember having being beaten up because I was Jewish when I was I guess I was 11 we moved
into our own home my father bought a house I would choose a big deal have your own house it was a old call the semi detached cottage means it was like two individual houses with a common wall Erica there are places like that we had a basement there being a fun and I went to my second school that I can remember in the sixth grade my father couldn't write a complete sentence he's not speak with an accent but it wasn't Brooklyn earth and my mother never worked God knows we could have used the SEC the second income but you don't send your wife out the
words your grandparents also come to this country yes were here I never knew my paternal grandfather he died somewhere in Russia you know what he was doing in Russia for a living they say he was a doctor but there are a lot of embellished stories of both my grandparents my paternal grandmother lived here as a widow my maternal grandparents both live here they barely spoke English this book Yiddish my grand-father go track me with a customer peddler and was very devout I'll toward the docks but my grandmother used to send him food from a trail to the Brunswick that type of the family came from
the old country through the Brunswick and a section of it came to Montreal they were very religious I remember going to my grandmother's house for almost everything we learned a big lesson for my grandparents because each parent didn't like clearing loss and there was in session fighting about how bad everybody was similarly the family was not warm was close but it was along everybody was bickering at each other my father's side of the family there were a total of five children all of whom were very successful in their own way my father's older brother did what my father did I remember for the first until
my bar mitzvah almost my father didn't speak to her brother our family was not warm clothes and fuzzy I wasn't close to my sister who was Heidi's younger me her brother is eight years younger mean he was just a kid I was the oldest and I was the apple of my parents I in terms of respect i was very smart did very well school my father my father had expressions some of which have stayed with me to this day some of which were funny so which and some birds with true in a sense he used to say that your job is to study my job
is to make money and as I went higher and school and I went to high school my father was solidly in the middle class hey was making a good living very good living and I could have a job I could go to whatever one in the summer but I didn't have to pay for my schooling which caused nothing but still how did world war two affect your family on get real he had a ration stamps for a while which were really a minor inconvenience but stuff was sugar and was rationed for example yeah but otherwise everybody was concerned with the war effort everybody was very
patriotic there was absolutely even in Canada no anti-war sentiment everyone was wrong Rob behind the Allies yeah but nothing really went much happened life went on with the war started when I was five right and I didn't know anything else but first you know Jeremiah growing up there now where did you go to high school went high school at a public high school closing the Strathcona Academy walked to school this is a superb school I still remember my teachers by name we were well thought very well thought I my parents couldn't help me with my work because they didn't know what I do they instill
a value of sledding but I led my high school in Quebec we style was called the high school livid used to matriculate means there was a province-wide high school leaving examination and if you die over a certain grade you got your picture in the paper and that was a deal and I was in a very bright class and then perhaps 20 people who got the picture in the paper for my homeroom big deal shortly after I left it they changed it the building was sold to the University of Montreal which was a semi public university and which is very close by and they built another
high school but the schools were good well after high school now did you go to work or did you go on to college I went straight to college where'd you go mcgill and young university i lived at home and most everybody went to McGill very few people left town to go to college Colin do sort of an exception of high school and for me college was an extension it was just a way to get into medical school I knew I was going to be a doctor when I was in the ninth grade strongly encouraged well my parents via the idea of your doctor your ear
child is going to be a doctor if they're smart enough strongly supported that worked well for me because I wanted to go to medical school I was encouraged strongly by my parents to go to medical school I graduated high school in 1951 I was 17 because we only go 11 years high school lamp and I live in my room until I was finished medical school I graduated college science degree in 55 medical school when I was accepted to for medical schools which was really good I never had a struggle with that now I stayed at McGill because mcgilton those days was considered the Harvard of
Canada I stayed one year after internship and started the program when I finished school you were enter in those days there's no stings the internet for into a program I was an intern and most people did that but not only that was people were rotating interns I means they did a few months of this he wants a lot I knew I wanted to be a surgeon today I walked on a surgical ward those are ha moments just like that and so my career path is pretty well staked out and after I finished I do my internship there and then I went into the program the
program was a pyramid programs that meant that they took x number of people into the first year and fewer in the second year and the couple would become chief resident not to become chief resident was a big deal in any program because that was your the year where you realize operate by yourself and there's some supervision but you could think of patient to the operating room by yourself there were doctors around them keep an eye on in my first year as a resident I knew I'd leave the program was undergoing a great change both teaching hospitals both the rural Victoria which is where I was
and the material general which was the other Hospital of them had aging Chiefs the programs were stagnant I was not breathing enough and I was of the strong opinion at the way in which it let her be a surgeon is not three books of stopping so at that time guys told me there's a place in New York which is a public hospital where exactly what you want there's a part of the New York system it's keith County Hospital in Brooklyn which is like Bellevue and those hospitals part of New York system department of hospital and you operate a lot and that's what I wanted I
could not get in at the level i was because they wanted me to come but there was no room because they didn't have a pyramid program at a block program means everybody who starts in the first year goes up and there's enough chief residence the cover mall it was good but there was a room in the first in the second year so I elected to do the first year over again because my first year of training me wasn't very good I didn't do enough so I went and that place was like heaven for me when I went in and said you're in this ward that's
a yes sir and up I crutch I took out three appendices the same day that the world was going to sleep baby you get right into it and I spent five years in that program we lived in the hospital there were three separate doctors residences place had thirty two hundred beds every thirty six city blocks it was immense and included a huge of psychiatric hospital but still every service had its own building it was big and we used to have to fight off Jewish school teachers who were looking for husbands one day my wife who was a Canadian girl my wife to be meeting girl
was given tickets to a series of brad boyd show's over thanksgiving and her buddy came from Northern Ontario which is where she came from and they came over to visit one evening I met this girl and there was love at first sight on both sides I went to the play the last of a Broadway plays that she had with it the proposed on the first thing I went to visit her the following weekend almost lost my residency because i was slowed in I wasn't supposed to town and this was in November she moved to New York Brooklyn in January and who married in June in
Canada I proposed to her on the first date would never looked at you I was down there in the early the first half of the 1960s eiken down as a single person and I came down on a visa call of the SP 66 reset which is basically a student visa which means that you cannot stay in United States it would take a private act of Congress for me to leave to stay in the States but that time I was married my wife Jodi hand she was made him but she was working as a head nurse in Detroit at the time she had a green card
but it made the difference I didn't and there was no way which we could stay we had to leave America so in 1966 we had one child and another on the way and we left came back then Montreal we lived in a suburb on the lakeshore I took six months took all my exams and I opened that practice in Canada plotting full well to put in my two years which had to be back there before I could apply for a visa after two years I did apply and I made all the right moves to emigrate but werewolf California there was an earthquake and Joanie chicken
that I must say I wasn't far behind her so what we did thank God was we put the visa application which had been processed I'm hold every couple of years we would make little loops how we're going to move you know but I was doing well I big practice I was good i drove a Cadillac that was a big deal by that time we have three kids and your oldest is an American citizen though isn't yes he was born he was there all American citizens are now but I'm saying he was then an American citizen but they couldn't keep me in every couple of years
we would go to the meetings and the kids who were my residence for my juniors were doing great we meet them at the meetings you know American College of Surgeons meetings they were doing well there make a lot of money and I was working under socialized medicine which came in two years after I started practice and I was operating a ton but I wasn't earning any money i was working under socialized medicine and it was tough I mean I was used to the fact that I put up my head and sighed like a piece of 30 suture they sell out we don't have to go
so sure the hospital didn't pay the bill government check them come in and diet which is like for over 20 I lived under that and it was tough in the fall of nineteen sixty-six 70 Mia and four little boys everybody went to public school okay the kids were in grade school and they couldn't go back to school because the English teachers and the French teachers we're striking one group against the other the province of Quebec I must tell you has three separate public school systems they are confessional there's the Roman Catholic english-speaking schools there's the Roman Catholic French schools then there's the problem schools where
everybody including the Jews way of course the person schools were great the other schools are not so on and they were trying to bring him down to the lowest love tween the fact that i really wasn't accumulating much of an estate now much wealth and the real fact there's the kids and couldn't go back to school and the language they had separate language place it was really time they had bombings in there sometimes we had to put the kids in special area moving the toronto in case because they were there was danger i stayed behind the doctors went on strike it was awful this was
nineteen seventy early we lived through it but in 1976 when the kids couldn't go back to school we said that's it if i don't move now I'll be too old to make it worthwhile to move so we do a lot of looking but we're going to go whether it was winter that cut the country in the American half we didn't want to go to Florida because license English and they should do more to California you know how to license because we want to bring up my children in that place we didn't think the deep south was ready for us yet left the Southwest Texas Arizona
these places were blown unknown in the late seventies my specialty was Latin great the man but it was tough on either side are you have a job at least for a while to get my feet wet in a new country the root system of practicing so I had to take a job so we arrow down to force it to six places in December of 1976 with that we've got babysitters and stuff when we took a trip and Johnny would we went the six cities we started in Baton Rouge we knew somebody had a connection and when the wound up in Phoenix Scottsdale we liked Texas
the rest and we love balance the best of all we have the week we had the most tenuous job in dallas wheel of the city we're leaving because of the living situation so we're going to move to a place where we think the living situation is the best that's a bit removed else we bought a house over a weekend in the wrong section of the city we didn't know from independent school districts the school was great but my kids came home a mark well this came home one day was all beaten up by mental one who's in very bright they're all smart but he was
super it's my teacher calls us up dropped always I've taught him everything they gave me the time teaching one I'm meant to do them so I said moving but move mental break we're not allowed to do that so she said fortunately have a decent teacher so she gave him stuff to do the Keaton from getting bored and we realized that we lived in the wrong sex we had to move so the clinic right joint I got my feet wet there I gave notice and 1976 we did three things all together but we put our house up for sale I quit my job and put three
kids in st. marks and got them all in and I like to work opened up an office the place to be was in plano at that time it was blowing zone i succeeded very quickly johnny was always my nurse my wife is a nurse and she always she she handled the business she and she looked after all my rough edges I wish there were many she I was good with patients but if I got on the phone with an insurance company who didn't want to like to do without he had to be done if it wasn't a little tactfully I could be in big trouble she and left left how did you see advancements in medical field from when you started torch into your practice and when I came here I always look at kid in a candy store I wanted a cat scanner which is new I could just say I want a cat scan and the answer I got back was yes dr.
it'll be on tonight you can get that in Canada you waited okay so socialized medicine when I left Canada for example I left 60 fully worked up elective patients to another surgeon I had them I had the patience I'm all works out they were ready to go couldn't give it a hospital that's where that's where socialized medicine goes they they they choked up the supply chain so it advanced so dr. fee was a brand new there was no MRIs cat scanning was brand new the cat scan machines that they had the early ones the tube went around in a circle on off remember that like that goes around a circle and the booboo bloat frequently the machine was frequently down at that beginning the hospitals had to have what was called a certificate of me the co in my equipment that quickly went the hospital corporations became very power we were recruited because we they tell that a dime how profitable I was and I was very profitable so it was great with a lot of technical advances the
specialty of medical oncology grew in that decade it was wonderful as the answer it grew very quickly and I was in the middle of at nine timeline yeah now that you and Joan have any involvement with the Jewish community if it was left to me who would belong nowhere because I was a surgeon and I was the tip if I couldn't kick it it didn't exist so I didn't have much use for my religion at all I didn't have much use for family I do because I assimilated into Johnny side which was poor but warm type of thing and both we my oldest had had
a Bar Mitzvah shortly after we moved and we weren't affiliated yet but we had the bar mitzvah in the huts and we had table set up in the garage and everywhere and we had wonderful time was super party and not very sophisticated was fun and we eventually belong to Temple Shalom alpha hillcrest and johnny was very active she was on the boards as all Assessor I love with Lilith and she said the Linea check I wrote a check I didn't have a choice for the we took the rabbi we flew him to come for here sorry to marry our oldest kid because we like that
rabbi he left that temple soon the not suit our needs the homes the homophobic want me they got a gay cancer hunan lab and then want to see our kids coming under the influence of somebody who I thought I was stupid I didn't know we went to temple emanuel and Joni became very active I wrote a check I was that I was a pure rosh hashanah yom kippur jus I've got to tell you I am now extremely Jewish what happened is that the rabbi with whom I wouldn't speak because I had a problem with what he did one day reaching politics from the pulpit on
Yom Kippur which I thought was wrong my wife is the president of the sisterhood so I couldn't do anything politically because it would embarrass her but they did have rabbi Kim fabric grab my Kimberly hurt uncle and she did my middle son's daughter's Bat Mitzvah they would married a non-jewish girl a wonderful girl but I was a real I was a real jerk about this a long time accepting every chosen Jewish which is a pure hypocrite because i was in Jewish attic but that's the way I was raised in any case over the circumstances involving her but Mitzvah I came into contact with this wonderful
young girl who just started being a rabbi she graduated in the summer and joined our temple this my mental is not in November she was bad news but they have dialed service and it was so beautiful it was so spiritual she felt everything said and I had always thought that while I had nothing to do with my religion but this time I was old in my seventies and I realized I said you know there something to this Jewish business because enough people gain a lot of strength out of it alone people who are otherwise very smart I made an appointment I visited with her we
became close personal friends I'd meet her every month we talked about stuff she taught me how to pray she taught me out of study and I became jewish not very Jewish I'm read I read for every day and it was because of her I gave at the VAR torah at the Brotherhood which I joined a lot lost ones that which is a big deal I mean I am in the middle of reading or somehow very religious I found Judaism Joni is extremely active finally after many years they're making early the sister has a women stuff woman of the year Hall of Fame whatever she's being
inducted so we are very involved with the community our kids they don't really feel Jewish and that's my fault cuz I'm gonna race in that way but they follow and they do their thing and but they're still watching shovel yom kippur Jews even though my youngest son was an attorney and I go one that's all a little work pro bono if I want aboard for he's active that way he's done a lot of good things what's the happiest time in your life happiest time in my life probably was the party we had we had our 50th wedding anniversary as summer before last we have three
very successful thank you bright strapping boys to lawyers and one guy who is an MBA in California and they have great kids all of them all their kids go to private schools my youngest grandson so let's say marks so there's through the rinsing ones well you and Joanie have three kids seven grandkids and one on the way yeah what advice does grandpa have for the next generation become Jewish Ernie coincident with my finding my Jewishness my middle son married a non-jewish girl 20 years ago Amy they have two children she Amy state non-jewish but she became more Jewish in practice than any of us the
kids her two children were born at 0 brought up very Jewish and she thought they wouldn't let her touch the Torah when her daughter was bat mitzvah and that was the straw that broke the camel's back she says I'm gonna convert she did they dunked her in the mikvah that she's Jewish well I've gotten along better with her for the past 15 years we always got along but I think Amy and Amy looks at me like you look at the silly old bugger you know Amy's also an attorney just in closing we started a small little Jewish family dynasty in Dallas you know I mean
there was nobody in Dallas yeah our three families blew your own and they're all very active so it's been wonderful so what he told me to come and document my story I said you know this is a good Jewish thing to do a hard story should be kept you did good please come to do this this fun talk about yourself you