Florence Shapiro
Florence Shapiro's parents were both born in Berlin, Germany, though they did not know one another there. Her father came from an observant family whose grandfather, a proud German patriot, could not believe the country would harm them; her mother was an only child from a comfortable family whose father owned a shoe store. During Kristallnacht her maternal grandfather's store was destroyed and he was severely beaten, and the family endured years of hardship, including hiding in the woods, before securing papers to reach London in 1939. Her grandfather died of a heart attack at age forty, weakened by his ordeals. Her father escaped on a Kindertransport at sixteen with his cousin Leon Dorfman, later joining the British Army and its intelligence corps, and changing his name to a more British form. More than thirty-five family members were killed in the war. Her parents met and married in England in 1947.
In January 1948 the family sailed to the United States, and Florence was born in New York in May 1948 on her father's birthday. The family lived in New York City, Brooklyn, and Long Island while her father worked in the fur trade, a skill learned in Germany and England. When she was eleven, in 1960, the family moved to Dallas, settling in North Dallas near Preston and Forest. She connected with a circle of friends through Congregation Shearith Israel, including a lifelong friend she met in the synagogue restroom during the High Holidays. As a first-generation American, she often helped her parents adjust to American customs. Her father became one of the originators of the Dallas Holocaust Museum, while her mother could rarely speak of what she had endured. Florence attended Hillcrest High School, where she was active in student council, drill team, and cheerleading, and later joined a Jewish sorority at the University of Texas.
At the University of Texas, Florence met Howard Shapiro, from the small Central Texas town of San Saba, where his father served as mayor. After an inauspicious start, they married in December 1969 and settled in Plano, then a small town of about 17,500 people, an ideal blend of her big-city family ties and his small-town roots. She taught high school English and speech before raising their family. Deeply engaged in the community, she helped found the Junior League of Plano and served on the Plano City Council beginning in 1979, later as mayor, and then as a Texas state senator for eighteen years, playing a role in Plano's dramatic growth, including Ross Perot's Legacy development. She faced anti-Semitic undercurrents during a Senate campaign, when billboards were defaced, which deepened her resolve. Honored as Plano Citizen of the Year, she views her twelve grandchildren and her role as a bridge between past and future as her greatest achievement.
Full Transcript
and we are rolling okay today is Tuesday March 20 fifteen I am here with Florence Shapiro who is going to share some of her thoughts and memories for the family the community and for the Dallas Jewish Historical Society archives Florence good morning good morning to me I just wanted to let you begin by telling us about your family about your parents and any information you'd like to share with us with your grandparents where where you were born all the specifics that start from the beginning okay and we'll start in Berlin Germany okay where my parents were both born and believe it or not they didn't
know each other in Berlin Germany my father came from a very Orthodox family his his life until he was 16 years old was revolved around his family I had a younger sister two years younger than he was and it was a typical German Jewish family I think most of the things he told me about his upbringing was that it was he was Jewish first but his father always believed that he was a German and when the war rumblings of the war started his father never believed that the Germans would do anything to destroy his family because he thought in World War one and as a
patriot in Germany they weren't going to do anything to harm him so he was in denial my mother on the other hand was an only child she was several years younger than my dad and they didn't run in the same circles and she was an only child and was raised in a fairly wealthy family my grandfather owned a shoe store in Berlin and they - never really thought that this would happen in Germany because they had money and she grew up in a in a community that she had a lot of Christian friends and her desire was to stay under the radar so to speak
so their their younger years they were both fairly young were really spent as normal children in Berlin and Germany and then Hitler came to power my grandfather at Kristallnacht my mother's father had his store destroyed pretty severely beaten through a number of years before the war actually was declared and had very very difficult time they desperately wanted to get out of Germany he paid a lot of different people including Jews to give them papers and they ended up hiding in the woods at night I mean they did all kinds of things to survive and finally after many attempts to get papers to leave my grandfather's
was successful in getting papers to leave to London England that was in the early no in 1939 right before the war actually so they were safe in England unfortunately because of the beatings because of the extreme pain and pressure my grandfather although he emigrated to England about a year or two later he he was he died of a heart attack he was 40 years old and left my mother and her mother in London during the war my father on the other hand was fortunate that he was it was available for him to take to get on a kinder transport which is a very famous option
for young children under the age of 17 to leave Berlin if they were fortunate enough to have someone that would accept that in another country he was 16 at the time his parents put him on the Kindertransport with his first cousin my uncle Leon Dorfman and they each had a sister they left behind my father sister sister was two years younger than he was and when my grandparents left hook took my father to the boat they my grandmother said I don't believe I'm ever gonna see you again and it was true his sister who was as I said probably 14 like we think she survived
another year or two she was taken to concentration camp his mother and father were taken to concentration camps and they were killed and between the family members they were probably over 35 that were actually killed during the war my father left on a Kindertransport and was taken to London where cousin there was less than a genuine about helping him but at least he made it and he then decided at age 17 which was just another year after that that he would join the British Army only this 17 at the time and he was taken immediately into the intelligence court so he really saw the war
up close and personal spoke English spoke German last name was Dorfman and he changed it to Martin Donald at the time because it was very British and he has amazing stories to tell about the war and even after the war we they met after the war in England and through some mutual friends and married in 1947 my grandmother who was still alive at the time always wanted to move to the United States and finally pestered them enough to say okay it's 1940 it's time for us to leave so in January of 1948 they came over on the boat my mother was pregnant with me at
the time we always laugh and say there's a good possibility I could have been born at sea but I was born in May of 1948 on my father's birthday May 2nd which is a blessed memory and something that is very special to me always has been no it's ok what they started talking about you probably know as you know what yeah so that's where the light our life started was really in New York with very limited family some some cousins that my parents had my mother had very little family very little family my father actually came from a much larger family and one set of
aunts and uncles had four or five of thank you had four or five children and so as a result of that and I didn't have any cancer uncles but I certainly had cousins but I certainly had cousins second and third generation cousins and so while we lived in New York it was family I mean we met we'd have dinner on Friday nights and no matter where we were we lived in three different places in New York we I was born in New York City and then we lived in Brooklyn and then we lived in Long Island and my dad was actually in the fur business
which was a trade that he learned back in Germany as an as a young man and also in England and so he followed that path they used to make furs in New York and then they would travel in the south coming to all kinds of big stores and sell there first and the South seemed to be a wonderful opportunity so one of his cousins came to Dallas and sold goods in Dallas and I was probably in the fourth grade almost the fifth grade I think when they first started talking about moving Dallas and of course back then Dallas I mean I thought we were going
alright horses and you know you had a horse tied to a to a pole and the image back then was very different from what I was used to in in New York by the fifth grade I was 11 and my parents said pack your bags and we're moving to Dallas so we did and it was a very unusual time my brother was two years younger than I was and so I was 11 and Mark was 9 heart age to pick up and leave really hard age to pick up and leave in any circumstance but particularly because we knew nobody time went on and we acclimated
obviously and Dallas was wonderful I mean we loved it we participated in a lot of things my father as most people know was one of the originators of the Holocaust Museum and he was very involved he and Mike Jacobs and Max Calvin and a handful of people might bill Schiff I mean they were a group of them and so I grew up all of my life having this burning desire and knowledge and an ability to learn more to want to know more about it he was very protective always of his children and there were stories he would tell us but they were limited my mother
on the other hand would never speak at all about it she would begin the tears and the story and she couldn't talk she couldn't talk to this day she's not she's not a talker about what happened to her periodically you can get a little story here and there but basically she just she just can't it's not that she doesn't want to it said she just can't it it brings back such harsh memories for her I think about it a lot when I think about all this bullying that you hear about in the news and in the media and when you talk to children about bullying
she probably if anything that she talks about the bullying that occurred for her as a child in Berlin was just marked scarred and marked her for life because she thought those people those children were her friends and they turned on her on a dime and one day they were her friend and the next day the Germans said don't talk to those dirty people and so her life just changed dramatically and it reminds me of what's going on in the world today of course so take me back a little bit to when you moved to Dallas where were you in Dallas what would Dallas like if
I love you remember oh my this was 1960 and Dallas was we lived in North Dallas in fact I can't tell you exactly where we lived we lived on a street cook Jamestown which is right it was a there was a skiller's in the shopping center at Preston and forests in the southwest corner and our house was the backyard of skiller's I'm in the back of skiller's on Jamestown right on the corner I wish I could remember the address but I can't but it was on Jamestown was the street what I remember most about that was really going to share this rail and connecting with
the the get the the group of Jewish kids my age and shared Israel and one of my very best friends today 60 years later it's almost 60 years almost 60 years later I actually met at strength Israel it was High Holidays I remember this like it was yesterday boy that's a terrible thing I don't ask me what I had for breakfast today but I can tell you what happened that day I remember distinctly we were in though you know as as 11 and 12 and 13 year olds do they get tired and bored in the service and they come into the restroom and I'm not
a few remember but it and it's probably still there it said there's a God just giant mirror so the girls were all kind of fluttering around the mirror and I well my mother was a milliner she made hats and I was wearing this little pill pop this little hat it was a leopard and looking in the mirror and a girl looked at me and she said well why are you wearing that hat and it started up a conversation well it was Betty Glaser Betty Silverman and we just began to talk and she kind of put me at ease and it was kind of a chattering
thing and we didn't go to the same elementary school I was at Pershing and she was at Preston Hollow but when we met up at Benjamin Franklin we became very good friends and her friends became my friends and my friends became her friends and that was a group of friends that have had a lasting relationship even today and it all started with Betty and I at Congregation shared Israel and I assumed that most of these kids were not children of Holocaust survivors I don't really know I I don't think so I mean Betty certainly wasn't didn't and so I don't think so they weren't all
Jewish I mean we kind of started in a group of friends that were not all Jewish Betty and I were friends with a lot of people that were not Jewish although we still had our Jewish roots and we still did a lot of things you know we were both wooden bBYO and we did you know we did a lot of things but there wasn't that we just went solely with that that group of Jewish friends so I think part of that discussion I'm gonna have to hope that the dog is gonna be okay what we did so part of that discussion really is the relationship
that I had with my friends about my religion my religion and and it was an it was boosting time it was an interesting time do you remember how you felt towards your parents at that time yes that's a very good question I was the first generation American and I knew more I thought I knew more than they did I kind of taught them the the mores and the things that were acceptable or unacceptable at that particular part of of my growing up I can very very easily remember when my mother would make me lunch you know you'd always wanted to do what everybody else did
so I asked her to get brown paper bags because everybody was bringing a brown paper bag to school so she used the big brown paper bags that you get the whole grocery out of and I was just mortified but she didn't know when I said a brown paper bag it was a brown paper bag some little little things like that I think I think I kind of helped them transition into what was the value system that we were now engaged in and my father was a much more worldly person that my mother was and so he had those values I think already from business my
mother was a little slower to catch on because she wasn't exposed to it so you talked about your family being a sheriff and bBYO were there any other organizations the kids were involved in at that time not really not that I can think of I mean not Jewish no not really I became very engaged in this in this in my school I was on the student council I was on the drill team I was in junior high in high school I was I was class favorite as a as a in the tenth grade in the 11th grade I was on the drill team in the
tenth grade I was one of the officers of the student council in the 11th grade no it was 11th grade I was class favorite I can't remember one of them so she how long ago that was at Hillcrest high school and then I was a cheerleader at Hillcrest but first she was cheerleader so my friends were my friends were Jewish but some were Jewish but I wasn't in the bBYO scene solely and that kind of faded a little bit but one thing I always knew throughout all of that was that when I got to college there was no doubt in my mind never a doubt
in my mind that I would then begin transitioning to a Jew more Jewish crowd I wanted to be in a Jewish sorority I wanted to marry a Jewish man that never it never entered my mind to do anything but that it was almost like I got a reprieve for a period of time from my family knowing that that would be my major role at the end of the day and so I I never you know I'm sure they know they wouldn't love for me to update it I'm I dated some Jewish boys it wasn't it wasn't like I didn't date Jewish boys I did but
it was just it was just different for me more experiment at that time at that time but when I went to college I mean I would go I wouldn't I wouldn't have traded that for anything and it was very I was very engaged at that point in in the Jewish sorority and-and-and Jewish life but I but even at the University of Texas I was in organizations that that were very different from from I mean each sort income had one or two that were in a certain organization like I was in what was then called spooks which is now called spirits I was in orange jackets
I was in a group called Posse I mean I was in those kinds of things that were selective but it was always through the sorority that I was engaged were there any experiences or people who impacted your life at that point when I was in college yes my big sister the sorority she was very much she and I were very much alike and very outgoing popular you know she was one of those everybody looked up to and she was engaged in all of these kinds of activities so she would take me along and then I would become you know involved in it as well so
she really I like to say that she's one of the reasons that I became kind of a personality that I became was really and its care about her name was Carol Dolman and she's she's now Carol Minka and she's from Fort Worth and we're still very close I think she likes to she likes to say that whenever I am today she created an is cute when did Howard come into the picture oh what a great question this is his story Howard likes to tell and I don't like to tell it but I will we were freshmen at the University of Texas he had pledged Sammy
and I had pledged a bi and it was the sorority day where they came around and kidding believe we did this but they pledged nine and then they came and picked people to go out with for the rest of the week and somehow he came and asked me to go out Friday night of this long week that everybody was you know going out and I said yes and he was from a very small town in Central Texas most people have no idea where it is used from a town San Saba I like to tell people that if you look at a map of Texas and
you see the word Texas on it he lived under the X so his growing up was very different from my vastly different from mine they were the only Jewish family but his father was the mayor of the city he was the he was the probably the strongest figure that along with another man in community in actually in Central Texas his father was very very active in many many organizations Jewish and non-jewish so he had that influence on on Howard at the time too for public service but the story that it that goes with it is not such a great one because as Friday night came
a Friday afternoon King Howard called him broke the date with me for Friday and I was incensed I mean how could somebody do that you plan on Sunday in you and you're a Friday and I later found out he said he was sick I let her down doubt he decided to go back to Sansa before the football game and I was livid I was livid I wouldn't talk to him for almost a year a little bit more than a year maybe even a year in a couple of months afterwards I just didn't want anything to do with him it was really insulting for me particularly
you know to think that someone thought that was more important than than a date so why why waste my time on him so and then about a year or so later a friend of mine and a friend of his said you know you guys really need to bury the hatchet and go out and so we did and then we never dated anybody else and I went together for about a year and a half almost two years got engaged in July of 1969 and actually when we're going to wait and get married in in June of 70 when we graduated but we decided to do it
in December so we got married in December of 1969 we've been there in 45 years 46 in December and he had nine hours left on his in business school at UT and I was doing my student teaching so we got married and he wanted to go law school and he was accepted at SMU so he came to Dallas with the promise that he would we would go back to Austin because he loved Austin I had different ideas my family was here and obviously I was very close with my with the close with my family and I wanted to stay in Dallas so that was the
time in our life I was teaching at Richardson high school I was a high school English and speech teacher which was a phenomenal experience for me right out of college and he was at SMU in law school and we ultimately decided that I know was a nice small town to move to and he started clerking for a lawyer in Plano in 1971 and I had to stop teaching in 1972 in May because I was pregnant with my first child Lisa and I never went back to teaching but education was always a passion for me so many years best forward got very engaged in education issues
he ultimately graduated from law school and we moved to play now it's a very small town 17,500 people I had no idea that Plano was on the other side of Richardson never growing up in North Dallas and it was it was the perfect match for us because I had my parents and the big city and he had a small town and it was a great place to raise a family the schools were great I mean everything about Plano just fit our our needs so there were 17,000 people in what year 1970 to 1972 17,500 people in 1972 and I know in 1979 I remember correctly
you were running for office because there was a large sign on Park West Park that said Florence Shapiro City Council and I believe your picture was on how did that come about probably an outgrowth of everything that I've just described you about my wife I'm a very type A personality most people will have to agree with that I'm very ver garius and outgoing I know my strengths and weaknesses and I enjoy I enjoy people and in those years before 1979 from 1972 to 1979 Plano was a small town but it was starting to grow and there were many activities going on that needed leadership I
can remember vividly the women's division of a Chamber of Commerce didn't have any place to meet the Chamber of Commerce was meeting in a trailer on 15th Street Harry Thompson was the man's name who was actually the executive director of the chamber he resigned and the women's division took turns working in the office I mean that's how that's how desperate they were for people to come in and help as volunteers so I began really the process of working in the community with friends like Shari small I was a friend from many years ago Shari Waldman small and and many others Carolyn Dickey Jennie McCall all
of my friends that had become we'd become friends through a lot of our children were friends or we knew other people who knew of new people that in that we may even play know at that time and we just started picking up the slack and doing the things that needed to be done in 1974 we started with what was called the information and referral center where people could go and think had needs in 1976 along with my very good friend Maureen Dickey who now is in Dallas she came to me one day and she said I think we need to start a junior league in
in Plano and I said really why and she said because women are really active and they need they they want a ball here and I said well that sounds good and we investigated it we've been him down doubt that you couldn't be just a junior Lee you had to be a service league person so we started with the Plano seriously with 13 women I was the first president and founder along with Maureen and the next year Maureen moved to Dallas so so I was in charged we started with 13 women and today I'm proud to tell you at 2015 it's now that jr. Lee of Collin County and there are over a thousand women engaged in in really wonderful activities throughout the Collin County community things like that that just kind of started maybe somebody else's idea but I participated in it really put me at the forefront of what was going on in Plano and it was a wonderful place to be in 1979 there was a woman on the Plano City Council by the name of Louise Sherrill she owned the she was the publisher of the newspaper the Plano Starr courier still published today and she decided not to run for City Council again and a couple of gentlemen came
to me and said we want you to run for City Council you need to fill the woman's seat I said the huh what though who and they said that that's the woman's seed and we need another woman to run and we think you should run well another insult of course what do you mean the woman seat but back then it wasn't as bad except it if you could feel the underpinnings of it even even back then in my election in 1979 was was very obvious I had three small children Lisa was six Todd was forward Stacey was nine months but they told me it was
at night the story Jeanine I'm sure you've heard from Charles and that you could you know you could you could you know you you do it on your own time during the week and it with the meetings were on Monday nights every other week and it just didn't sound like it was a real burden at the time and it sounded exciting so I decided to run this was in 1979 back then you know women usually didn't have jobs and they didn't work and they other than teaching or nursing and there was a forum forum for women for the candidates there were two men and myself
that ran in this seat and a man in the audience asked question and he raised his hand and he stood up and he said mrs. Shapiro did you have a family and I said yes I have a husband and three children and I gave their age and he said don't you think you ought to be home taking care of your children instead of running for City Council at which I paused and I didn't really know quite what to say at the time and then I said sir I'd really like to meet your wife and I just elected at that and it was tough back then I mean you know there were people who were very judgmental why would you do so why would a woman do this particularly one that had
small children and it was interesting times it was very interesting I won like 35 votes of course back then they didn't have very many people voting but we started calling me landslide Shapiro and that was the first year that I really got engaged in public service in that as in a City Council as as a public I consider myself a public servant but a lot of people say politician and it was all about serving the community and helping the community grow and making decisions for the community that I was gonna live in for the rest of my life there was no doubt in my mind
we were staying in Plano I mean it was it was my home so the next year a man ran against me and I beat him 80 to 80 percent to 20 percent and for the next four terms I had no opposition so it was very comfortable and I was thoroughly engaged and enjoying every every minute of what I was doing it was I was helping to build a community were there any special experiences or situations that occurred that remember and that changed anything that you did I think the most significant thing in on the City Council and I was president of the Economic Development Board
which was really a big thing because everything was burgeoning and growing but the most significant piece that I remember and I remember a lot but is when Ross Perot came to Plano and said he envisions he's gonna buy three thousand acres in far west Plano and he's gonna build another downtown Dallas and we went not away you know it's a it's a pipe dream well he was a visionary and I to this day I always say Ross Perot senior or slash visionary he saw something that no one else saw and he created an environment in Plano that it cannot be duplicated in my opinion many
cities Allen Frisco McKinney are all trying to duplicate but at that time in that place what he created there was spectacular and and I was a part of that I mean I went to New York to Laura JCPenney to come I was a part of the frito-lay decision I I mean it was a it was a part of my life it became so significant because I could I could use my talents to to engage in what I believed in which was my community and get people to buy into what we were selling which was the community so it's a wonderful time and probably one of
the most significant things that we did while I was on the City Council did you ever feel as if your Jewishness interfered never never and I'm so glad you asked that because I was gonna say that in a minute but never my Judaism was never an issue ever while I was on the City Council did people say things behind my back I don't know was it up was it obvious in anything that happened was anything written about it was there no absolutely not but and there's a very big but that goes with that I was I would oh I I'm actually in 1990 I decided
to run for mayor I actually didn't care much about being the mayor it didn't mind it didn't that the moniker didn't matter to me but in 1990 I decided that there needed to be a change in leadership and the mayor's role and I decided to run against the sitting mayor and and I and I did and he dropped out of the race so I was the mayor for two years and then in 1992 a very good friend of mine by the name of kay Bailey Hutchison and her husband Ray Hutchison came to me and said there's been a redistricting in Texas and the new Senate
District and that time was Senate District two now is going to be collin county mostly plano and go from Plano to Tyler East Texas and it is a Republican district we believe it can be won by Republican there is an incumbent Democrat who has a lot of issues that people don't really like him and we think you're the candidates to to run for the for the Senate so after much discussion with Howard and I have never run for office without Howard's permission I know that sounds silly and he would never agree that it was permission because many times he said oh I just don't know
if this is a good idea but I could be very persuasive and then the and he would usually say you know you're gonna do it and I and I'll support you and my children I mean this was a big step this was not mommy at home anymore but my kids were grown at this time except for Stacy Stacy was still at home she was a junior in high school just talk more when I ran but a junior when I I went off to Austin so no anti-semitism no anything for a long time but I ran in a Republican primary there were two men again and
myself one of them was the same mayor that I had that had gone out of the race who subsequently went to the federal penitentiary by the way but and the other man was from Tyler very religious man in Tyler in fact his brochures had he and his wife and his two sons outside a church with Bibles under their arms obviously pointed at me undercurrents you know no one ever said anything out loud but very very obvious undercurrents of anti-semitism very obvious we can't run off during the run off we had big billboards that were in East Plano and I came back to the office one
day after a trip to Tyler and the gal that was running my-my Senate office was just beside herself and she said I have something terrible to tell you two of your billboards on the corner of Jupiter and 15 have been two-faced and they say Jew on it and and swastikas and it was devastating to me the Dallas Morning News came down I mean this was it was huge and all that I could think about that at that moment when she said that to me a were my children and be with my parents who were so very proud of their being Americans one of the things
I didn't tell you and why they were so proud I think I was in 1986 I believe it was and I can't remember the year continued for Chamber of Commerce had a thing called citizen of the year still happen and I was named citizen of the year in Plano and the room was dark and they were doing a video and I didn't know my parents went in the room and all I could say when I got up to the podium was it was a surprise was oh I wish my parents were here they would not believe it they were not allowed to be citizens in
their home country and idea that their daughter would be citizen of the year it was just more than I think it would probably able to stand and sure enough the lights went up and my parents were there so my first thoughts when that happened were was you know where my parents one of my parents gonna gonna think I mean how what and the next day it was on the front page of the Dallas Morning News it was very hard it was very very and I and the reality set in for me in it brought back memories of what my parents used to say about Berlin
and about Germany and about their growing up it's a hard hard road but it made me more determined more determined than ever before not just to win the race but to win over the people that I believed didn't think I was I was the right person for the job and so I have that kind of became a a very important part of my life and and motivated to do to do the right thing and to do good work Howard the family reactions to all of this the children powers children children the children I think were those were it was easier for them and my parents
my parents I think all that angst and all of that stuff just started coming back out and I think that caused some some problems for them my mother in particular my dad was very strong man I mean he was a German he was very strong man and he said you know you just got to overcome this and what we've got to do what we've got to do is we've got to just plow forward and and not look back my children on the other hand I think um really felt that they mean they needed that strength than that and that uplifting from the whole family it
was one of those things that you just had to everybody had to get together and just keep going and fortunately I defeated the guy from Tyler and then I ran against the the Democrat opponent there were still some under two underpinnings of anti-semitism even at that time but we won and we moved on and the rest is history in Austin Texas during the legislative sessions or throughout my career as a as a legislator I do not remember any incident of anti-semitism that I that I recognized backrooms backtalk who knows but but never blatant and never and never never like that again and what you were
in Austin Stacey was in Austin actually Todd was in us Todd wasn't okay right Stacey was in Austin also yes but they both came to the University of Texas Todd was there for his four years and then he was also there for law school for three years so that was always fun is it was being around them they we always had a wonderful time they loved coming to the capital and they were engaged Todd was very engaged in a lot of things Stacey was on the student government and at UT Todd was in an organization called Texas Cowboys also both Jewish sororities very very Jewish
oriented there their whole lives as well at least it was over at the University of Arizona in Tucson and then came back to Texas to go to SMU law school Todd stayed there for law school and Stacey went to graduate school at Austin so if it sounds like Austin would be another drawback but we were so embedded here in Plano fortunately they two of them are back in Plano raising their families in Plano Lisa moved to Houston with her husband Brian Strauss who is a rabbi and she has three children my three oldest grandchildren they are 14 11 and 10 my next is Todd and
he lives in Plano he's an attorney with Howard and he has four children he's married to Jory Goldstein who also was from Dallas and they have four children and their age 10 have 12 grandchildren give me a minute to think of their ages ella is enough Ellis ten and Zach is seven and Olivia is five and Harper is up to Harper's two and then Stacey the baby is here with her husband Paul Paul's a pediatric dentist and he's from Hallett's Ville now isn't that interesting that she picked someone from a really small town and just acted just like her father they have five children they
have Sam who's nine Sophia Natalie who's seven Sophia's five and when they wanted a fourth God gave them twins so we have Eli and Brody who are about 14 months old and we are blessed beyond words in my opinion I often said in many of my speeches and believe me I've given thousands of speeches in my in my career I've often said that God put me on this earth to be the bridge between my parents and their past and my children and their future and I believe that with all my heart and I'm probably most proud of my children their choices for spouses all Jewish
I might add and their children it is the greatest gift that I could have ever given to my parents and at the same time I think Hitler burns just a little more in hell well I do think that there are so many questions to ask you but right now what aside from being the bridge what method would you like your grandchildren to grow up knowing I want them to know their past I don't want them to dwell on their past because I think my parents don't want me to do that they didn't want me to but I want them to know it and I want
them to be proud of it and I want them to take that as a message to others about tolerance about every person and humanity is important and special in their own way and use that as a guiding force in their lives I just believe that and I believe that people need to get that message and then through me they can get that message and through my parents they can get that message and they share that with their immediate whoever family friends acquaintances then I think they'll be better for it and I think their their community will be better for it that's 12 grandchildren that's a
lot of a lot of a lot of seeds being planted and a lot of places thank God if you were to talk about what award because I know you've received a lot of awards over the years which one was the most meaningful to you and why oh my goodness I'm not sure I can answer that I have been blessed but I mean I there's no doubt about it I have been blessed with a lot of awards you know I'm gonna say this and I don't want it to sound try because I don't think it is I hope it doesn't come out try they're really not
important to me you know at the moment all of those were special being Citizen of the Year in 1994 I gave you the reasons being involved in the Holocaust and and being honored by the Holocaust Museum the hope for Humanity award was amazing getting the award for the Israeli bond dinner I mean being you know I could I could name I could name a lot I could name you know scholarships that have been they've been done in my name probably scholarships in my name or more meaningful than anything you know I would give speeches and I'd get awards for the speeches I made the commitment
a couple of years ago once I realized I was not running anymore when people asked me you know I told my staff at the time you know when somebody wants to give me a plaque or something please tell them take the 25 dollars and put it in a scholarship or buy books for the library if I could wave a magic wand and go back in time I don't even want to tell you the hundreds and hundreds of awards and plaques that I got that if people just took that ten dollars or that twenty-five dollars of that fifty dollars some of them are huge and and
put it in a Florida spear scholarship or any scholarship or donated it to the library hundreds and thousands of dollars could potentially have been given away it's meaningless after you're after you're done what really matters is the lives you touch and the people that you meet along the way people ask me all the time you know what do you miss most about being in Austin I said relationships it's not the process it's my friends it's it's the relationships with people summer I still have very close relationships too and I wouldn't trade that for anything Florence this has been wonderful thank you one medication thank you
greatest achievement okay so what would you consider is your greatest achievement this sounds corny and I don't mean I mean you know I shouldn't say I don't mean for it to because I wouldn't say that I didn't and I didn't think it was true the twelve great grandchildren I think I think in your life everything you do as you as you grow up and as you mature is important to you they're all important we all know that everything we do is important and it builds on who you are but in at this point in my life it's 66 years old as I look back and
I look forward I think the future is bright and gives me hope because of my grandchildren and I stay engaged and what I do in education and the things that I care about because of my grandchildren so I have to say that my greatest accomplishment accomplishment may not even be relevant yet and maybe we'll have to look back when they become adults please God then I'm around but I believe that will that would be the greatest accomplishment is what I am when I get to embody and then what Howard and I as parents and grandparents get to give those children and and hope to engage
them in the life that we believe is so important and their Judaism one thing we didn't talk about is Howard running for school board oh he was on the school board right how did that affect you being on Finney County you know it was so strange because that was really a lucky thing that happened but I was on the City Council and he decided he wanted to run for school board well who was I to say no I mean you know I was you know we didn't we didn't have meetings on the same night so that was helpful we it made for strange dinner conversation
but again he was very engaged in the school and I was very engaged in city work and it didn't really and we didn't it didn't we didn't contradict each other because it was all about growth and development of the community so but how it's a very outspoken person he doesn't take a back seat to anybody it didn't it didn't bother him that people said well you know why are you doing this your wife's on the City Council and he was a wonderful school board member I mean he was very outspoken and and and really make some some pretty bold decisions while he was on the
school board and hopes that they would be the right decisions for his for the students in the schools so I was very proud of him for what he did it was not easy do you see any of the children following in honey of York I don't know I don't know I Lisa in her own way is very engaged in public servants public service she's an attorney in Houston but she does mostly court appointments and and a lot of she's really engaged in that and that kind of public service element I see she might run for for something someday Todd I would hope might do something
but not yet I mean even they've got very small children stacy is a volunteer extraordinary I mean she she is she really she really is has the heart of a philanthropist I mean she's got the she's got the the desire and the and the heart to help people she was a social worker and now she's got the desire and the heart to help five children so she's got her boat overloaded but she's still volunteers for so much in the Jewish community I mean she's I'm so proud of the work that she's doing as well so I I don't know that time Tommy the best judge
do any of them say I aspire to that absolutely not did I aspire to to run for public office it's it just was something that happened as they say life happens while you're doing something else and it just became a part of my life thirty years of public service it's a long time I always said I was going to be honest it in the Senate for 12 years and then I was gonna leave because I didn't think you needed to stay any longer than that and you're 18 I looked around and said how did that happen what am I doing here and that's when I
decided it was time to get off the stage and move on and you decided not to follow in kay Bailey but you know that was it was a thought of mine for a while when she first decided that she wasn't going to run but then she backed off and it took another year and a half before the she actually decided not to run I just didn't run and by then the desire of them just had gone up gone out of my out of my system and so I didn't do it things have changed in Texas in politics dramatically over the last ten years really the
last five years and we can get into a whole nother video on that and they don't want to do that but it's just not the same it was a it was a passion for me as a public servant I want to remain a public servant and politics are very hard and harsh and angry right now and that that has to pass we can't let that dominate our political world any other thoughts or insights to either politics or your family or the community go with that I guess I guess the most important thing for me to end with would be the door of a door from
generation to generation I think if each of us looks at our family looks back on the family that we had looks forward on a family that we have in the future I think we have to remember that we are a series of families no one is an island we're all we all come from a long line of history and we should and we should embrace that history and we should learn from it and we should pass it on