Dr. Gordon Frank
Gordon Frank's family history spanned two very different worlds. His mother's family, including the Haspel and Sternberg families, had lived in New Orleans since around 1820, and his great-grandfather served as a Confederate lieutenant at Shiloh and managed the company store on Judah P. Benjamin's plantation. His father, Alexander Frank, was born in a small German village near Frankfurt and Trier and came to the United States in 1908 at about age fourteen, working his way through Arkansas, serving in the Cavalry and field artillery during World War I, and eventually meeting Bertha Lavine, the sister of a fellow soldier. Gordon was born in Pine Bluff in 1925, an only child.
Gordon grew up in Morrilton, Arkansas, where his father and uncle ran a successful two-story department store. Though his was one of very few Jewish families in town, they were welcomed, and his parents taught him to carry himself with dignity as the only young Jew many neighbors would ever know. The family observed the High Holidays in Little Rock, held Sabbath dinners at home, and sent Gordon to Sunday school and summer camp in northern Wisconsin, where he formed lifelong friendships. At seventeen he joined the Navy, trained at Tulane, was commissioned a lieutenant before turning nineteen, and served as a destroyer navigator on Atlantic convoy duty.
After the war, Gordon studied at the University of Chicago Medical School and completed a residency in ophthalmology, spending about nine years in Chicago. He met his wife, Paula, a Dallas native and Northwestern graduate, and after considering opportunities in Little Rock and Beverly Hills, the couple settled in Dallas in 1958. There he established his ophthalmology practice, welcomed by the city's community of eye physicians, and became active in Jewish community life. A devoted student of family and military history, he documented his family's story in detail and returned several times to his grandfather's German village.
Full Transcript
today is May 28th I'm Nancy Youngerman and I'll be interviewing Gordon Frank and uh we're at the Jewish Community Center and the videographer is Ruth Andress hello hello um you're I'm going to start way before you were around um tell me about your grandparents or if you know your great grandparents where were they born and well let's see the great grandparents I'll go on my mother's side first all from New Orleans and they arrived must been the great great grandparents in 1820 oh in New Orleans and settled there and this is where my mother was born later of course and there was a large family
some of them were the haspels the clothing company louder okay I just don't want to frighten people I okay the hasal were part of the family the clothing company so I wore their suits for years uh there were many others the sternberg's I could go down the lad but my grandmother was grew up there she had four sisters whom all I I met as I was born and grew up later and uh your grandparents that would be in the 18 this was be 1850 1856 1880 maybe I never knew my grandfather's either side but the grandmother I was very close to so uh I don't
know if you want me to take it from that point on well I'm wondering about the other side your well first on this on my mother's side is kind of fascinating because my great-grandfather was head of the uh what they call it the store or Company Store for Judah B Benjamin's Plantation now Judah B Benjamin was a secretary of the Confederacy he was also a senator before that from the state of L iiana in Washington and a successful attorney so we had a big Plantation there some of the buildings still exist we visited those uh in fact the Bell from the plantation is in the
the town south of New Orleans I think it's point of laash in that area and it's in the park there so it's still well known so it's kind of an interesting history to me and my great-grandfather on my mother's side was a confederate Lieutenant I have the Battalion company all of it platoon that he was in and I have his commissioning papers from 1861 so it's kind of fascinating he was in the Battle of Shiloh and people asked me when they asked me what battles was I in in the Great War I wanted the Great War I don't so many wars since then I tell
them I was in the Battle of Shiloh and these are usually young people 28 30 articulate but know nothing about history or care they said where was that I said it's Tennessee and they said well I didn't know there were battles in Tennessee oh yeah I said there other battles the Second Battle of Manasses what state is that where were you I say in Virginia there are battles in Virginia I didn't want to refer to George Washington General Lee or anything like that so they say well what year was this I said 1862 referring to myself that they know I'm pulling their legs any rate
that's kind of the history there well then I'm going to go back even further great great uh as far as I know they came from France now everybody in France at some time or other had to come from further east I'm sure so this could have been Poland B Russia Ukraine so we're going back probably to the same 1700s I know nothing about that group so at any rate that's that's the whole thing in a nutshell as far as New Orleans goes I they also sent me to high school there from Arkansas they wanted me to get the best education before I entered the War
World War I and they gave me a choice of Culver Military Academy in Indiana I always love the military anyway my father incidentally had been in World War I now we'll come to his side should I shift now to that side of the family sure okay uh he was born in a little village called lred spiler in Germany which is between Frankfurt and Trier Now history my wife and I fortunately enjoy maps and everything else and all the history of military history particularly so he came over to this country in 1908 so he was about 14 years old some of his uncles had preceded him
by 20 years and were pretty well established in Mississippi Arkansas and St Louis so he had family to go to didn't speak a word of English but in those days when you arrived in this country you were known as a green hord it wasn't a complimentary term so he uh was anxious to learn English as fast as possible and he went to St Louis from New York when he came in the ship was called the the spotter land what was his last name Frank Frank Alexander or Alec Frank pretty big fellow huge hands he was raised in the horse dealing business or faer hler as
it was called in Germany so as my grandfather who was born in 1856 in the in Germany and he settled in this little village and the horses now these weren't race horses these are Dre horses like inous a bush uses to drag their beer around did and they traded between Frankfurt Trier and the town and the whole area the farmland and that sort of thing Farm hes I was there but I'll get to that when I was three and 1/2 years old they took me on a 3-month trip to Europe which was pretty brave anyway so he arrived here straight to St Louis and went
to join one of his family who he' never met before and they were going to raise him as their own in a way but his father was still living then too and his mother my grandmother so he lasted for about 6 months there and he was kind of felt insulted cuz his English was poor at that time but the kids his cousins had all been born in St Louis so they were citizens and they all made fun of his accent he says I don't have to take this so he shoved off he says I'm leaving so he went to some small town called Newport Arkansas
where another uncle had a store said glad to have you and then he went to Jonesboro Arkansas which was a larger town and I remember seeing the house there was two big lions in front they believed in doing that in those days so he uh started to work in that store they had me sweeping sawdust and he spent about a month doing that he said this is not my life he says I'd rather work for myself and sell pencils or apples on the street then have a boss and that was always his attitude I'm never going to have a boss so they bossed him around
sweeping the sawdust that was good for 3 months and he said I won't use the words but you know stick it and by this time he had become fairly Americanized could speak English pretty well and married at the time oh no no he was so I guess he was I was so 19 maybe something like that yeah probably 19 so he met another fellow who happened to be from Tyler Texas and his name was shurn well his son his well this would be his nephew is a pretty well-known lawyer here in Dallas has been for years Larry shurn so at any rate that's beside the
point but his kind of history and this Fell's name was Major that was his real name major shurn and they they became immediate Pals and they started to decide well how can we make a living we can we can shoot and and trap first in Louisiana so I have a wonderful photo of my dad and major sha whom I met later as a young guy and they were holding their pistols across like this and in those days they dressed in dress coats shirt and a tie and a dress hat that's how they're dressed to go hunting so this lasted for few months and so finally
my father finally arrived in Pine Bluff Arkansas at that time a town of about 30 40,000 and had a pretty nice city they had a temple there and so forth he wasn't that interested by then in temples he just wanted to make a living and enjoy life and he was on his own really so by this time uh he had two other brothers that came over younger than my dad my dad was the oldest who came over for l spiler and went to St Louis the usual place and stayed there for quite a while so while my dad was working in a in a department
store at P Bluff it was called frugs f Ru GS and he began to meet people in the town there was a pretty sizable Jewish population a good siiz Temple must have been at least 800 people there at least in a pretty fashionable City and my uncle my mother's brother had gone to Columbia University he was pretty young in those days you know and well I'll get back to all that later so anyway how he met my mother he was waiting on people selling shoes which you loved doing anyway and all these young girls would come in in Pine BL a lot of them were
in college my mother was going to the University of Chicago which was kind of unusual in those days and they had moved from bottom Tas we'll get back to that and so uh he would wait on these gals that would come in 17 18 years old and he saw one that particularly appealed to him happened to be my mother but apparently in those days you needed a formal invitation I mean you just walk up and say my name so and so let's go to the bar that sort of thing that was not there yet and he just wanted an invitation never was able to get
that but he became active in the U the Jewish community and other things too and there was always big clubs there they had the same name all over the country I can't recall what the name was boys and girls was 16 up to 20 22 and they organized dances so he became the program chairman for the one of the dances it was always held in the Pines hotel which in those days and it's still there was an eight-story building with a winding staircase this sort of thing so the girls would come down in their dress gowns and the men were dressed in their tucks he
was about 19 20 years old and he presented everybody like sort of like the deut like the debutants do or used to in Dallas little Ro too and so this was about 190 17 by that time we had entered the War World War I and so he was drafted anxious to every young guy was all of us were at one time or another so they asked him what he had done in civilian life he said well primarily I was in the horse business well this was perfect they immediately assigned him to the Cavalry now the Cavalry had almost gone out of Vogue in those days
because of the way wars were fought but we still had a large Cavalry unit so they sent him to New Orleans and then they joined his group unit and they shipped him off to Arizona on the way they stopped in Marshall Texas The Troop trade and he remembered that because the temperature was about 110 and they were in their High collared uniforms not comfortable at all and these weren't Pullman cars and they had a March down the main street of Marshall the whole Battalion he says thought I was going to drop dead from the heat anyway they finally arrived in Arizona on the Mexican border
Douglas Arizona Camp Jones I know these things because I love the history and I I've written all this down anyway so the first Duty was a horse they organized the troop he probably knew more about horses and all of the rest of the men of the whole regiment cuz most most of them had never been around horses they were farmers but not like he had so he was made a sergeant right away and he was proud of that now of course it was on his record that he was a native of Germany now by this time he spoke English quite well no problems at all
so they were chasing pona the famous you know in Mexico that was a whole deal he had raided New Mexico before that the town of Columbus blew away a few American citizens and so they were after him and and general persan was in charge of that right that's why they call him Blackjack Persian cuz a lot of the members of the regiment were melan as we euphemistically put it they were blacks but that's not important here one way or another so they chased on the horses and they galloped over Mexico and and never caught him but he I've got wonderful photographs of him his horse
and his saber uniform and the whole thing you know I mean to this day and that was in 1918 so at any rate he'd been there now for 2 months and he finally asked his captain captain Wilson I never met the man he wanted to know why aren't you sending me overseas he says I'm trained here he says I know the country well so he says so you uh slight Interruption here folks we don't like that I'm making this too long I'm sure too much detail so at any rate he uh asked the captain he says why aren't you sending me overseas he say I
think I'd be an advantage here I know horses well as you know and so forth and he told him he says well Frank he called him by his last name he says I have to be honest with you when I look at your records here uh you were a German citizen so you still have relatives there which he did a lot of cousins who happened to be members of the Imperial German Army who are our enemy he says we could trust you between you and I and the rest of us but it just can't be done we we just would worry about that you know
so he understood he says well I've got Maps Old Maps I brought with me roads you never heard of that are there says it just can't help so he said okay that was that by then they folded the Cavalry and they put Dad into the artillery field artillery so now he's with other men who were from Pine blood and they were shipped off to Camp Kerney in San Diego which was a much more pleasant place than the Mexican border just outside of San Diego I've seen the camp and he was U made in charge of the uh what we call the ship service in the
Navy or the canteen in the Army cuz he had some store business they knew that and they didn't need Cavalry anymore and he was assigned to the cannon anyway so they put him in charge of the canteen and he made money for the canteen which they liked of course so this is where all the fellas came in to buy their stuff and on occasion he'd get a weekend Liberty and we'd go into the uh Hotel in San Diego where they had matab ball soup this the only thing he missed and he would always go there with a couple of Pals and they'd have matab ball
soup and this is called the US Grant hotel which is still there and I've been there so at any rate one of the people in his artillery Squadron happened to be from Pine Bluff his name was Leo LaVine about Dad's age and so he would get letters from this his sister who happened to be the girl that my dad surreptitiously had fallen for while he waited on her to shoes and she wrote beautiful letters always had a beautiful handwriting and he told him he says you know he says I think that's the girl I used to see FR store he says would you do something
for me if we live through this we get back home would you formally introduce me to your sister so he always read the letters that she right so finally everything's over he's out of the army he goes back to Pine Bluff and then my future Uncle introduced him to his sister which was my mother her name was Bertha Lavine was a large family there were seven boys and girls and my grandmother so we'll go back now both to say n 1898 my grandfather on my mother's side his name was Max LaVine he's buried in bonam has been since 1910 long time uh Amel cornbleth an
attorney here was also from botam and knew the quite well so we'll get that later so at any rate uh my father was in the cotton a grandfather was in the cotton business all out in New Orleans which is where he he was from Galveston originally the block family there who were also in the Galveston flood and a lot of them were wiped out 192 or something like that so eventually my uncle one of my UNC uncles Sam LaVine went to Columbia University and uh five B cppa from Tain college and then uh came back to Arkansas but this was after the family moved from
bonam cuz they lived there for about 8 years did a lot of his cotton business there because of the black soil they used to say and back and forth New Orleans bom so the family basically was brought up partly in m and my mother finished high school in Bonham and she had three sisters my aunts and two other brothers and all were moved to Pine Bluff because my grandfather died about 1910 young man probably 54 at best had Brites disease GL maralon arthritis which is no treatment for then so the older brother my Uncle Jay was was in the cotton business with him the young
man he was probably 19 20 at best so they figured Pine Bluff was a good place a good cotton town then and cotton was King so they moved to Pine Bluff and the whole family sort of grew up there really anyway that's how my father finally met my mother by then my uncle had become a member of the House of Representatives which was kind of unusual in those days it about 192 21 or two for a Jewish man he was a sharp looking fellow though bright 58 Kappa Columbia Law School all this sort of thing and a wonderful oratory orations so he was elected later
Senator state senator he even ran for lieutenant governor in 1936 but they burned a few crosses he decided I don't think that's such a good idea he remained senator for many years anyway so then my father meets my mother and he dated her a bit those days your date was a movie uh walk down the street shopping on Saturday night maybe that sort of thing and uh met all the family and he was impressed with the family because you know these people gosh they went all the way back to 1820 here he's just a literally a greenh horn still but he spoke perfect English now
and everything else totally Americanized so he uh decided he wanted to marry her and she had a boyfriend I forgotten I knew his name but I haven't recalled it in a long time in Pine Bluff and they always used to laugh his name was Levy anyway he used to walk down the street with a cane he didn't need a cane had a gold top on it you know big shot boulevardier so anyway she was dating him I don't think she was crazy about him apparently a nice guy so dad was interested in sort of breaking that up if he could so at any rate they
dated for a while nothing serious as far as my mother went and by this time she'd finished college now and began to teach third grade at the third Fifth Avenue school and they lived in a pretty big house on 80 808 fth Avenue in Pine Bluff two-story and everything stairway usual and uh so one day my mother came home from teaching school and by that time she was probably 21 22 and uh a trun he by that time is how old pardon how old was he by this time oh my dad was about there was a seven-year difference so he was probably 27 now he'
been in the service couple years all of this you know and was totally with it of course so is she but at any rate when she arrived home from school one afternoon my grandmother mother who was a wonderful I've got great pictures of her terrific person you know and I've got papers from New Orleans when she was married in 18 about 80 1890 I've got even from the newspaper do anyway it was a trunk in the front hall entrance hall with a bowl of or something and my grandmother said is there something that I don't know she was always a pretty good diplomat even when
I was a kid she said what do you mean she says this trunk arrived addressed to you what's this all about she said what do you mean and she opens the card and it's from my dad a little card it says for your uh true Soul she says true so what's she she met him she said I don't know what he's talking about and my mother laughed too she says I don't either I received no proposal maybe this is his way of doing it she says well I'll tell you what you do you called the company it was from P Bluff company luggage have them
pick it up immediately take it back so she did and that was that so I guess a few more weeks or months went by and they were walking down the street as so the story goes and it's true they've told me both this confirmed it walking down the street one Saturday night just looking in the windows after a movie probably a cou of Cokes or something and he asked her if she consider married she says if you can find the key to my heart she said well I know about that so another few weeks go by and they're walking again one night and he bends
he laugh about he bends over and picks up his old rusty key she thinks he put it there oh key who going to know and uh he says here's the key to your heart she died laughing she accepted so anyway I thought that was kind of that I've written all this stuff single typewritten stuff for my kids someday if they're interested but anyway so they were married in Pine Bluff and my uncle who was my uh dad's youngest brother Milton Frank came from St Louis to be the best man this was in 1921 well by now he had uh settled in St Louis and was
working selling shoes on the road traveling man and of course I didn't I wasn't born yet I was born in 1925 and well this comes getting ahead of the story here go story for go forever so they were married they honeymooned in Memphis so they could catch the train easily from Little Rock to Memphis which is about a two our ride those days at the gayoso hotel which is across from the old Peabody Hotel and it's still there too and they always laugh because he was worn out from all the traveling back and forth and everything and by this time he had uh he was
working for a store in Russellville Arkansas okay that's about oh 75 miles west of Little Rock remember there were no interstates there were interstates but they were too late highways not six Lance like Pennsylvania turn by so he was already there and had a place to live an apartment or whatever they did they had boarding houses and that's where she was going to move to as soon as they came back from the honeymoon so during the honeymoon the first night they had chicken all a Kake and my dad always said best chicken out the king I ever had he said course it's a honeymoon and
so they had that and then what they did he she laughed cuz he went to sleep somewhere down the line you know was a honeymoon he's worn out so she never forgave him for that she said so they're back now and they moved to Russellville now again her family was all in Pine Bluff it's 100 miles away to Marlton well Russellville first and he was the head of a manager of a store there uh the something Goldman store two-story department store Russellville town of about 20,000 which were big towns in those days and the the headquarters was in Memphis Mr Goldman I never met him
and uh they catered to all kinds of customers and everything and it was a pretty successful thing and he was the manager and my uncle came from St Louis to work for my dad in this store dad being the manager he could hire him he was younger a couple years younger than Dad so they're doing fine and incidentally this guy Goldman something or other he put in the newspaper which was a negative thing against Jews now you must recall in those days there were a few Jews living in these smaller towns very few I think the dad and my uncle were the only ones in
Russellville now people weren't anti anything they just never considered it one way or another as far as I can tell but this guy Goldman from had something to do with anti-semitic almost and he's Jewish and my mother's in Russellville now she was always pretty active in the University of Chicago and became active in the Civic organizations and she was a good speaker too and book reviews things of that they should fit in very well and besides that she was raised partly in botom in New Orleans but not many Jewish people around so she knew how to adjust very quickly and they didn't appear too setic
or anything and she was mad as a Dickens She always told me that story and she called this guy Goldman in Memphis and chewed him up and down told him who she was and she's not going to stand for that and he better put something back in the rosville newspaper denying all of this and apologizing which he did so she was pretty proud of that but she had no unctions about not doing it so anyway uh this went on for they were there for about a year and a half I think they had a apartment sort of a doctor's hole his name was Dr Gordon
as a matter of fact which is my first name but has nothing to do with that and uh they got along very well but they finally decided they bring my younger Uncle Milton from St Louis he was still selling shoes they'd set him up in a grocery store well he didn't like that longer than a few months according to history I got and he was a young guy you know active and so forth not married yet and neither was the other Uncle yet so he decided to go back these are your dad's my dad's Brothers Milton fright so he decided to go back to St
Louis where he felt more at home and so forth didn't enjoy the grocery business and I don't blame him so he gets back there and there was a fellow by the name of David P wool WL who had founded the wool shoe company which was coming along pretty well lady shoes and of course it was a big wholesale place in those days St Louis they sold all the small stores everywhere including Bob strauss's father's store South of Austin I believe and all of these you know it so I didn't know any of these things until later but so forth so in St Louis and he
was back selling shoes so by this time my dad and my uncle decided to open their own business or as they say in Texas business so they began to look around and they'd been in Arkansas for quite some time in the next town up the road closer to Little Rock was Marlton m o r r i l t o n which is answer in Dallas Morning News fairly often CU Petty Jean state park is Big Mountain Park and the lieutenant governor later came from there Congressional Medal of Honor winners so that's my town literally I'm proud of that anyway so they settle there and uh
the only Jews in town nobody even thought about it neither did they so when they went in to find a place to open the store the the banks you know were all private Banks and they weren't backed by any FDIC Marlton First State Bank this Bank rainwater Bank all this kind of thing so the ones that own the building that they thought would be appropriate to open a story and it had two stories it was owned by the rainwaters so Dad says you know he says I've never I'm not familiar with this sort of thing you know leases RS whatever you do my mother says
you want want me to go talk to him you know after all she'd been raised in the South and everything and he says I certainly appreciate so she dressed up and she loved to describe it she says I walk after the rainb back introduce myself I'm Bertha LaVine Frank originally from BM Pine Bluff and New Orleans and she told him what she was there for and my husband's waiting in the car it was a car that he and my uncle shared I think it was an old Ford that had curtains that came down theide the rain sort of thing this is 1922 so any rate
Mr rainwater one of these not Cowboy types you know cowboy hat boots this sort of thing but obviously a pretty well educated man first thing he does lean back in his chair put the boots up on the desk she laughed about that not in front of but she said she proposed what what they wanted to do and he says well uh hadn't thought about it he says the building's empty though and he whatever he said and he agreed to it he says how soon do they want to do that well as soon as we can do some repairs inside he said well I can fix
that up for you that sort of thing she said he mentioned he says now you say your name is LaVine and he says are you Jewish and she says yes absolutely he didn't even question that so that was it as far as any further mention of religion as far as I ever knew and it never was they fit right in there was one other Jewish Family they would call the riches I never knew them I don't know what they did exactly but they weren't too well liked that was the word that got around had nothing to do with religion they left town which my dad
and uncle my mother were very happy to see they weren't the kind of folks you want to represent you necessarily you know old southern type all that so uh any R so they uh started the business of course it didn't have a lot of credit but the dad went up to St Louis he represented the ladies ready to wear ladyes shoes my uncle did the men's wear shoes and so forth so it was a two-story department store no elevator not in those days we did have an elevator at the first state bank which was 8 stories high in my hometown tallest building west of the
Mississippi before Li Rock so proud of that big deal and so the date on the the date on this on that building goodness I it had to be the date that you were that you went into it oh oh the the that the store you mean yeah well see I wasn't born yet I know oh the date that they started the store oh the started the store was about 1923 okay and uh dad said the office said even laughed To Me years later he says you know if if we' have gotten 10 cents on the dollar for all the merchandise we bought I'd have taken
it right then and left you know who who guaranteed anything in those days geez so they managed through the companies in in St Louis and within about 5 years things were going apparently just tremendously well and he always was proud because he has a letter that he saved for Ry scks now they're big these were huge wholesale houses I mean two blocks long I don't mean little places elely Walker which had a representive in Dallas years later rice sticks blackw Wheeling that could go on down the line the huge places and they sold all over the country and so he had a letter must have
been within six or seven years from this rice sticks and they were Jewish too I'm sure I never checked on it congratulations you've done a swell job in your store and we're raising your credit I think up to a million dollars and he saved that letter I still got the letter so he was proud of that they never did things on credit in those days very few people did they layway plans you laid it away no interest and you paid so much whatever you felt like you'd pay and they have stacks of these things suits and dresses and stuff then when it say pay it
off great here it is no interest nothing like that just didn't do it and it worked extremely well anyway they became quite popular it's the county seat and serve four or five counties around mostly farming communities this is just 50 mi from Little Rock but it was a pretty classy town a country club and beautiful homes and this sort of thing and just great great place to grow up so at any rate this is now 19 26 27 25 I'm born I was born in Pine Bluff cuz we had a good Hospital there and all the family my mother's family was there in this sort
of thing and so the story goes when they haul me out after I was born my uncle the senator one of my favorite uncles obviously pick me up as a baby and he says you know he smiled at me and I always remember that not important here but still anyway the rest of the family so we'll talk about my Uncle Milton now St Louis young fell save some time to talk about you oh oh oh my God that could take that could take weeks but I will say briefly Uncle milon he went to work for wo shoe company David P wo who is now a
pretty big outfit on Washington Avenue in St place and he was made the vice president cuz he was good at with people good with everything really and just a swell guy and my dad was going up on the train they didn't fly in those days in the 20s late 20s on the train to St Louis to make some more purchases on the wholesale houses and on the train was David P wool senior who was the founder of this outfit a little older than Dad and he told Dad he says Al he says you know he says are you happy where you are and he says
absolutely he say well I know your store is doing pretty well he says but why don't you come on to St Louis and join w shoe company that's where you belong the sort of thing and dad said the Temptation was great but they've been in business now for six or seven years things are going fine he says no he says we we're pretty well established in this community and feel good about it all I don't think I need that thank goodness he didn't anyway as the years go by my uncle became finally the president of wol shoe company and by this time the Wolves had
a son David W Jr whom I met in a boys camp in Wisconsin Camp to baman I have S big hexter was a camp made M Lou w I've known them since we were 12 years old but this is a camp in northern Wisconsin but that's a whole story in itself so Uncle Milton eventually Dave wool's son was killed in the war as a bomber pilot and he know he had all this future ahead of him disappeared over Germany that was the end of that shot down this is about killed the father this is many years later by now my uncle's president of the company
and then later David Wool senior died and brown shoe company which is one of the largest in the in the country New York Stock Exchange took over wool and put on my uncle the board of directors of brown shoe company then he became the man of the year in St Louis business wife and they had all this Veil profits ball and all this kind of stuff up there so from zero to that and that's where he finished up his life and very happy and I've got cousins all for them so now you want me my life well absolutely absolutely God uh you moved here in
what year oh I see what you made uh 1958 I met my wife Paula in Chicago she was from Dallas she had just finished Northwestern University in Evon which is the suburb of Chicago and I had gone to the University of Chicago Medical School now I had joined the Navy in World War to as 17 years old and I was sent to Tain University as a Premed student but I was a sailor as a Navy unit and then they took a bunch of us middle of the war decided they needed more officers I was 18 years old kind of unusual and they decided going to
college at the same time was it too late in the Navy unit though it was all accelerated courses Premed they were pre- engineers everybody 800 of us and they decided they wanted more officers which suit us is fine we're sick and tired of all studying and we were afraid to war my head before we got into it well this was 1944 so been a long way to go so they changed us to premid shipment now at the Naval Academy you're a mid shipment when you enter but we premid shipment we weren't going to the Naval Academy but they had four mid shipment schools in the
country one was at Notre Dame of all places no ocean near Notre Dame to trade Sailors that's Was northwestern Lake Michigan Columbia University New York and Skyler New York which is where I was sent and at the end of 4 months I was commissioned a lieutenant in the Navy I wasn't even 19 yet but believe me we grew up in a hurry and then I was shipped out the anti submarine warfare school and then on the destroyer and I was a navigator on the destroyer by now I'm 19 and you know all fancy uniform and all grown up and most of the young guys were
eight officers and 300 enlisted men on a ship and you're in charge of all these enlisted men responsible and everything and believe me it was serious business I was on Convoy Duty taking troops across ammunition to North Africa the British Fleet would M us at jalter and we would refuel at Sea and head right back to the states make another run never got to Germany well this was in the Navy so uh no reason to get to Germany but I have to mention that I have pictures of my grandfather who is born was born in Germany in 1856 is buried there in this little village
of laford spiler and they took me when I was three and A2 years old they didn't believe in leaving you with a nanny you know you're going to take your kid with you 3 months to Europe 1929 the Depression had not quite hit took sh sh over the Leviathan and the George Washington which later I found out were historical ships President Wilson all these people took those ships you didn't fly Lindberg had just made it two years before so anyway that's just backwards and I visited that Village several times with Paula and uh when I was three and a half with my dad and my
mother and in Berlin where my grandmother and I lived at that time I have pictures of us in Berlin I've got stories about myself before long before Dallas about being left with my grandmother when they went to the Opera and they took me to the Opera one night cuz they couldn't get a babysitter and some of my grandmother's friends and I course dad still spoke excellent German so that don't sweat but we uh were taken to the Berlin Opera House what did I know it's a big place and uh they wouldn't let me in three and a half year old he was going to disturb
the whole audience all in German and dad knew how to push him around and he was a pretty big guy too and he just shouted them out he says my boy's going in you know in German so I knew a few words in German that they had taught me so as we were standing there waiting to go in this line the people in tuxed I remember that dad had a top hat you know crushable and popped it out and Tails mother had formal gown on and as we left this big apartment house where my grandmother lived and I remember I've got the street number and
everything which half destroyed in the war I'm sure but nonetheless as we were walking down the street board this taxi to go to the opera house one of my grandmother's friends shouted at my mother FR Frank FR FR D stumping in can Fallen well that meant your stockings are falling down so mother never got over that she and she didn't speak any German but she we had a Catholic priest in my hometown the Catholic Church a lot of Germans live there in Italians too and they had taught her some Germans she had taken lessons and she she knew what that meant stockings were falling so
we laugh about that even to this day we get to the Opera House it would let me in so they said all right one deal you know he's got to keep his mouth shut can't say a word you know one word and Har house out you go kick me out of the eyer house so anyway I sat there and I remember between my mother and dad I'm a little guy you know and I dressed up shirt towel stuff and uh I fell asleep but I'm sitting up straight my head's down I'm sure but the audience couldn't tell piles of people there and at the end
of this whole thing it was deflator Mouse now that was one of my dad's favorite light operas and later became mine and every time I hear it I think of the Opera bur because when I finally it was over the crowd you know stood up and H everybody this that yeah the next thing you know as we started out all these Germans came rushing over patting me on the head and the shoulder ah Wonder Bar I understood some of the words you know Wonder kid oh he looked at the Opera the whole time he didn't not a peep he's sitting there perfect ly straight my
head was I'm sure they couldn't tell and and all this and I looked up at him and Saida which means I have a good boy in German that sent him wild here's this American kid you perfect accent anyway to Dallas it's interesting that you grew up in towns not many Jews but it sounds like you were able to keep your Judaism in good story I mean it's not a short story uh I would say even so and they weren't ashamed in any way when the high holidays came we always went to L Rock but it's a 50 M trip you know hour and 10 minutes
you're there and besides that mother being from Pine Bluff knew a lot of people in Little Rock they'd all married people and moved to Little Rock from Pine block and the department stores gust blast these names don't mean anything campers fifers all were there so she had all these friends there too so uh we always you'd close the store for the for the day and with a sign closed on a kind of holiday period and they go now dad was probably raised I think in a conservative they had a temple in this laford filer I've been there too just two three years ago it was
a SS headquarters in World War II but the building is still there and it's still a temple they turned it back again gorgeous building I mean walls just thick anyway where was I um I they had built oh oh how we got so the religious angle maybe about every other Friday night mother we always ate the dining room table anyway unless we were coffee room or something in the tablecloth oh every had a maid maids in those days were five bucks a week and they came seven days a week cooked everything else and you know old mamy type thing this is great kid I we
just assumed it and white tablecloth everything prepared not the ceremony like we know but we read the Bible a little bit Dad could read Hebrew he learned that before he left his town in Germany and still could so he'd recite a few things in Hebrew and I didn't know that but uh we say a few prayers in English candles that was it but enough to know what you were MH and they always told me they said now son as you grow up here you know you won't always be here but just remember one thing so you fit in fine nobody knows nobody questions it's nothing
there nothing to be ashamed of either say but there's one thing you you must stress to yourself you're the only Jew young Jew here and I had a cousin a girl my uncle's daughter and she was about a year younger than I said so whatever you do you never talk with your heads you never Raise Your Voice you speak very quietly and you always behave yourself in the proper manner cuz you represent all the Jews these people will ever know maybe of course that's not through later they do plenty but still then you represent everybody so don't do anything to make everybody ashamed and I
took that to heart and I believed it and that's the way I was raised so later as I became older and died 10 years old they said well I think it's time to go to Sunday school well by this time mother had kept up with all these people in Little Rock the reformed temple in fact U the rabbi married the wle Carol W's parents in Kansas City Sanders Rabbi Sanders was his name and he was a rabbi for Years anyway he was there so they Shi my cousin and I every Sunday they drove us to Little Rock you get up about 8: in the morning
get there about 8:30 at 9:00 go to Sunday school it's over by noon and uh that's how I was confirmed literally so I knew where were you medah in those days the word was never even spoken of B Mitzvah I didn't even know what the word meant you know Little Rock it was all a reformed Temple there must have been at least 1500 Jews in Little Rock at that time wow big crowd you know no conservative no Orthodox that I know of at all so it was a whole different bag and uh all mostly in English of course you learned some prayers but nonetheless so
I was there and I met all the the guys in my class that my mother's best friend was their mother they had you know for all those years now we're all 10 11 12 years old and uh she received a call one day from one of the mothers she says we're going to send Allan this is tallim incidentally his son founded was Greater Image what was that Sharper Image Sharper Image found in San Francisco his son did that founded those stores and is now out of it but nonetheless Allan is still a close friend of mine so she called my mother she says uh we're
thinking about sending Allan and his cousin Max Max hman to this boy camp in northern Wisconsin would you be interested in sending Gordon and she said well yeah that sounds pretty good it's a Jewish Camp fine even better so it's the director some St Louis Camp's been there 10 years it's been there 85 years now I still go to the camp at any rate so we were shipped out that June this was 1938 kids I was 12 years old and he was 12 the others maybe 13 14 six of us all going to Camp didn't feel badly cuz we had friends we knew now on
the train you didn't fly on tww and it was overnight uh to way up Minnesota so at any rate so we uh I remember all the parents were there at the Union Station in Little Rock to see us off you know there was six of us so there was twice that number of parents you know and everybody was happy of course we all knew the parents too and they knew my parents like one big family in a way and they I remember waving out of the door it was hot as a Dickens I was wearing meline hair tonic and got in my collar got my
eyes we all were you know oh memory I I've recorded it all so anyway now we're on the train see and it's a pull we we had sleep in burst upper and lower burst not compartments not for young guys so overnight this Chicago got to be met in Chicago my parents told me they said now when you arrive in St Louis you seem a little apprehensive about all this we're not forcing you we just think it'd be a great Advantage for you two whole months I mean you're gone two months away 1500 miles you know and there a long way in those days so uh
they said so if you when you get to St Louis it'll be midnight you'll be in your burst hopefully sleeping but if you decide that you Chang your mind simply tell the conductor get off the train and call Uncle Milton and St Louis and he'll pick you up and send you back home so I remember the train pulled in at midnight in middle of the station I raise a shade people walking back and forth outside thought to myself the rest of these guys can do it my friends why shouldn't I I remember thinking that truth clearly I says go ahead be brave so away we
went overnight we get into Chicago the next morning the camp director meets us mugs lber is his name and he uh greets us he Pils us up we go to Lal hotel which is the camp headquarters and guys coming from all over the country just 150 though in the camp at that time counselors from all over most of the counselors were old either college or at finished college or were teachers so they're all solid people you know we didn't know that so we had spent the day in Chicago they wanted where us out so we sleep well cuz you went out on the camp train
that night the whole train nothing but our camp about 15 car loads of boys you know and a counselor own each cars as sleepers again overnight to Northern Wisconsin so we had a choice of going to the Cubs game or Museum of Science and Industry and I think I elected the Museum of Science and Industry and so we spent the whole day having all this fun we board the trade and away we go next day we're met by a bunch of trucks we've got three more minutes oh three minutes okay we get back to Dallas now I that's how I met most of my Jewish
friends other than L rock at this Camp well it sounds like um Dallas was your first really Big Town that you lived in not really because I went to the University of Chicago uh medical school internship then four years of residency in Opthalmology so I lived in Chicago for 9 years prior to that I had visited in Chicago with all my Camp friends and they with me in Little Rock and that sort of thing how do you like Dallas because this is oh I I've never had regrets about that I could have gone to Little Rock uh folks I'm an only son no Brothers No
Sisters and they said we hate to send you away but you know we think you could say in a Little Rock and birds nest on the ground you know everybody open your practice but they were just getting over all that trouble with the troops and the integration and the Fus and all this crowd they said we think you do better at Dallas it's a big city but look over things so I had it offered to go to Beverly Hills California an opthalmologist there so before all of this we said well let's go out and look they said well we're back you up we're not go
by then we had a baby in Chicago I stayed there a year and a half at Northwestern at the medical school they gave me an appointment on the faculty to teach and work for the head of the whole department he was a pretty nationally known internationally known opthalmologist Derek Bale I thought what an opportunity but that I didn't want to live in Chicago the rest of my life too big geez now all my friends there but different so anyway they said we'll back you up won't let the baby starve you all just look around take your time so we went out to Beverly Hills spent
a week met the guy swell fella Henry nurn and uh he let me operate observe make sure I have adequate surgeon and then met some of his patients see how I could work with them first one was Spencer Tracy I couldn't believe this I said this is your patience she said yeah he's just another guy and all these people were coming they were all movie actors and actresses those were his patients and so uh I thought man this is great wow what a what an opportunity so the last night we were there he said well I'd like to have you he my son's at Harvard
he's finishing uh his training in Opthalmology will be joining me in a couple years so he'll be a junior partner but maybe we can make you a fulltime in 5 years this that the other thing so then he said now there's one last request I have when you get back to Chicago think it over he says do you think you could develop a slight British accent and I looked at him I says this guy's got to be kidding I can't believe this he said I says well is that important he says very important here I says why he says cuz they like it they like
the British accent so I laughed I says well I was a member of the the national thespian Society in high school I acted in plays have a terrific German accent a little bit of Italian I says I can develop a British accent but what happens if I settle here in your office we've been here for 5 months and suddenly I slip up and a patient comes in like Gary Cooper or Lana Turner who knows and I was and I said I accidentally say now y'all it's so good to see you here we're going to have grits I says how would that work I was kidding
of course he says well if you can't I says I don't think I can no so anyway we came back to Dallas and I introduced myself to there were about 40 opthalmologists in the whole city at that time most of them were very kind and they said well we think you do very well here fact we'll give you our overflow if you like I should like oh five minutes got a shut up did I leave my purse here