Harmon Schepps
Harmon Schepps was the youngest but one of eleven children born to immigrant parents who settled in Dallas in the early 1910s. His father arrived around 1910 or 1911 with several children, and his mother followed in 1913, landing at Galveston before coming to Dallas, where a successful relative was already established in the baking business. His father entered the dairy business in 1913, milking cows and selling raw milk, and the family grew up on a dairy farm. Raised in a strict Orthodox home, Harmon celebrated Passover and the High Holidays and had his bar mitzvah in the summer of 1931, an occasion delayed by the death of a brother who was killed by a train.
Harmon attended a country school called Barnaby, then John Henry Brown and Forest Avenue High School, graduating in 1934 at sixteen. He studied dairy husbandry and manufacturing at Texas A and M for two years before leaving to marry. In 1941, with a borrowed 400 dollars, he and a brother bought their father's milk and launched what became Schepps Dairy. Over 44 years he built it into what he called the largest and best dairy in Texas, selling the business in 1985 when he was in his late sixties. He credited his success to hard work, intelligent effort, and sensitivity to the needs of family, employees, customers, and suppliers.
Active in local and state politics on behalf of the dairy industry, Harmon knew many public figures and worked on legislation involving milk cases and taxes on novelty ice cream items. In 1973, after an employee was killed in a robbery, he helped create a reward program offering money for indictment rather than conviction, which grew into efforts he associated with Crime Stoppers and a metro crime council. He served on a grand jury and spoke of it as eye-opening. Married for many years until his wife's death in 2000, and a devoted member of Shearith Israel, he recounted painful experiences of antisemitism in business and on Second Avenue, along with stories of the good people who stood by him.
Full Transcript
this is nancy rothman and it's june 21st 2006. i am here today to interview harmanships in his home at 5815 portsmouth lane in dallas texas for the dallas jewish historical society mr chefs do you want to start off with a story yes i did something i heard over television weeks ago maybe you heard it and i won't repeat it to you but i thought it was interesting and i'd like to share it with somebody a young lady 18 years old graduating high school in this california area and uh she 18 years before a police officer in that town noticed the paper bags laying in some green grass have you heard it i haven't heard
it he noticed that the bag was moving something was causing it to move inside there's a real cold outside he went over looked in and there's a baby freshly born lady baby he grabbed his jacket jacket off real quick and wrapped it up and rushed to the emergency hospital and they the baby was 90 degrees at the time she's already that cold she was adopted by a couple and and after nine years the couple got a divorce and then one one of them kept the baby i i don't have old story exactly right but the one that that kept her she uh had got cancer
after three or four years and died and then i don't know who took care of the young lady but she made it through the years he was graduating high school and the higher echelons of the class she might have been a valedictorian i think i'm not sure though and a very pretty girl very smart been accepted by five different universities to go to to attend if she wanted to attend to him and i i i and the policeman was there who saved her 18 years before and uh brought her a gift and guess what the gift was what was it the jacket that he wrapped
around her that morning to save her is that a nice story and i thought it was a very unusual story it's very touching story and i thought i want to share it with you well thank you very much let's talk now a little bit about your life i got to tell you one more story i called my brother this morning houston who's 96 years old and in very good health and uh and i asked him a question i was debating whether to save or not i asked him a question in one june the 7th 1944 i'm sure that he was well he was well well
shaved that morning that that took off for normally and i wondered how long it was before he got shaved again and he said it was eight nine days and i said well i'm debating about whether i want to shake the bed i play too bad and uh she uh and and and he said well i i go around the house sometime the whole week without saving now i don't have anybody to see it then don't do it so i'm not shaped that's that's what my story dave now i'm ready for you it doesn't matter we're happy to see you um we want to talk a
little bit about you and your life so tell me how and when your family first came to dallas my dad came here in about 1910 or 11 and i don't know whether he came through new york or and he came with the three two one of my daughter one of my sisters and and uh two of my brothers my mother came here in 1913 with another group of brothers and one and that made nine altogether here and she had two more children after she got here and she came in 1913 and uh she landed at galveston and came to dallas immediately where my dad had
a brother who was successful in success filled in the baking business here chef's baking cup well anyhow my dad went into the dairy business in 1913 milking some cows and selling raw milk bottles with and uh and then he ran that there until 1939 when he decided to to uh cease offer cease distributing bottled milk and decide to sell his milk directly to another handler where they pasteurized milk it got where people didn't want to want to want to drink raw milk and uh that was 1939 and then uh march of 41 the man that was there that was buying his milk decided he couldn't
use didn't need the milk and cut him off he had to find another outlet for his milk and he delivered that milk to start delivering milk to a cheese plant where he took a greatly reduced price for it and that gave me an opportunity our brother and i i had another brother older than me that was out of job and me i was out of a job too and and i managed to borrow 400 and i told my dad we would like to my brother and i would like to buy his milk if he would if he'd sell it tips and we he paid he'd
get the original class one price for the milk that he was getting before he agreed to do that anyhow yeah it was the beginning of me and my brothers and the business of chefs jerry and where i stayed for 44 years and my brother dropped out after 18 years and then i sold out in 1985. so let me just clarify for a minute were you one of the children who were born here in dallas you were born here in dallas yes you were one of the younger children we had one more brother were born here in dallas they made total 11 children and where did you live where did your family live well in the beginning when they lived over on what was called up uh 8th street it's a time but it's called 11th street today in oakland and uh from that they lived there from 19 about 19 uh 15 until 19.
uh 91 at that time so somebody leased the place the dairy farm away from us and we had to move and i moved to second avenue fifty two hundred blocks a second and we started pasteurizing milk and uh and chef's dairy started booming at that time so you lived on the dairy farm is that when you were growing up so when you were growing up it was a day it was the dairy farm i grew up on a dairy farm yes sure did i uh that's that's something that that that's really the only thing i ever knew i i went to texas a m for
two years said their husbandry during manufacturing i uh from the time i was nine years old on up i thought of only one thing is having the biggest year in dallas and i accomplished that and uh not only in dallas but all of texas and uh when i sold out 19 1985 i was the biggest area in the state of texas and the best nice books and uh i'll never forget a friend of mine asked me when i started he said how are you going to buck the big five it was big five there darius around in dallas and i said well uh there's one
way work work work and he laughed at me with what i said for but it doesn't only work it's intelligent effort got a lot to do with it but we uh my brother dropped out in 1959 and i went forward with until 19 until 1984 when i decided to sell i had four children and i decided that they weren't qualified to run in case something happened to me i was 67 years old actually when i sold out that my wife would have a problem on her hand and that best thing he'd do disposed of it before that happened and that's what i did so let's
go back a little bit to when you were your childhood when you were growing up yes what about the school where did you go to school well in the beginning it was a little country school called called barnaby school and in 1930 they closed it down and i had already completed six years there and i completed half year john henry brown in south and uh and then went to forest avenue high school for three and a half years and june of 1934 i became a graduate of high school 16 years old and started laying down the following september so what kind of activities did you
do as a teenager what kind of activities did you do as a teenager in school activities in school best i can tell you that i worked when we got up in the morning we had cows to milk and uh and and that helped feed the hole in the afternoon it was just work all the time my dad taught us well did you go to synagogue sure we did i was born and raised in sheriff's israel i've been i've been a member there now for fifty nine years where are you where are your membership i'm a member at sheriff israel too yeah i don't know silver
everybody i knew nearly everybody knew he was dying and uh the fact is that another friend that was a member there died despite just a few days ago you might knew him his name was mort kessler i don't know if you knew him or not but uh so i know very few people there were you were you involved with jewish activities growing up were you involved with a jewish youth group any kind of agent no i really won how did you celebrate the holidays how did your family celebrate the jewish holidays well my mother always had a big feet piece for for no we're going
to start at the beginning okay or uh um passover and of course we observe she tells which we strict orthodox and how drifted away from it though uh and uh my mother and dad were both both uh not conservative but uh orthodox orthodox and uh the children to come to serve in 1955. now there's one person that belongs to the show that i still back there to talk to him about an hour ago dr sal katz i don't know if you knew him or not but he and i go to lunch every once in a while and uh he's 95 years old he um but he was he's very active and saying god was not very active but but we always once chilled for russia and young kipper yes but i didn't go did you go to did you have a bar mitzvah huh did you guys have a bar mitzvah a bar mitzvah sure involvement absolutely no never forget my bomb that's summer of 1931.
i just had a brother got killed a train hitting his bar mitzvah was delayed and the past had the bar mitzvahs summertime because very few people came to chill on charleston for on in summer times my dad didn't have to buy much whiskey [Laughter] so [Music] but while i was studying for my bar mitzvah had a uh commotion was going on outside and the instructor and myself run outside to see what's going on we were in this home and that black man had been run over had been caught up with by a man on a motorcycle and knocked him down and a bunch of white
people jumped on they were going to look like they're going to be mild action and kill it and uh fortunately the police got there and saved you but i saw what my actions could be like there's you know 13 year old but it didn't happen thank goodness but white rednecks are bad people do you remember any instances of anti-semitism when you were growing up yes i do tell us about them i didn't have any problem in the little country school where i went for six years didn't have any problem that it's a high school where i went because most of us not most people but
at least fifty percent of the people were jewish in texas a m the two years i was there there was a problem didn't hear anything and what we're talking about because on my 15th birthday before i started the a m hitler took office as chancellor that was that was january the january the uh the 30th of 1919 uh when hitler took office as as the uh up to get the title he had but he went became all powerful that day but they really didn't have any problems in school my problems came later and uh but there was always some little snide remark you learned to
ignore it one that i always will remember because i think i learned a lesson there it was being a september night of 1927. i know you probably didn't have any interest in boxing but the second dempstuni fight took place would you be familiar with those names my name names yeah well dempsey tuney has made what's called a long count anyhow there was a black uh grocery owner in oak cliff which was pretty close to where our day's dairy farm was invited the older brothers and and uh who took me along too to go attend to listen to the fight on a radio loud speaker that he had very few people had loud speakers but he was willing to do mine and he offered and we we went that day
i had uh was running to go get back into class before i before it's too late and another another young man coming around the other corner corner and we collided and i had side of my face swollen up i was black and disclosed and lip was cut and i'll never forget this old black man who owned the store his name was d wolf there's still a building over old clips got his name on it while during the during the preliminary fights i decided to go get me a knee-high orange you know what nehei orange is yeah i don't know no neither has a brand okay
good cold rain to go get one i had a nickel in walked in the store and asked mr will for an eye orange and he looked at me and my face all swolled up and he put a glass down looked at me he said build a nike when you see you can't bring you must run and i thought that was the best advice i ever got in my life and i'll tell you a little bit later about when i put it to use well let's go back a little bit just for just for a little bit you talked about how your parents belong to sheriff
israel were they involved very involved with the synagogue or did they get involved organizations daddy was going to shield all time but he never was involved in the operation of the shield and selecting the rabbis and being on the board of directors no he never was and your mother was your were they together were they involved in any other organizations she wrong belongs to ladies auxiliary yes okay now you said you you went to a for two years did you go on a football scholarship oh no i never played football okay i tried to box become a boxer but i i wasn't too good at
it and i thought everybody ought to study the art of self-defense because you're confronted with those things from time to time and you ought to be ready for it when you were at a m were you inactive in any jewish organizations but yes and did you make a lot of friends yes i did and but i dropped out after second year i had already been been selected as vice president for the third year which would have led me to become president the following year but i never did come back but anyhow yes i was in the halo i'm still in baldwin hill alabama and i
paid dues every year and every once in a while i go to them to one of their meetings but i never really was active in jewish organizations okay what about why did you leave after two years why did i do what why did you leave college a m after two years if i had continued on i would have graduated when i was 21 years 20 years old and if if you have to be 21 in order to get commission in the army and i decided i would stay out one year and then go back and graduate when i'd be 21 years old and uh and
and uh be the uh reserve officer well anyhow during that summer i run into what i felt was the prettiest jewish girl in the world her pictures up there you might see it be able to see it i can't see him here surely surely anyhow we decided that i want to be out of school and she'd give me the rest of the education i needed and i got married to fall in december and uh we got married and and uh lived happily 30 63 years and she died june 01 june of june of 2000 i meant six years ago so tell me about you the
rest of your family about your children tell me about the rest of your family about your children yes i start with the oldest one was a i was my adult my mother dad's oldest dora she had three children it's his sad saver they all she her husband died first and then then she had two children died then then she finally died and now her third child has died they're all all gone but she does leave some grandchildren and uh the oldest oldest boy he uh he had a wife and two children all died early but my brother died after he's 85 years old his wife
died early his two children died early then the third third one was my brother lou and he got killed by a trainer trained hitler 1931. and he uh he left a wife with three children and two children's still alive one of them lives here in dallas who works for today he's 81 years old and uh the other one lives in louisiana his wife passed away in 95 and that vendor's next one would have been my brother abe who died in 1970 and his his his widow died in 99. she's got a lot of children here in her name was libby and uh you might know uh anna yes sir what's what's your name that uh my sister this is no lady's daughter debbie david no that's your random dollar well you even think about it let's let's keep going um we'll just put that aside we can come back to that later here's something well you know it's wonderful yeah so they've got uh one two four different grandchildren left here and they all first in the business around dallas yes uh the inventors who my sister daddy had a husband two children the husband she had two
children all deceased they they uh that she didn't have too happy a lot has been an alcoholic my sister-in-law uh libby her husband was my brother was an alcoholic then i'll get down to another one it was an alcoholic but uh and then then that after egg and nettie she died i got that and had one brother that that uh he never was the owner of things he just didn't want to work and and he was eccentric and he was it was a timberline you know what timberlawn is psychiatric hospital well there was a timber all the way back in the 20s and there's story
goes that he was out there timberlawn and our group of social lights were out there looking at see what went on there and they saw jake his name was jake was pushing was pushing the wheelbarrow upside down and one of the ladies said look at that fella he's pushing that wheelbarrow upside down and jake overheard her and he said babe i'll turn right side up they'll put bricks in that's going to be funny india and it's a family reunion of the chef's family in 1986 i told had everybody got a big life out of her but anyhow jake got jake died in 60. he he never did do anything accomplishing they never got married never ain't children but he died brother mar died in 95 and he left a wife his wife was deceased and he had the adopted child and uh wife they all all are dead now but he was 87 years old when he died and i had a had a good life then then then my brother hey i who lives in houston is 86 years i mean 96 years old had a wife and four children and one of the children had leukemia when she was 28 she left three children four children i might say and uh
they all all have done very well in life in houston they're he's very active in the synagogue down there bethy shurin you might have heard of it he was president one time he still acted and then then there was a brother eli who married uh he was married uh it had he had an they uh had two children but they when he left a very well wealthy man but he he didn't he wasn't active in the synagogue or anything he did come say college i go to state college for several members of my family that's my connection being a base connection with synagogue you know
i'm be honest i'm a little bit disappointed in our rabbis down there i've always been friends with rabbis especially when we had going back to old time when there was rabbi wisefield here had good connections with him it uh and once seen quite frequently and then he was followed by rabbi you know i was most friendly with this guy and i can't think his name right quick he was here 10 years and he quit 65 and moved on and he went back finally ended up back in in connecticut where he came from but then after following him was that rather offstar had a real good
relationship with him and after that we we got to dr william uh gershon grossman gershon and uh i don't know i started talking to him he seemed like he's behind us somewhere else and i can't get a response out i'd like for a rabbi to ask me how many children you guys are or something i'm sorry let's talk a little bit about the dairy business the dairy i didn't tell you about all my brothers now well that's all right let's just pocket that for a little bit let's get back now and i want you to talk about you're building up your business you're telling me
you want me to tell you about our business right i was uh i consider myself very innovative i didn't sit back and wait rather other people to lead i led in the industry and uh perhaps other people were sleeping i was by the way planning and doing things and uh you know i wasn't liked but for that to get if you're in business you got to be in politics so i was very active in local politics and in sick politics and a little bit a very close friend of lord vince who recently died he and i were good friends and uh there was many other
figures in washington that i had befriended over the years and and uh could boast that i could call them direct in their office and talk to them do you remember who they were yeah they're not probably the most important one of them all was uh i said so just a minute ago it was uh boy benson we mentioned he was from texas county texas uh mistress yeah this is embarrassing but he uh he was chairman of the house uh backing and currency committee a very forceful branch of the government you know i can't think of his name right quick i could boast that i knew
hubert humphreys was i was based on basically a member of the people's party as i said they don't like to hear me say that but i'm talking about the democratic party and uh i would have lost a lot of friends texas used to be all democratic up until about 1965 and started switching over the other way the uh in washington i always knew my congressman and uh none of them are left up there anymore they uh if you don't i don't review these names from time to time they tend to escape me but uh the uh john connolly was a personal friend of mine if
you've ever heard of him oh yeah and then john tower he was a republican republican i still managed to keep the relationship going with him sure did getting back here to texas i was very close to governor uh bill clements a republican uh i've had nothing to do with the president administration and the ones before him the uh the uh clinton i'm talking about the president now i never have liked him never trusted him yes and uh and i think it's unbelievably he he's unbelievably bad but following him was it don't several times sure did yeah and but there's another another another fellow i don't
know that's all right so just tell us about that go back to the dare the dairy industry how yes how did your uh all these friendships and did you work on legislation that impacted the dairy those things that had to be passed legislation to help the industry and correct some problems and all my good friends that belong to the dairy products institute they want to go to austin have a big convention all everybody drink and have a dance and all that they didn't know anybody and i knew people and i got things done we need we need some legislation to uh to control the laws
of milk cases that don't mean nothing to you but in middle cases it ships there when i when i sold out every morning when you put the key in the door i know i had a thousand dollar loss that day milk cases that people are gonna steal they're gonna use them to store their their their books at home and stores whatever junk they might have and take your cases and anyhow we i got the bill passed and then it was repealed after i got out of the milk then there was a time when they were charging attacks on eskimo pies and other uh novelty items
they were ice cream not not not the license anyhow i i went to work on uh he's one of my best friends ever john and mr bullock he and i yeah there's got a lot of things done down there and there was a jewish fellow that was just a a fellow named harmon lisnow that i worked with very closely and who helped me in a lot of other areas and so uh we uh we got we got the law repealed where this taxing eskimo pies and other food items it shouldn't be taxed but uh when it comes to the isis they should be taxed they're
not they're not food but hey those those are kind of things and there was many other things that came up in the house you have to watch for all the time you're there's always laws being passed it had no no public interest but selfish interest brought by the autumn bill industry they passed the bill many years ago said anybody's buys a new car got to pay the dealer 25 dollars just to just register the car for it they've been doing it dollars since the time time one but free they want to sell the car but all of a sudden they pass them off you got
to pay 25 to get this car arrested well if there was no public interest there and there should not be any any legislation passed it was a public interest were you involved locally in um starting programs like crime stoppers tell us about that crime stoppers yes i helped organize crime stoppers here in dallas and there was another one called metro crime council i helped organize it also tell us what that was and what you did what tell us what those programs were and what you did in 1973 i owned i had a company called chef's food stores convenience stores and i had an employee that
was shot killed one o'clock in the morning in a robbery and i've never had anything like that happened to any employee before but when when the telephone switchboard opened at dallas morning news i i got a hold of somebody there told no that was not my first call thank you i i called first the dallas police park and i talked to a man with police department who handled pr work for him i told him who i was and a man is one of my employers been shot and i want to offer a reward for the capture uh and uh can capture and conviction yeah no
capture and and indictment that's a big difficult big difference yes of uh the person that it killed mr moon and uh i said if you want my help i'm ready to make this offer and put an ad to paper uh as soon as the morning news opens up they called me back shortly later said we need to help that's right so i got a hold of hold of the dustboy news and put that in the paper we had results in that thing within 24 hours it was an interesting story and uh and everybody's saying how can you do that just for indictments you might not
get a conviction well everything's a gamble in this world you got to take gambling uh i want i want i'm at business about this matter because i need to show my employees if something happened to them we do something about them that's one thing of course the news media some of the news people they tried to show that that we were doing it as a advertising gimmick well i thought about an old abe lincoln yarn ably abe lincoln was riding in his buggy with his glove partner a fellow named herndon and they got into a friendly argument about whether man does anything uh in life
it isn't selfish lincoln said everything would do themselves herndon says no it isn't when they came upon a pig called cotton fence and pigments jerkins and and uh trying to get loose and was squealing i don't know if you heard a pig squealing it or not but i and uh and now lincoln stopped this buggy and got out and got got dirty and filthy got big untangled a pig took out across the field free again and screaming happy again and uh he got back to the wagon tried to clean his hands and boots up a little bit vernon says see there that was not a
selfish act and they could say yes it was selfish but how do you do that i figure it that way so well if i hadn't got that pig loose there and i went to sleep tonight and i thought about that big still taught me pence i wouldn't been able to sleep tonight so it turns out to me shacky well he damn sure he was able to sleep i thought i think it's a real good story myself inside most people i tell it to are not very impressed by it but anyhow uh we uh we uh we've got got results almost immediately but there's some other
interesting parts to it a black man called me and said he's ready to tell me who who did it and uh if i'd uh give him some assurance he's going to get 20 to 5 dollars so he agreed to meet me at downtown on the corner of irvine bryan's street at a certain time that evening i told him i'd bring two policemen with me i wasn't coming alone he said well i want to talk to policemen well i say you don't need to they'll sit in the car and you and i walk around the back of the car i ended up writing him out i
always carried his pocket planner here i i wrote him out a promissory deal that i would pay him if the information he gives me leads to their arrest and indict and two days goes by the police department could not make arrests on the information that he had given me now he had told me that the one of his name was smith the other was robinson and the third one he wasn't sure what his name was but he said he had graduated forced to have a new high school with with uh with with that fellow named roberts but another two days went by and they had
made arrests and arrests and a black girl called me up he said i can uh i can uh help you catch these people if you give me some money i said who are you say well i know all three of these guys we uh so i agreed to meet her on forest avenue that's still still colorful stephanie 73. uh right across from forest avenue high school it it was headed or it changed its name by that time though uh at a certain time she would be using the telephone in the side of a n p store so i and i told her what i'd be driving and showing what she'd be wearing and i pulled up to it and she saw me she i'm phoned up come over and got the car with me and it's funny but she jumped over from driver's side from the passenger side next to me i said get over there you know she said well this common place right need
to come over and pick up black girls i said i don't give a damn what price complex is you get over there we'll talk witness anyhow she said i know these three guys if you want you'll promise to pay me some money houses any i ended up promised to give her 2500 i didn't have to write anything out if she'd lead us to him she said okay it's 7 o'clock tonight they'll be at my house on jeffrey street which is right around the corner there seven o'clock that night the police surrounded the place a few minutes after seven and they got all three of them
they paid her 2500 and the other fellow got 5 000. there's the beginning of our our uh correspondence reward system and so how long did you continue that program i continued right along but right away outside this this was having a good i'm effect to start offering it on in case where any customer viruses is is uh hurt is a victim of a crime and we did that for a while and then outside i'm just going to offer it where anybody is a victim of crime providing it isn't a crime involving two dopants fighting one another that's and uh or uh two guys fighting over a woman or whatever might be but we added some conditions
for it and and it grew and uh kate is very effective and it was very productive it was good for chefs there yes it was and i'm real proud that i thought of the idea but the main thing was offering it not conviction but for indictment and i knew i could i'll hit the power courthouse at that time in 1973 and he was still further that i could tina wade was a district attorney who i i could uh reason with and uh we uh i if a case was if the police department completed an investigation and they it turned it over da's office i could
get the d.a to turn it over immediately to the grand jury and get get action on it immediately and uh and the people that were doing the uh during the bad uh that actually found out you you these these things could happen fast at the courthouse and i'm sure proud i'm sure proud i got into it so tell me you've had a very successful business and you've had a very long and successful career what are you most proud of what am i most proud of i'm most proud of the fact that it's 9 10 years old and i set out on that limb over the
water that see the creek and throwing rocks in there and i was thinking about having the biggest biggest dairy in the best day in texas or dollars and it came true and it it was a result of two things hard work intelligent effort and and then of course that isn't doesn't spell out but i there were a few things that i always followed and i tried to teach this to my subordinates you must always be sensitive to the needs of of the people around you we're talking about of course families first always but then there's the employees the customers the uh the uh stockholders and
and and and the public the suppliers i might just say and that's that's a firm believer in that you must be sensitive to their needs you can't approach these things selfishly and pardon me just knows hurting her a little bit but anyhow i that would probably be the capstone of my life yes i accomplished what i set out to do but there was other things that entered into the fact why i gotta got other people i always remember one thing that an executive with the general motor said the uh accomplishment is what gives us a zest for living if you let your employees accomplish things
you might give them a tip or two and let them move on their own let them use their own brain and they could step back and say god look what i did that that is very very important you got to find a way to get the best out of people by doing those kind of things and don't ever ever try to steal anybody's thunder when they accomplish something be sure they get credit for it did you have any role models did i have any role models is that what you said yes talk to so many of them start with moses yes i did yeah we
i uh i've studied about a lot of different people in this world one of the people that i was amazed with was of course einstein then i get a tape about his uh his treatment of his first wife now i kind of got off him he's bad he was a bad person but he still gets the credit well let me just ask you one quick question since we're getting to the end of the tape is there anything we didn't talk about that you feel is important to discuss something that we didn't talk about well i think about it my success because i made some very
wise choices in my life first year wise choice i was with my wife no question about that and uh okay i think and i don't think firm believe in god is very important to me i don't believe in here after none of that being part part of stuff but i certainly believe in god and uh and uh what good things i've done in life i never have done one thing in my life then i thought this is going to buy me a seat in heaven never never there's been a lot of different things that have come up in my life helping individuals that i i'm
very proud of there's a lot a lot of them i wish they hadn't done because of a bunch of ingratiates out there in this world but that goes with it you can't win them all i was on the grand jury one time that was three months of work that i i wouldn't have taken for that happened uh seven years before i offered the first reward and either one of you had never ever had an opportunity to serve only that was kind of grand jury yeah if you ever have an opportunity to do that because it'll open your eyes what really goes on in this world
see man is we're very best in some of sea see manny's very worst and uh but uh you every barbecue absolutely absolutely yes what's your favorite plate dickies dickies i'm glad you said that one case we had fourth grand jury mr dixie was probably 65 years old then so i'm sure he isn't alive he said he got on witnesses gentlemen i don't want to prosecute this boy said he's 18 years old never been in trouble before and he used a little bit of my gasoline didn't harm the car in any way and i'd like for y'all to spank his hand and send him on his
way let's give him another chance that was the best thing i saw on a grand jury and i appreciated him i never got a chance to say to him personally what i thought about it but i'm sure that he was a man of a good reason he probably felt about himself same way i felt about it but the uh there was and i i did some things on the grandeur that others didn't bother to do they after they hear all the evidence the cases they assistant d.a makes his recommendations you can listen to him or you don't but most people listen to the system d.a
but there was a case where two black fellas there's a guy he guys are six foot two and brothers in their early thirties and they stopped today and i'm at a bar to have a drink a beer and it's we're charged with murder and i heard i heard the case and they assisted the apes said they deserved an entitlement he was charged with murder and cried when he lost hotel room we come to that case i i told people i said not me i'm i'm not going to agree with that they they did kill a man but the man deserved killing he has to be
killed i'd say and uh i take great pride in myself i put them two guys on the ground that afternoon all right i followed threw it up if i hadn't followed through they they'd have to wait till monday and but anyhow they were then there was another one that same way that's where my dad got her pregnant we don't need that all the time here's a handkerchief for you there's some water beside you if you need it i want to ask you one more question you told us about the one incident where you witnessed some a black man being discriminated against did you personally have
were you a victim of any kind of discrimination against you yes 1941 i moved second avenue here's a it was a hotbed of anti-semitism the whole street and before you where were you moving from where you moved from the dairy i moved from eighth street you know and i moved to 5200 block of second avenue that's where my dairy was for nine years uh every morning i'd go up to a little place called liberty castles and have have coffee and a doughnut when i walked in there's loud music there's a small place just stools in it and there's one steel left open and there's loud
music and the soldier back there he was taller than me and uh this would have been 42 yes anyhow he saw me walk in he's realized he knew right quick by my nose i was jewish he said tell me what the jews are good i'll turn around and say you step outside and i'll show you i had taken boxing lessons in my younger days and did a little boxing day in them and uh at the ymca in dallas i wasn't the meanest guy in the world but uh i could defend myself and i knew how short guys were supposed to fight the tall guys he
could he'd fight on the inside not arms think away from but anyhow i got him outside and i was getting the best of him and his he had three buddies that saw that he needed help and they all four jumped on me and was all over with they got to beat me i was laying on on the ground in the street and they stomping on me kicking me in all parts of my body and when finally one of them said say jews are no good and i'll let you lose and i did i remembered what that old black man advised when you see you can't
be like you must run and i'd like to i'd like to tell this story to the president of the united states and hey i said jews are no good and i laid there at least a minute before i could compose myself get up and get my car and drive away i got even with for that soldier 10 or 12 years later i saw him alone somewhere you know i got my payback i gave him the payback club anyhow i had a series of fights out there on second avenue every time you turn around or something to do this and do that and one tenant on
the on the house that i uh rented out and this guy started fighting me and i whipped him whipped him twice and i tried to go try to get over it and he came running after me with a with a knife just danced about it all or and i ran inside my house and got a shotgun and shot him and he charged me an assault to murder he had just barely got some babies backed his head little butt blood was trickling down the neck of his back and i got indicted that kept me out of the army not that i was searching a way to
get out of the army but it did and uh he uh i'm still trying to recall the name of chairman of the house back then currency committee i know his name is will the new moon is his aaa was named at baron shacklet was isaiah's name administrative assistant they they say hey we talked on the phone until he finally died about seven eight years ago so were there any was that it were there any other instances of discrimination what about when you went away when you were in a m none at all never never heard one is uh one is not one is it it
was amazed me and there's three most pleasing things and uh but uh but not today they're more more subtle they don't tell you but you can sense it surely have a sense there's no question about it what about in the course of your business uh what about in the course of your business do you feel that you you were discriminated against at all in business yes ma'am glad you asked that one i bought a dairy here that was in many years called triangle dairy and they had a lot of good customers especially in downtown area one of them one of them was coffee shop in
the republic bank building anyhow i bought mr shekel out and he uh we had a very good close relationship after a few days now this this particular customer quit buying our milk and i asked mr shekel to go see mr shape came back said i'm sorry to tell you this but he's he's uh said that he just didn't ever deal with jesus i couldn't talk about that so i lost customer now i used to think i'd put a curse on somebody and it would happen and i didn't put a curse on him but i didn't say anything nice for him but but it wasn't two
months later he and his wife were going somewhere they had an accident both of them got killed wilson was his name yeah i i know that in business absolutely but it was amazing how many gentiles didn't buy them up for me i found one there that we competed with would tell tell them tell uh our customers say you don't do business with jews do you some of them would laugh it off and some of them and i'm sure that some of them might listen but i there was a funny it wasn't a funny thing but 1951 i'd called my dairy pure milk company eight or
ten years because my dad sold raw milk all the time and i first started out i sold raw milk and when we switched to pasteurized i was afraid that people might think it's raw milk and we he called something else so we called it uh pure milk then in 51 i switched over to to uh ship's dairy again and the sales manager for the boarding cop who i was close friends with red-faced arsenal and a guy that you might think of a redneck but i found out differently about him but he he called me up so i need to tell you about tell you something
he said ships you this was would have been in the in the early 50s so you you shouldn't y'all be smart don't change the name in your dairy here you're going to change it so you just don't know how many people out there don't want to do business with jews i said mack those that don't want to i want to know who they're dealing with they won't buy my milk and i'll keep them happy and i'll keep myself there and we call it chef's dairy we booked up the tray trap anyhow and i'll tell you a little funny story 100 years ago i think it
sounds like to me there was three stores owned by alan owned by a fellow named myers there's abe meyers he had two brother-in-laws one of them was adolf stoop and the other one was levine and uh they they eat each one of them ran were managers of stores and i happened to be delivering milk at store no cliff not close to the sunset high school when uh when uh i've put milk in the box and the lady walked and reached over and got a gallon jug of chef's milk another lady pushed a different buggy but was with this lady so i wouldn't take that milk
that milk is a juice milk and they'd all stoop overheard her he said lady always something that came from a cow she shot out of that store i'm sure she never came back but there's just interesting stories then there's other stories you hear there's a fellow here i don't i rarely ever see him anymore he's been retired 15 20 years a lot of money retired well to do i i financed him in his first first restaurant is he uh is is he is just about to argue his he was a long line i had a nephew i was trying to help in the insurance business
and when i helped jack sosby in the middle business i asked him to give his insurance business to my nephew named david david sheps was his name and he did so he had a friend of course jacksonville be not jewish he had a friend came to him says i'd like to get your insurance business jack he said no i'm going to give my insurance business david ships he said you're going to do a business with a jew yeah he said let me tell you something i used to have another gentiles to help me getting this business now down one of my provided me with a
nickel but a jew boy named uh harmon chef's dead and he asked me to give his insurance business to the nephew i i did it that was it but anyhow it was very comforting to me there's always some people at a level headed sure was well thank you i think we is there anything else that we didn't touch on is there anything else i'm finished with my questions is there anything else that you want to add to this interview that we didn't touch on i could know stories that's that's stories but i i i my backing connections were with mercantile back but i i really
don't don't think of anything else i'm very unhappy i can't remember the name of the congressman from texas canada who was so much helped me well you can you can call call us and let us know when you remember okay i mean i know that there was a particular congressman that was well known from texarkana and i can't think of his name either and it's probably the same guy i just can't think of it either this man died in the mid 70s okay it'll come to you i went to i went to his funeral and uh there was a uh right the right amendment oh
mr mr wright jim wright mate baby boring in texas canada right was coming say samurai well thank you very much this has been very informative you think some new things we'll talk about more later later today okay thanks thanks talking to you ladies i didn't think about my ailments as much oh that's wonderful that's better than letting them bother you that's the best medicine that you okay well thank you thank you so much we're going to end the tape now keith and talk about chef's bread