Eileen Kreisler
Eileen Kreisler was born in Brooklyn in 1942, where her family lived in a high-rise apartment across the street from her elementary school, P.S. 230. Her father worked as an optician for the New York School of Optics, and she had a younger sister born when Eileen was three. Her grandparents lived nearby, and she treasured time at their house where she could play outside. Three of her four grandparents were born in the United States, while her father's mother had come from Russia as a child. Eileen recalled trying to teach her illiterate grandmother to read and hearing her speak of the terror of pogroms.
When her father became an optical manufacturer's representative and took on the Texas territory, the family moved to Dallas after Eileen's sixth grade year. They drove down in a car fitted with a window air conditioning unit that amazed their New York relatives, and bought a house on Walnut Hill Lane, one of only five houses on the street at the time. Eileen felt no culture shock, saying her life truly started then. She attended Preston Hollow Elementary and Hillcrest High School, part of the last class to enter Hillcrest in eighth grade, and made lifelong friends. The family arrived just as the Jewish community was moving from South Dallas to North Dallas.
Eileen met her husband Aaron at a fraternity party during her second year at UT, and they married the following year, moving to Galveston while he attended medical school. She later returned to finish her undergraduate degree in special education and earned a master's degree with certification as an educational diagnostician. She taught at Highland Academy, a school for children with learning differences, and worked in private practice before spending nearly twenty years at Temple Emanu-El's religious school as assistant principal and later principal, founding its special needs department, which she still supervises. An optimist who feels blessed, she and Aaron raised four children and have eleven grandchildren, and she remains committed to keeping her family's Jewish life strong.
Full Transcript
Eileen Brooklyn 1942 let's go back do you remember when you were just a little girl in Brooklyn we lived in an apartment across the street from the school that I attended the elementary school my father was an optician at that time and worked for the New York School of optics and I had a way a younger sister I remember when she was born I was just three and we my grandparents lived two blocks away and we would spend a lot of time at my grandparents house because they had a house that was they own their home and it was fun to be there and play
outside and be outside whereas we lived it in a high-rise apartment which is to this day probably why I have no desire to live an under-par us apartment and we we went for periods of time during my early childhood of owning a car and not owning a car and and and depending upon how probably the finances were going the impetus for my for moving to Dallas my father started became an optical manufacturer's representative and he sold lint he started selling out lenses and frames and so forth and he had a 14 state territory and he traveled extensively and and ultimately he got the Texas territory
with the condition that he moved outside from the company that he represented away from the he did not have the Northeast at all territory he to the south and southeast in Texas and we would by the way during the summer we would travel with him I do remember that before we moved here we would travel and see part of the country and it was just by car all the time yes we always went by car and we would we saw the whole southeast and and we would spend summer started spending some summers in Florida because he was closer and he would be with us every
weekend and it was it was kind of fun right now your Grandpa's you mentioned those your mom's parents my mom yes I I had at that time I had four grandparents three of my four grandparents were born in the United States it's only only my father's mother had come from Russia when she was a child my my mother's parents I saw more than my father's parents because they lived when we were when we were still living in New York they just lived a few blocks from us and you remember what your grandparents did for a living mother's father worked for a garment factory what he
did for the garment factory i'm not sure but he he he did not have his own company he worked for the company but he had he had a steady income enough so that the when the Depression hit they were not affected by the depression my mothers still living she doesn't have any recollection of the depression affecting them in any adverse way my father's father when he passed away I must have been about eight or nine and I don't remember what he did for a living well your grandmother that came over from Russia that she ever talk about that she was bright but she was illiterate
and I remember as a child trying to teach her to read and she would she was dying to read and we would go about was going through my school books at the time teaching her to read and she would talk about until my mother heard her told her to stop if she would talk about / grooms and I always wanted to know what she was talking about she would talk about how the how horrible it was where and and how they were being attacked and and she would have gone on if they didn't tell her to stop and I was she would happen it wasn't
until later that I looked up and realized what programs were and how they came into and people came in and and and terrorized people she mentioned I believe she even mentioned Jack the Ripper at the time and how horrible life was and but I do not know the conditions under which he came to the United States how old she was mention your grammar school what was that elementary school yeah a ps2 30 was the number it was right across the street from my house I enjoyed school love school very much at the end of my sixth grade year which was my last year there I
was asked to be the class representative to our graduation from because we were going into junior high to class was after that to to to talk to the assembly at the final assembly at school I remember that no what was it like when your family when your folks told you we're moving to Texas it was at a time that people didn't really make big moves like that and my family my father has had four brothers and a sister they all lived in that in that part of country bug and they all by the way at this point as time went on everybody left nobody nobody
lived there that after a while and my mother's brother two years later ended up moving to Atlanta but at that time they were just flabbergasted that we were moving so far away to a place that nobody ever heard of we drove and this was just at the start of homes here well here being air-conditioned but there's no air conditioning and and we had this unit installed in the car in the window of the car that you had a pulldown assess my head hand and it generated this cool air coming into the car and when we left this apartment building everybody came down to see this
thing that we had in our car tell us goodbye and just and to witness this this thing that was going to cool our car as we drove to Texas so now when you add the Texas you remember was a winter spring so myself it was oh it was summer it was before it was during the summer right after my sixth grade now that you guys went went to a house my parents came down we stayed with my grandparents my parents came down and bought a house in over a weekend and it was on walnut hill lane we were one of five houses on the street
at that time and I was and I went I was it was walking distance from preston hollow elementary and from hillcrest high school so i went to preston hollow and then we i was i was in the last grade to go to hillcrest starting in eighth grade because that was before franklin junior high was built right so we were a few years ago we had our 50th reunion and and and we were it was it was all it all came back that we were the last great to go five years right to hillcrest that how she moved into the summer time he came in a
car that had air conditioning house was air conditioned house that's essentially yes and when when my parents told their family back in New York that we had that we had central that they didn't even know a central air conditioning was it and we moved at a very crucial time in being Jewish here in Dallas because it was at a good time all it was a time that every the people that were living in South Dallas were all moving to North Dallas so even though our the synagogues were still in South Dallas it wasn't about a year or two before they were they were in the
process of building where in north dallas so I immediately felt very comfortable in Jewish Lee and fitting it with my friends and make friends and I still to this day I have have our friends with my childhood friends from school so coming from brooklyn to doubt she really didn't have a culture shock you just kind of finally to me I know culture shock and good to culture shock at all on I I feel like my life started at that time yeah World War two did affect your family at all my father had a heart condition all his life so he he was not able to
serve in the war my all my uncle's did and they all were they all served overseas but but fortunately all came back and I remember when they all came I remember when they came back I don't remember but my mother tells me about the because I was a baby about the the air raid drills during the war and how because they had to turn off all their lights and they had to abide by certain conditions while they were conducting an airy and then she talks about the time that somebody rang the doorbell in the apartment during one of these drills and said to my mother
you have a light on and she said no i don't and they came in they threw him excuse me she had the radio on and the radio had a little light shine and that's what they were seeing this but that's what they were noticing down below which I just found fascinating so it was really taken serious was very very seriously I also remember because this didn't change from several years it took a long time the traffic lights I had instead of being full lights they had slits and I guess the slits were not to give forth too much light in case they in the event
of a attack and I do remember you could only use your parking lights the very good lead-in lights when driving at night and it wasn't until later that they changed the law that you could useful full rights so I do remember those things now my mother talks about the rationing of a food and and and and coupons is but I don't remember that how's your happiest time in your life I'm an optimistic person I always have been happy I've always felt blessed and happy and I guess wherever I am and happened to be is the happiest time in my life I'm so very blessed and
fortunate to have been able to do the things I'm still able to do the things that I've done and will continue to do and and my children and my family and the work that I do as well and and and and so were you too old for the Beatles or they are they year group day the Beatles came like it was right after I was in Elvis Presley oh yeah and then the Beatles were right after they were in the 60s and we got married when he was after his first year in medical school well tell me how you met your husband at a fraternity
party and it was my second year at UT and I had a date with another over the fraternity brother of aronson he was there and then he and I started talking and we started dating and pretty so we started exclusively dating one another and people got married a lot younger back then and we became engaged many several months later and and then got married the following year and I did not finish school at that time I we moved to Galveston and I started working and he was in medical school and I I went back and finished school later I've done all the things in my
adult life that most kids now do that I told my children I wanted them to all do before they ever got married and accept that they're they're doing their files are doing good stuff I went back and got my undergraduate degree in special education and then taught school and worked for many years and it just never my family has involved in organizations I did a lot of different things no no school of the you taught school was that here in Dallas I taught at it a school a private school for children with special with learning differences what was the name in school the name of
the school was Highland Academy it later merged with Dallas Academy and went back and got my master's degree in special edwin might with my certification as a educational diagnostician so i was in private practice for a while and doing testing and then i started working it will be 20 years this June a temple emanuel in the religious school as assistant principal of the religious school later became principal for a while and and during that time started a special needs department for the religious school and when i retired from my position at the temple i I kept up I stayed on and I'm still now the
coordinator and supervisor special needs department which is called hour long game department which we have a thriving ongoing wonderful program when you and Aaron got married now were you always knowing that you're going to wind up in Dallas or you know he was from Galveston right I guess initially we didn't think you know that was in the future we and as time went on we kept thinking that we would come back to Texas and and and to Dallas because Dallas was a thriving growing city and there were many opportunities here my parents were here it was easy to come back to Dallas that was there
an invention in your lifetime that you just went wild when it came along probably I would have to say the cell phone because we were at a maverick game many years ago and I looked over I said to Aaron I said Aaron there is a man on a phone over there I'm telling you he's on a telephone but I don't see any time anything attached to it and I said I don't know what this is and the quest that was that that was the beginning of wireless communication and and prior to that because Haren is a pediatrician he had to we could never really go
very far unless he knew they were phone booths everywhere wherever we were going to make phone calls because he couldn't really leave him when he was on call all the time or most of the time or a lot of the time and so i would i would say probably four for him the most the the first important and convention was the car phone because that way we could be in that he could be in the car and he could be on the phone so you had anybody hopefully I thought you came every film was in the city very interesting now year lifetime you've lived through
so many momentous occasion some good some not so good he live the course to the Vietnam era in President Kennedy assassination the moon landing in 69 President Reagan being shot tragedy at 9-11 was there something that really stood out that affected you I would have to say President Kennedy being a shot we had just been married a few months and we were our favorite group at the time where's Peter Paul and Mary we love you Peter pallamary and we had and we didn't we didn't we just forge a whole lot and we had got they were coming to houston and we had gotten tickets and
that morning Aaron said I'll never he says today is the day we get to see Peter Paul and Mary and of course we never did at that time we subsequently years later we did but that afternoon was probably one of the most in history tragic times in my life now I know that comparable is 911 and if I had not lived through the Kennedy been alive during the Kennedy assassination I would probably feel that 911 was I know that our son was in DC and he ate and and when he called me that morning and mom did you just hear what happened it just and
I said yes I there are no words to describe what we were all feeling and I think that in recent years people that have the reaction and feel what you felt we all felt for 911 that's how we felt for the Kennedy assassination yeah yeah as well yeah now your husband was pediatrician still is did you notice anything in the medical industry besides the fact you didn't have to go to phone booths anymore you notice any changes in advancements he would talk about there are many changes in many advances in many you know we've come up with somebody cures people people live with cancer you
know they don't die from diet you do eventually if everybody bailed I about you but you can live with cancer but what I see is that the physicians in our and it has to do with with the with our bureaucracy I believe in the way medicine has changed in general but doctors of art of my generation really cared about the patient as an individual and spent more time and we're able to spend more time with the patient and they and when even to this day and so therefore the people that are in our in my age group that are physicians still have that feeling I
are still that still have them are like that and you can really see the difference in with the younger doctors and it's no fault of theirs it's just the way we just the way the country isn't the way we are and the way they're being taught and it's just a different philosophy of different feeling well you and Aaron have four kids and 11 grandkids no great grandkids yet but what advice does grandma have for the next generation I believe that we have to watch our kids a little more closely because of all the the social media all the technology and all the communication and I
think that it's we have to really and and I believe that my children realize that and they're doing that with their children my children are very are aware of the responsibility as parents and I'm very proud of that I want my children to keep remembering that we're Jewish somebody once told me that you know you're Jewish if your grandchildren are Jewish and thank God I could say my grandchildren are Jewish but that doesn't that doesn't in there it's just another beginning point because I think it's in in our in our society it's just harder to to keep that Jewishness alive on a day-to-day basis and
live a Jewish lives and we try hard and as a grandparent I want to be there for my grandchildren and my children and I feel like I am and enjoy every minute of it and but don't want to be get involved what I shouldn't be involved you did a great job today thanks for note thank