Ethel Silvergold Zale
Ethel Silvergold Zale's father came from Europe and settled in Dallas, where he joined the Weinstein family in the bakery business on Harwood Street in South Dallas. The bakery thrived, serving the Jewish community and delivering breads and bagels to other cities. While delivering to a bris in Greenville, Texas, his vehicle blew a tire and overturned, and he was killed when Ethel was only three months old. Her mother, widowed at 24 with three young daughters, went into business with Ethel's grandfather, who ran a dry goods store on Deep Ellum. The extended family, brought over from Russia by her grandfather, lived close together and helped raise the girls.
Ethel grew up on South Boulevard in a warm, tight community where Jewish families lived side by side and children walked everywhere to school, parties, and services. She recalled sweet 16 dances at Lee Hall, gathering in the park by Shearith Israel during the High Holy Days, and walking to Temple Emanu-El on Saturdays, where she came to know the prayers by heart. Guided by her devoted mother's example of charity, she thrived at Forest Avenue High School, graduating as valedictorian and serving as the first woman president of the student body. She attended SMU on scholarship, married young, and raised five children, including identical twin daughters.
When her youngest daughter was in second grade, Ethel returned to school at El Centro, earned a degree in interior design, and became a professional member of ASID. Her work grew to include the Columbian Club, offices, and homes, but she took greatest pride in pro bono projects for Shearith Israel, Golden Acres, and Jewish Family Service. With her friend Regine Ginsburg, she helped build Friends of Golden Acres, renovating rooms and raising millions to bring dignity to residents. Later she championed Jewish Family Service, founding the Woman to Woman luncheon and the Society of Life. Married to Eugene Zale, and a breast cancer survivor, she remained active with Southwestern and grateful for the privilege of serving others.
She raised five children and by the time of the interview had 14 grandchildren and three great-grandchildren, with more expected.
Full Transcript
is the 11th of April uh 2014 uh my name is Pauline graier and I am interviewing elel silver gold Zale and Ethel would you tell us a little bit about what you know of your family's history um you were telling me earlier that your father came over um and I don't know when would you talk about your dad and what you remember I I know that he came from Europe and uh somehow settled in Dallas and uh went into the bakery business with the Weinstein family family on Harwood Street in South Dallas and as I understand it was a thriving uh Bakery they did a
lot of business of course for the Jewish settle people who are in South Dallas but also he uh uh went to other cities and in fact uh he was delivering bagels and breads to a bris in Greenville Texas um this tire blew out on his his truck or car and it turned over and he was killed at that time I had just been born I was 3 months old and so I don't know a lot about my father except that from what I have heard that he was a wonderful fine man and I'm sure that he was and he already had a Jewish Home when
uh when this happened and and yes he was married to my mother and there were two other girls older than I I was the baby and they are living in Dallas too would you tell us their names oh yes my sisters are Francis now Coleman and uh married to Red Coleman and my uh the middle sister is Ruth Levy married to America first he had been in the Russian army and somehow got out and as soon as he could I think he uh came to America with his little sewing machine and worked for many years I'm not sure how many and then brought over my
grandmother my mother and all her siblings and um they were very close and helped raise us after our father died in fact we lived in a duplex on South Boulevard in Harwood and um we're very close to my grandparents they had a store my grandfather had a little dry good store on deep Elm and after my father died my mother went into business with him to raise her children raise her daughters you said she was very young when she she was very young she was 24 when my father was killed and she had the three three children yes that's um that's really something yes she
um she was an incredibly fabulous woman uh devoted to her children in fact she never married again until in her 40s after my two older sisters were married and I was pretty much ready to marry she wanted to be sure her time and her love and she raised her three girls tell us what it was like growing up your mother worked so tell us what it was like growing up in South Dallas at that time it was wonderful we had a wonderful wonderful youth uh every uh all the many of the Jewish families lived on South Boulevard you could walk up and down the street
and find your friends not be afraid to just uh to have parties to go to school we walked everywhere and although she worked and I sometimes wonder how she was always there for us in the evening we would all couldn't wait for her to get home she would sit and study with us she would talk to us and um they say love is is spelled t m so we had time with her and the weekends were devoted completely to us U although we spent much of our time on dbm which was a great education in itself you learned to have compassion for people that weren't
as blessed as you were and although we were not rich in any way um we always knew that there were others who needed more than we needed and we were raised by my mother to to give charity I um have told the story but I think I do remember sitting by her on the weekends on Sunday she'd write out her little bills and she would pick out the Charities from the mail and put a dollar in different envelopes and I was allowed to to put it in and lick it so I learned to give charity she was a a wonderful role model not just in
talking but into her actions and that has carried through your life hasn't it yes it really has I didn't know it at the time but I I feel it has influenced me very much of course I know it has the the first thing I think I became aware of was your efforts with Golden Acres could you tell us about that and how you got started there yes um but I do want to go back to high school because I yes I do I I think it was back should we go back to high school all right I went to Forest Avenue high school and I
think that might have been I'm sure it was some of the happiest days of my life we had so many friends and that were all at school and I because of my mother I was determined to do well and and I did I was um I I loved art and I ended up having some art scholarships when I graduated and I won the Daughters of the American Revolution scholarship believe it or not I don't know how I got that in the city and I was Val Victorian so I um and I have to say I was the first woman president of the student body so
what school was that that was Forest Avenue High School a wonderful school that that there was uh all the Jewish children in South Dallas and I mean in I went to Forest Avenue high school and uh and at that time you were you were the In Crowd if you were smart and studied hard and did well that's what was admired and we all were very competitive but all very good friends and we had great social life we had parties all the time in each other's homes and that was so much fun tell us about the social about the dances and the sweet 16 dances the
great sweet 16 parties were at Le Hall in um um Lemon Avenue and Turtle Creek and just by chance I had to throw in I now live across the street from Lee Hall and I look down and remember those incredible dances where we would have a dance card and you were a nervous wreck to be sure that some boy would ask ask you to dance and come over and fill up your dance card and um and then I believe uh the invit the parents started filling them out and then you had to dance with whoever was on your card but it was so much fun
we had the sweet 16 parties and they were were wonderful times so we had a great great teenage years and great growing up and and everybody worked I worked at Baker shoes on Saturday are in the store during Christmas uh in my mama's store and everybody worked we all worked uh went to school did whatever we could do and and U tell them about walking on the high holy days and what we used to do socially on the high holy days well we would meet in the Park yeah at shareth Israel uh at city park and everyone would U go outside and have wonderful times
in the park while our parents and Grandparents were praying for us we hope and uh however we lived a block from Temple Emanuel so although my grandparents were at sherith and we would go during the high holy days usually to shareth Israel we didn't have a car so we walked that one block to Temple Emanuel and on Saturdays when my two older sisters were usually doing something and I was still left at home with my grandmother next door I would walk every Saturday morning to Temple and go to services and I don't know what possessed me to do that I just liked it and to
this day I can remember almost every prayer that's recited at Temple I I grew up with it and it's different now it's different there's a different prayer book and I've seen the old one I love it it's the one I remember and uh Rabbi Le goitz was a big influence in our life lives I uh I think my mother would go and ask him a lot of of advice and U he was a great Rabbi and he only lived two blocks away from the temple himself I went yeah and uh we were confirmed at Temple and this is the old Temple the the old temple
on the corner of South Boulevard and Harwood I guess yeah Park Row I think was the the carer we were mhm yeah and so you were married in the old I was married by Rabbi Olan yes in the uh well at those days you could marry in a hotel um and we were married uh to my first husband David Frankfurt in the um at the adulas hotel where we had the reception and Rabbi Olan um and was our uh and so After High School What U well anyway before I was married yes so after High School I used my scholarship to go to SMU and
um I in those days you married very young you uh so but I did go far and I um a year and a half to SMU and there is where I um met my husband he was at SMU and married early did you very early I was I know you became an interior designer after you married but was that after you had children or how did that work yes after I had five children a son identical twin daughters a son and another daughter three girls and two boys and when the youngest daughter was in second grade I felt uh now that I could get away
a little and I went back to college to a junior college El Centro that was right in town and um got a degree in interior design and then took boards and tests that you had to take to be a professional member of the American Society of interior design asid and that made you a professional and then I I worked I thought it would just be oh helping some friends and doing a few homes but it grew and grew and I did a lot of work yeah wish some very well-known places too can you share that with us well um I worked as did part of
the Colombian Club at that time a lot of office projects a lot of homes but in all my work the things I'm most proud of was well I was on the board at sherith Israel for many years I was the head of the decor or and I had to pick out everything that happened and was very involved with the first restoration of the synagogue and U and worked with the Architects on on that and always did everything at sherith Israel and then um and then that and then began the work at UH all the renovation and design work at Golden Acres and then later for
the first building for Jewish Family Service so those three pro bono jobs I said I I don't think I was that good but I was free so everybody asked me to do it and I loved loved doing those important places that's wonderful and the other great thing was uh I doing jobs with individuals became we made so many friends wonderful lifelong friendships that I still en en jooy today so much it was a very happy job and then I could also be free to be with my children and later my grandchildren and uh it was on my own time and speaking of that just tell
us now so I don't forget how many we know you have F had five children and what about grandchildren and great grandchildren well five my five children and of course their spouses are my children and we have 14 I have 14 grandchildren four of whom are married and there are three weddings coming up and now I have three great grandchildren and two babies please God um will be born this summer that's we went on a family trip uh to celebrate my 80th birthday at Christmas time and we were 33 people immediately immediate family and um that's amazing so and and we're growing thank God and
do most of them live around Dallas or in Dallas yeah uh three of the children live here but and they're close one is in Austin and one is in Tex Arcana so two three hours away by car so we get to be together you have a dynasty no I have a blessing that's really incredible uh besides the interior design uh which a lot of it was proon which is a wonderful gift in itself tell us about how you got started working at the original Golden Acres out in East Dallas um or Garland well I was familiar with Golden Acres my grandfather was there and uh
and then my stepfather was there after my mother passed away and um I would be out there and I had a very very dear friend we became dear friends um Regine Ginsburg who said to me one day they they would have birthday parties once a month or every two months and we were there and she said do you know they don't even serve ice cream and they don't give them a gift and this is terrible we need to do something about this and there had been a two women or three that had farmed a little auxiliary and Regine and I decided to to help them
um really build this up into an auxiliary that helped there was so much work and so much to be done for the residents to make their life which was our mission full of dignity and and a better life and um so we formed friends of Golden Acres which was amazing we raised millions of dollars somehow uh we had a just letting people know the needs and uh in the process we completely renovated all the rooms the bathrooms we started a um not a gymnasium in sorts a physical therapy department we built a room where after Strokes they could learn to use their um hands in
different ways and and uh help AIDS we um uh we just did uh everything and uh the the kitchens and the dining room I mean we we really got this whole city involved um it was an easy job you just let them know the needs and they really really responded what was very impressive there were literally so much you did that Federation had not been able to pay for well that's true there was no money and there too I got to use my decorating skills in the rooms and and it was U the labor of love we redid the country store which um um was
renamed Annabel's U because after my mother Bell and an Frankfurt my mother-in-law it was a place they loved it was a pleasure to be there the residents would talk about going out to lunch and that meant they could eat lunch in the Country Store it meant so much to them and to be able to go in and buy some lotion or a handkerchief or it was a shopping experience and they were a lunch experience for these women and men and they loved it lovely lovely how many years um did that enta we worked uh I reine was the first president and I think she was
the president for over 10 years and then I was the president for two years going on three and then um reie Stanley I think was a president for like a year and then and then what happen was being built and the needs weren't as great there and then what happened uh somehow um when the new Legacy was built and um and then ultimately um Golden Acres was sold and so um the funds we had in the which were still quite a lot of funds that we had raised the money we um we gave wonderful shows at once at the Majestic and once we honored the
five um people who had begun the original Golden Acres at a huge Fair that we had 800 for lunch and like a thousand and night we this was such a small group we really were young and thought we could do anything we didn't realize it was impossible so nothing was and we raised uh had great that's how we raised so much money in and in donations but anyway the money we still had went to the Legacy and was used um for um the Legacy North which uh many of the people from Golden Acres were transferred to to the Legacy North not North I'm sorry the
Legacy South I often wondered what kind of mixed emotions you must have had when Golden Acres was sold well it was it was sad and we had a project that raised a lot of money we tiled all the walls in the country store with a family's name and we had trees of life with all their children on it and I so wanted to bring those tiles with us but when we tried to take them off they cracked and we would have had to cut out the whole wall but it was hard to leave projects that we had worked so hard yeah and I don't know
what's happened to them they may have torn them down but they were full of love and they did their job so I guess so tell us about Jewish Family Service because what you've done there is also remarkable well I uh we weren't needed as much it there was not Golden Acres but of course there was the new Legacy and I did I served on a board or an Advisory Board there to um help when the new one was built to pick out fabrics and colors and they had a they had a professional crew from Austin or New York or somewhere but we had a committee
to look at it give our opinion but um then I was asked uh when the new when uh Jewish Family Service got their building um where they are now on aapo um the president at that time which was um Dr Pollock asked me if I would work with the architects in picking out Fabrics materials and furniture and I said of course and I went to where I really didn't as much as I had done in the city I really didn't know exactly what Jewish Family Service did or and I thought if I don't know I don't think anybody really understands they were in a very
small office so cramped and so in need of bigger spaces and I thought we need and then as I was working they needed a room for the children the children who were getting um therapy a play they call it play area where they could help those with problems and they had an needed rooms for adult um for grief counseling they needed a room for the career uh they helped find jobs and the food pantry was wonderful they gave food and I said my goodness nobody knows about all this and I just thought it would be we need to get the word out and let the
the city know what we do so one of the things that we I I came up with was an idea of a lunch involving women uh because they get the job done and her influential and we started the woman tooman lunching at that time in a backyard with h 200 people because we could only use her gazebo in not the home was a beautiful yard and a beautiful home and um from that time uh which was 12 years ago this is the sixth uh woman to woman from that time of 200 women we are expecting 15 to 1800 women this year and it is a
huge help to the budget of course for Jewish Family Service and also started a program called Society of life which is just a set amount that you give every year um and it doesn't uh it didn't go for tickets it didn't do anything it was just an annual pledge and that has been grown and grown and grown and so it's another wonderful way to raise money for that's absolutely spectacular and through these Affairs the woman tooman and Society of life and the and they have so many other things the annual meetings but now people really understand the enormous work and it was a way to
help they have a program for the elderly they helps children they help so by working for Jewish Family Service you're covering all the the needs that are in your heart the old the young the sick they do now special needs they're just beginning a program for soldiers that come back from Afghanistan who need some psychiatric help and can afford it so many people really did not know about what Jewish Family Service does no I I really didn't know but once I found out I was hooked and I think that if you can only work for one organization that covers so much and yet it is
still a recipient of federation funds a big recipient of federation funds and now part of United Way and the Catholic dosis as you say that works with them and they are called on to really um do a lot of work in the city they were the first first uh agency there when Katrina hit and they really were incredible they placed more people and in their food banks and really were renowned for their work with Katrina in Dallas and the Jewish family service is not only for Jews absolutely not that's what I U and we work with the the schools for teenage girls they're in a
lot of public schools and they are constantly asked to do other jobs throughout the city that are not Jewish causes to it's just amazing so in uh there are a few years when you haven't had a woman tooman lunch and Stu well it alternates with um another affair every other year here which is um honoring a person in the community it's called um what is it called but it's one year it's the woman tooman Affair and love of family and the next year it's it's love of family and they honor one person or one uh group that um has done a a this year the
the guest speaker is a Jewish woman who is an Entertainer who is BET Midler how did you choose her well it just has evolved into to we were really very first two we were um used local I mean our first one was Susan Dale from um whose father and mother live in Dallas and grew up in Dallas and now as and also we try to have Phil and iic people and they have a great uh foundation and the next year Susan Catz who's the head of neimans uh and then we were getting big and we decided we needed to try to Branch out and maybe
try some bigger people and um and then we've had um Dian Von firstenberg we've had um Jo bayar and um and it just U it worked and we were attracting more and more uh PE women and um Marley maidin who was deaf because that year we began the special needs program and we try to tie it in and um and bet Midler is really our biggest uh draw and this luncheon is becoming my hope and aim is for this luncheon to be the biggest women's Affair in Dallas and attract and it is it's attracting all sorts of um corporations and that aren't Jewish we're having
a lot of people come that aren't Jewish it's really extraordinary and a lot of men come too a lot of men and it is a a a charity for the whole city it is not Jewish but we do love to keep them the name Jewish Family Service because how has jalice changed during the space of your lifetime you said growing up was so much fun and it was wonderful when I drove to SMU to go to college um it's the the Central Expressway stopped at Mockingbird I got off there which was great because that's where but I couldn't go any farther if I wanted to
and um oh my goodness I mean what what has happened to our city and to the growth and to the Arts particularly I think the arts district is just phenomenal and um Dallas has become an incredible fabulous City I mean and in technology and uh I've seen you know where we had a telephone with three party lines I mean to our cell phones and everybody on their cell phones and what's going on today is amazing and I'm not so sure it's all that great yeah might have been nicer just to sit and listen to your party line yeah what if you can look back at
some of the real I mean you've had so many high points we can all imagine but tell us a few of the of the things that remain just as just before you go to sleep what or maybe you dream about things that have happened to you um standing before um a whole audience of people and being honored by Jewish Family Service I remember that tell us about some of the high points because you have had a life filled with I would say a high point was just growing up with my sisters and my mother and my grandmo parents and the wonderful times of course uh
my children have always been the center of my life and watching them grow and marry and have children each time a child is born they say is an affirmation of God and and it is I mean it is a true blessing every time you see a healthy child you're so happy that's always a highlight that is true and these great grandchildren are amazing to see to believe that I've come that far I've loved working with Charities I loved working it was fun and you've been married and I was yeah and I also have to say um been married now for 13 years to U Eugene
Z and and been a part of their work and I think one of the things I'm most proud of if his family and their work of course is the Z lii hosal hospital and I have become very involved with Southwest um Southwestern because I had breast cancer and was very very lucky and was treated uh there and still go there and I uh work with the volunteers there we have a tea or a lunch every year when we invite I give it for the volunteers we invite one of the doctors and he fills us in on all the new medicine and um my oldest son
who's a doctor just became on staff at Southwestern so I'm very involved in um I think it's a great Medical Center that's extraordinary you've been touching the most important or some of the most important things that Dallas has to to offer and made an impact on all of them well made a very small impact but it's been my privilege to be involved in some of these wonderful things we're very lucky to have you as as a premier resident of Dallas and a mover and a Shaker thank you so much it's thank you I been a privilege and Ethel you have covered so much of your
life it's you've done uh a really good job of summing it up is there anything else that you'd like to talk about before we end uh just that I have always thought and tried to teach my children that we are so blessed and if we can live our life to make one little difference just one small piece that would help others and help Humanity then we have lived a good life and I feel very privileged that I was given the opportunity and to to be able to do my charity work whatever it is and um and hopefully to do something to help make this world
a better place and to leave a little part of me in humanity and in this world and um that has been my privilege and my gift more than I have ever gifted others and I'm thankful to God for the privilege thank you thank