Ethel Gruen
Ethel was born in 1920 in New York City to Jewish parents who had emigrated from Eastern Europe around 1913 and 1914. Her mother, orphaned young by a typhus plague that killed both of Ethel's grandfathers, had left Poland at fifteen, worked as a maid, and taught herself English. Ethel's father, also a poor orphan, became a furrier. In 1927 her mother took Ethel and her twin brother Sam back to Poland to visit their grandmother, a trip Ethel remembered vividly for the ocean crossing and for witnessing the poverty and antisemitism of the small, heavily Ukrainian town. Her mother spent decades trying to bring her relatives to America, finally succeeding in 1939.
Growing up during the Great Depression, Ethel absorbed her parents' values of hard work, thrift, and love of America as the golden land. Recognized for her head for numbers, she was made to do her father's business arithmetic in her head. She resented that only her brothers received a Hebrew education, a feeling that later fueled her own commitment to inclusive Jewish learning. She attended Julia Richman High School, the first time she was separated from her twin, and graduated from Hunter College in 1940. When World War II came, her three brothers were drafted, one wounded in France, and her future husband's brother Adolf served in the French underground.
Ethel married her cousin Ronnie in June 1942, settling in New York where Ronnie, a skilled tool and die maker, was exempt from service. In 1952 the family moved to Dallas, where Ronnie opened a shop on Elm Street and built a thriving precision sheet metal and warehouse business. Together they devoted themselves to Jewish education and community life, endowing Yeshiva University in New York and Yavneh Academy in Dallas, and helping establish Akiba Academy. Ronnie helped a group of young couples found Congregation Beth Torah, a Conservative synagogue that grew from a handful of people to 400 families, welcoming women to the bimah and encouraging children. Ethel handled the bookkeeping and finances, and remained a deeply religious woman devoted to family and faith.
Full Transcript
Ethel 1920 New York City yes sir let's go back there what what do you remember when you were a little girl I remember the house the apartment house we lived in it was in a heavily uh immigrant immigrant neighborhood mostly Jews uh polish and Irish mhm seemed to get along pretty darn good uh there were no playgrounds particularly near us we played on the sidewalk in front of the house Hopscotch jump rope PL uh Jacks and when the weather was bad you were in the house and you cut out paper dolls and colored and if you were lucky you had a set of Book of
Knowledge in your house and you sat down with a book and ate it up 100% I kind of took my way through through 18 20 books yeah and loved every one of them because they took care of all that time of growing up then when when I was about seven my mother who had not seen her mother for 20 years she had left when she was 15 years old decided to go back to visit her mother in Poland so she took my twin brother and me and we went to visit my grandmother in Poland for a good part of the summer of 1927 and one
of the things I remembered was the the trip across the ocean on the line of brayman the German line of brayman where they served Buon at 4:00 in the afternoon even at 7 I said this is so Grand and remembered seeing whales in the ocean and we landed and we went to Berlin first my mother at the age of 35 was as white-haired as I am now when she had left home she was she had black curly hair so her cousin who lived in Berlin took her to an expert salon and I remember looking at my mother when she came out of the salon who
that woman because I never had seen her with anything else but white hair anyway we went to gits which is where my grandmother lived really poor little town I remember it this I'm telling you this because it was such a different way of life that I had here here we were very modest uh in income here but there that was poverty that was and the Jewish population stood back and was careful not to stir up any uh noise in the little town because it was heavily Ukrainian and uh under the influence of some very anti-semitic monks who um would preach on Sundays and my grandmother
would would tell us you don't go out of the house on Sunday because when they come out of the church they go the men go and get drunk and they look for Jews to beat up that was a situation there on the other hand during the daytime I made friends with a a little Ukrainian girl who used to come and sometimes uh sell my grandmother something or help around uh it was an odd situation I couldn't 7 years old I couldn't quite figure out what was going on that's as you can see that stayed in my memory and I still haven't quite figured it out
did you ask your grandmother why she doesn't come back to the states with you oh my mother tried for maybe 30 years to get her here but in 1920 or 22 there was an act by Congress that cut the uh quota for Jews specifically Jews coming from Eastern Europe down to practically nothing and it wasn't until 1939 that my father got dressed his soul but he schmeared a congressman with $2,000 to get my aunt my grandmother had died my aunt my uncle and her and at least one of her children cuz one had already gone to Palestine to get them out of there because the
noise had already come out of Europe of a lot of trouble and we got them here in 1939 but she tried for years and they she used to send them um old clothes because if you sent new clothes they never got them she would send uh some through the hayasa some Jewish organization to get some funds so they had money to live on because my grandm mother was a widow and my aunt and uncle could barely make you know there was nothing to earn there it was just a little Barren town now back then was communication all by mail or mail by the mail by
mail yeah or Telegraph okay and uh telegraph was expensive telepone was very expensive and that assumed that the other party had a phone no such thing in that little town what about what about your grandparents on the other side well my both my grandfathers died in a plague in very early in the uh there was a typhus plague that went through Europe killed almost I don't know hundreds of th a lot of people and both my grandfathers died and two of my potential uncles they were little boys so my grandmother was left with three children she had had five and a husband the husband died
and two children died my that was my mother's side My Father's Side his mother had been married at the age of 16 to this young man who came from Russia who escaped from Russia avoiding the sar's Army and he died right at the time my father was born so there was poverty on both sides anyway sometimes I think about these things and wonder and Marvel at the fact they both grew up to be strong uh intelligent not particularly educated but not necessarily illiterate actually my mother stopped going to school the Polish government insisted all children go to school but even within the school the anti-Semitism
she told me was so uh oppressive that she was afraid to go so her education stopped maybe the third third grade but when she came to America at the age of 15 first the hyas that was a Hebrew immigrant Society to that helped the immigrants coming over at that time uh they got her a job and as a as a maid she worked as a maid from 6:00 in the morning till 10: at night she taught herself to read English right and she could Her speech everything she was determined right to be who she was internally and she was very intelligent and so was my
my father my father was a poor boy an orphan with no support came here he wound up he became a furer MH what year was 1913 my mother came I think in 1914 around that time sorry that's when they were were married they he came in 197 she came around 198 when you were just a little girl the Depression hit how oh boy how did that oh boy well considering what was going on around me at the time of the depression that was 1929 I was um 9 years old we would sit at the supper table at the end of the dinner the boy boys
would leave go do their homework my father insisted I stay at the table and he wanted me somehow he spotted that I had a brain for numbers and I had to tell him he would sit and say well I got so many skins in today and we made so many coats and what wound up was I was doing dividing addition subtracting adding but he wouldn't let me do it on paper I had to do it in my head he knew it but sure he was making me hop and but I was flattered at the attention look I'm a smart kid okay anyway but the depression
itself hit our business my father's business but somehow he made a modest living but being an alert kid I saw what was going on around me I could see I read the papers I read about men committing suicide jumping out the windows I could see men dressed in some of their old suits from when they were going had a job selling apples on the corners I remember where I lived on Burnside Avenue young men getting up on pedestals and preaching communism oh yeah as little as I was it was already starting there were guys talk this was into from the age of 9 to 15
there was a a a broiling going on this was 29 to 15 what age is that what year is that 35 uh the political activity on the streets around our apartment houses was very active the Socialists the Communists the uh Democrats the Democrats it they were weak the Communists and the Socialists I'd stand there and say woo woo and it was all part of the education of what was going on at the time right the young fellows would stand and listen the girls would come and listen there was a shaping of the youth at that time politically way ahead of our years right and uh
it took not until after the war did that's I think the World War II right that was in 41 when it started did your mom and dad ever talk to you about the depression did they ever sit you guys down we learned you didn't ask for things papa is making a living by his hard work every dollar that he earns has to be carefully managed and we don't waste or tread lightly on the work of your father and there was this old world you know respect for the family we sat down at the table in a very modest crowded little table for dinner at a
set table every night and my mother there was only room for five of us so my mother would stand in the kitchen my mother would stand at the stove Ladle out the food and she'd stand and eat standing up and it bothered the hell out of me because I was already beginning to be a feminist why why you're asking because at an early age my brothers were sent to Hebrew school and had Bar Mitzvah but if my older brothers went that was one thing but if my twin brother and we were like this was sent to Hebrew school I said well I want to go
too it's not for girls I said why not it's just not for girls girls don't study and my eyes popped up because I liked to study and so the resentment build up built up that lasted and it resulted in Congregation Beth Torah here in Dallas that's how long that powerful urge was the boys got their education they had their barice okay I was given piano lessons I can play the piano for I lasted for a while but that was not my thing I love music I love to dance but I was a short chub chubby kid so I was not built to be a dancer
which was what I wanted to be of course Pie in the Sky what was the high school where where did you go to high school I went to a school in downtown New York called Julia Richmond High School it was a an old girl's high school and it was uh like you had to have a certain grade average to get into it okay I got into it and it was the first time that my twin and I had been separated we had always been in the same classes we always got a almost exactly the same grade except that he always got one point more to
the I remember coming home first from a uh an exam my mother said how' you do I said oh great I got 99 she turns around she saids you know what Sammy got I said looked at her and she said 100 I was didn't want to talk to anybody anyway but we loved each other but when it came time to go to high school you could pick where you wanted to go and so Sam wanted to go to this D with Clinton High School which was I think an old boy school yes and uh my friend and her mother suggested I go down to Julia
Richmond and I went and it was a very good school yeah yeah excellent yeah and then I went on from there to Hunter College and uh got me a pretty decent education while while you're in college maybe or maybe shortly before before World War II broke out 1941 I graduated in 1940 and the World War I broke out December 7th 1941 right within 3 months my three brothers were drafted from a very busy Active Family household emptied out I could only imagine what hit my mother and father's Hearts but they were very stoic this was they kept saying America is the golden land no matter
how difficult times would get this is the golden land and never forget it never forget it don't let anybody desecrate it they they pushed that hard and the group of people they were with said we've got to protect America this is the golden land and that's like a whole emotional input that was part of the gal yeah did your brothers go into combat uh yes one did and he was wounded uh where was that that was in France he was on the bridge he was uh blown off the bridge into the river this must be have been toward the end of the war because he
wound up in a in a Parisian hospital and he tell told us a story about how when he opened his eyes there was a tall guy standing there and he looked at him and he said you're Adolf aren't you Adolf was my husband Ronnie's brother who was living in at that point under as an underground person he had married a French woman had been living in the south of France had to leave her there because the town knew he was Jewish and he came to Paris joined the underground and he the Nazis he said he was a Swiss citizen the Nazis sent him to work
in a factory manufacturing aviators leather jackets lined with fur and what he would do is somehow relay the number of jackets that were made and where they were shipped to to the underground which told them where the aviators and the planes were and where they could expect potential activity to come from at any rate Adolf the brother looked a lot it was family a family face so my brother Samy recognized it because at that point we knew the my husband's family they had come over in 34 and so he looked up he said Adolf so that's how I know that it was toward the end
of the war was winding down because the fact is that Adolf could come into the hospital and allow himself to be recognized as Adolf now your two other brothers were they also in the service yes and were they overseas well yes my middle brother rode the hump there was a a uh service of airplanes shuttling uh War supplies to China but he was flying over the Himalayas that's right and he was in he was part of the quartermaster but he had to fly with the planes over that and see to it that it got to that uh the right place and that all of it
went to the Army and that it was not grabbed for being sold elsewhere right that was his job and uh my oldest brother who had was had became eventually a French and Spanish Professor was put to work as a in the censorship office in New York City right near where my mother and father lived so that wasn't too bad yeah and my f my husband my dear sweet husband well tell me about where you met your husband my husband was my was my cousin his sister married my brother so two couples we had the same great-grandfather they came over in 1934 I was 14 at
the time his father liked remembered my mother as a child he always liked her very much so one of the first cousins he came to visit was my mother so one Sunday he came my husband Ronnie took his father to visit his father's cousin they come in and two cousins Embrace and wonderful you know and this tall handsome young fellow came into my the living room where I was sitting with a friend and I fell I mean that was it poor guy didn't know it but I had decided that was a guy I was going to marry and I did but that was 8 years
later yeah yeah and that's how we met so when did you tell them you were going to get married well we didn't date because he he indicated later he says we were family I couldn't mess with family and he was a good-look guy the girls were after him all the time but we kind of sensed that the chemistry was right M and so the last year we didn't see each other and then I I heard that he had dated my girlfriend I didn't like that and so I decided I'm going to I'm going to cut him out of my so I got myself engaged to
another guy that was a no no for him anyway he called me finally we had a a date it was very it's as though nothing had ever happened and was sitting there uh oh we were swimming at the St George Hotel and we're sitting on the side after a swimming and he turns around and looks at me he says so when do you think we should get married never asked me will marry me right he just said so when do you think we ought to get married like this yeah and I said March this was in March of 1942 I looked at him I said
I think June will be fine I swear he looked a little pale he told me later that he had figured we'd be engaged for 3 years he was 27 at that time I was 22 I was ready to get married and so uh but he wasn't he when he had made that proposition when do you think and I gave him an answer he didn't want to argue with me he was very respectful of my decisions we got married in June like I said so then where did you guys settle down we settled down in a very sweet little apartment very bondus it was very hard
to get Apartments there were no Apartments it was wartime right no building going on there was a little build apartment over near Broadway and 200th Street mhm and that's where we live now Ronnie was Exempted from war Ser from army service three four five times they kept calling him but he was a tool and die maker and even in Russia they Exempted tool and die makers from from the Army because their skills was so vital mhm like he said they will work at where he was working they were tooling up for the Corsair and that was a a real uh a Fighters airplane and they
would work long hours and that's what he did right through the war and after the war he uh became a plant you know and the in the real Go Go go get her go get her fashion from a tool and die maker became the best one then he became a plant manager and then he got itchy and then he said I need to be in my own business I can't do that here in New York I don't want anybody looking over my shoulder meaning his family my family so one day and we both we had many discussions about it one day on a Sunday he
had taken his toolkit and he said I'll call you when I get there we had drawn a circle around the cities on a big map we had drawn circles around areas that we might possibly move to we it had to have a place where there was uh where his skills could be used and then LTV uh Ling Tempco I believe it was they were always hunting for skilled men he said don't worry I can always get a job no matter where I go okay and uh he picked up his toolkit drove himself to Dallas cuz we oh it it had to have that kind of
opportunity and it had to have a decent sized Jewish Community with potential for educating the kids it was heartbreaking because I left my family behind but I recognize my Restless H Spirit husband say lovey now did you know he had picked Dallas when he left oh yeah the two of us the two of us it was a decision any major decision we generally work together on so is that a little bit of a culture shock for you down here oh yeah yes indeed but you know what mine was not to focus on that culture shock mine was we we have to do what we have
to do that's it and so but the thing that made me come I got a letter dated January 22nd and he said e pack up the kids it's 92° here I love it he hated the cold and I hated the heat came here that was the year of the beginning of a seven-year drought right that was really what year was this 1952 uhhuh oh yes no air conditioning no air conditioning in a small two-bedroom apartment almost a mile from the nearest school we had one car he opened up a little shop his own shop on Elm Street right next door to Rudolph's Meat Market downtown
for 6 months there was not a penny of income coming in at 6 months we were talking about going back to New York and then he made his first sale of $12 for 15 minutes of work and he came he said E look at that at that rate that would be $60 an hour at that time $60 was worth a lot more than now and so let's give it another go and as it turned out the faiths were kind first from a tool and die business then he became involved with just manufacturing Precision sheet metal for the electronics businesses here in Dallas and those were
feeding burgeoning computer businesses and the aircraft businesses somebody he knew was building a building down the block he watched he said I can do that next scene with buying a lot on which to build a building and we got into building warehouses and that accounts for the estate of Ronald gruan he he did very well but in the middle of it the he did the important things in his life between us we knew we were both had the same goals of very involved with Jewish Education the Jewish Community you know as well as the outer Community we eventually endowed a fairly large amount to yiva
University in New York and we uh Al lesser endowment here at yav High School here in Dallas and Ronan was very involved with the establishment and development of a keba Academy MH MH uh and of course they slept me in because Ronnie was the creator but I took care of the business that in other words I did the bookkeeping the controlling the managing of the funds the managing of the family somebody from sherith Israel came to him and asked if they he could help them uh set up a new Shool in in Richardson there were a group of young young couples that wanted a new
conservative shoel and he did and he taught them how to run a service and encourage people who had no Hebrew education he said it doesn't matter if you don't know Hebrew or you don't know the words to a song God love you if you just la la along with your heart and we would meet sometimes maybe there were 15 people maybe there were 20 we now have a Congregation of 400 families and what's the name of the show congregation Beth Torah there was a certain ethos that developed that we developed one that the whole family is part of the Sho not just the men without
the women men are lost got to have a wife or a woman women were allowed and encouraged to come up to the beima and have an Aaliyah if they could read Hebrew they were encouraged to read Torah and we had classes teaching Hebrew and there was also a an uh the teaching of the idea that little children have to be encouraged to be comfortable in the surroundings of the Sho that they shouldn't feel that that's a no no we made parts of the service where little ones were called up and they would just stand there and they were supposed to lead the congregation in a
song well they couldn't really but if one or two of them would say uh everybody would join in and eventually some of these kids that was in 73 4 they're now grown they're in our Sho as parents of little children who go up there and Lead services so out of all your philanthropic work it seems like education really was now you got it now you got it that was it but the fact remains that I never got a Hebrew education what I was taught was how to keep a real kosher kitchen to this day my kosher kitchen is uh-uh uhuh because I will not be
a slave to it I keep certain of the rules but I'm not a slave to it but uh I taught myself to read Hebrew and I can follow the services I can even jump in in the middle if I come in the middle because I can read it I just can't mouth it what was the happiest time in your life well I was happy when I got married to the man I really loved D but every time I had a baby just looking at a newborn that was perfect and gave me a smile I could melt away that was happiness pure happiness now in your
lifetime you've seen so much was there an invention or a mod some type of modern technology that came along that when you saw it for the first time you went wow this this is something special I fought having a computer in my house I'm doing the books right for the real estate for the business right my personal checking helping out friends a young a friend whose husband died and her state was a mess a sharp pencil with an eraser is all you needed a sharp pencil with an eraser is all you need well a little more than that teach the value of order that was
a a sense of accomplishment to help somebody in your lifetime there's been so many momentous occasions on the national scene yes you live through the Great Depression the wars President Kennedy assassination something good the moonlanding in' 69 for the first time of course the tragedy of 9911 was there something that really stood out that affected you that you said I know exactly where I was when it happened December 7th 19 41 because it was war in our our boys are going to be going over War mhm mhm you and Ronald four children five grandchildren one great grandchild so far what advice does great grandma have
for the Next Generation I'm basically a very religious person if you can having a sense of connection to God power whatever as a an ironclad structure around you to hold you and support you whenever you're in trouble you're down whatever allowing yourself to receive that strength but I would hope that the kids would find their way to that kind of a an inner strength to that power and always have it to hold on to no matter what happens in their lives in this world it is something that will keep life going for them thanks for doing this today well thank you you did a great
job well thank you