July 7, 2015

Errol Hepker

Errol Hepker came from a family with a rich heritage on both sides. His paternal grandfather emigrated from Europe and became a successful trader in what became Rhodesia, where Errol's father was born and grew into a gifted athlete who played rugby for several counties. His mother's father fled Poland, arrived in South Africa uneducated, and rose from selling coffee to miners to become a prominent real estate figure, later serving as a life president of a Johannesburg synagogue. Errol also learned that his maternal grandmother descended from a long line of Polish rabbis. His mother was an actress who performed in London, and his parents married around the start of the war.

Errol grew up in Johannesburg, attended government schools, and was sent to a boarding school two days' train ride away, an experience he later regretted for limiting his social ease. He set out to become a doctor but, after an aptitude test steered him toward commerce, he began a Bachelor of Commerce and eventually entered the life insurance and general insurance industry in the early 1960s, a field he remained in for most of his life aside from a brief venture in carpeting. On June 20, 1960, he met Jennifer, a young woman who had moved into his neighborhood, and knew at once he would marry her; they went on to raise three daughters.

Long dreaming of America, Errol seized an opportunity when a new form of life insurance, universal life, was reshaping the American industry. With experience in the field, he received numerous job offers, and after considering the East Coast, he was drawn to Dallas by a company that pursued him. He and his family immigrated in 1980 and 1981 and became citizens in 1991. In Dallas he worshiped at synagogues including one where Rabbi Cohen served, and he was a founding member when Rabbi Cohen started his own congregation. After stints in Florida and a brief, unhappy return to England, he came home to Dallas for good, cherishing his family, his heritage, and his identity as an American and a Jew.

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