Henry Cohn
Henry Cohn was born in Rochester, New York, and moved with his family to Rhode Island and then to Detroit, Michigan, where he grew up. He graduated high school in 1935 and earned his degree from Michigan State College in Lansing in 1939. During World War II he worked for Packard in its Merlin engine division, spending time in Corpus Christi and Toledo. Weary of Detroit as a one-business town, he and his wife Marion conducted a survey of American cities in 1943 and chose Dallas, arriving in 1946 without knowing anyone there.
With no housing available, Cohn first lived in a garage that a friend, Al Guto, rented to him for twenty-five dollars a month while Marion and their baby remained in Detroit. He soon started his own sheet metal business, later named Cohn Dan after his short-lived partnership with Tom Daniel. Early years were financially difficult, but Cohn credited banker Dan Rogers and other Dallas friends, including attorney and mayor Savage and the Waltman family, with helping him survive. He and Marion raised four children, Linda, Carol, Bobby, and Alan, and belonged to Temple Emanu-El before later joining Temple Shalom.
Cohn became one of the most active leaders in Dallas Jewish life. He kept the local Anti-Defamation League alive, helping finance it with Dave Wiseplash during the lean years of the Yom Kippur War, and the ADL created the Henry Cohn Humanitarian Award in his honor in 1977, presented annually thereafter. He was central, along with Donsky and Murray Mumbus, to raising funds and planning the Jewish Community Center, once selling his own furniture to make a needed contribution. He ran the Federation campaign, chaired the B'nai B'rith golf tournament for about twenty years, and championed the literacy organization Operation Lift. Raised to give charity by his father, Cohn remained devoted to his community and family throughout his life. After Marion's death he later married Likki.
Full Transcript
and inspiring leadership of Henry Cohn in preserving liberty, counteracting bigotry, and advancing human rights and equal opportunity. The Anti-Defamation League of B'nai B'rith herewith establishes the Henry Cohn Humanitarian and award and makes its first presentation to him October 16, 1977, Dallas. I'm Debbie Sayah, and today is September 26, 2000. I am pleased and honored to do the oral history of Henry Cohn with the Dallas Jewish Historical Society. Good morning, Henry. Good morning. Our emphasis today will be mainly on the contributions you have made to the Jewish community. But first, let's get some background. Tell me about growing up where you grew up. I was born in Rochester, New York.
My family moved to Jamaica, Rhode Island. When I was seven, we moved to Detroit, Michigan. And that's where I grew up. And how long did you live in Denver? I graduated high school in 35, I went to Michigan State College in Lansing, and I graduated in 39. During the war I was in Corpus Christi, I was in Toledo at the end of the war, working for Packard in the Merlin Inch Division. And then when the war was over, we packed up and came to Dallas. So that was 1946. You left. Why did you leave Detroit? Well, it's a one business town. If you're in the automobile industry or any other business, when autos are selling, everybody makes a pile of dough.
And when autos aren't selling, everybody's on the dough. And I said, there had to be a better place to live. So in 1943, we started a survey of the whole country. And as a big of an engineer we said specifications what should a city be like We got eight cities and then we slowly eliminated one after the other and the last one left was Dallas We didn't know anybody here, but we climbed in a car and drove to Dallas. Now how many climbed in a car and drove to Dallas? Well, at that point actually we did climb a bit. I came to Dallas first because Marion had just had a baby and too young to travel.
So she stayed in Detroit. Then I went back up there six months later, picked them up, and bought them home. And that home at that time was Al Guto's garage. I couldn't no amount of money could buy a place to live in Dallas in those days because the tremendous number of people who were here during the service that wanted to stay already had everything locked up had no way to bring Marion and the baby here so Al Guto bought a house and the colored people left the garage and he turned it over to me for 25 bucks a month. And I painted it, put it in the plumbing, and my wife and I moved in for a year and a half until we could buy a house.
That was our home. And from there, did you find a job immediately and how did you leave? No, I started a business. I came down here and opened a business. And not knowing anybody, I went to the bank, the one that looked like the bank, and opened an account and asked the man, do you know an attorney? I need to form a corporation. And he said yes, and he sent me upstairs to a firm called Runkey Lane and Savage. So I went upstairs and I asked for Mr. Savage, and he came out and I told him what my problem was, and he said he'd be glad to help.
He went through the whole thing and he wrote down all the information he needed. And he said well Mr Cullen how much do you want to put in this corporation I said well I have about and that all I got And he didn say a word just went on forming a When I leave his office, I talk to somebody about forming a corporation. He said, Mr. Savage is the mayor of Dallas. If you gave him $4,000, normally that's what he charges to form a corporation. That was the first friend I made when I came to Dallas when people said, a northern Jew going to a southern city will have problems.
The problems never occurred to me. Everybody I met tried to help. That is fabulous. So you never faced at that time any discrimination? No. People went on their way to help me, even in my own industry, and couldn't buy copper because it was a tremendous short supply. And one of my competitors wrote a note on a card, gave it to me and said, you go see my man at the shop and he'll give you whatever you need. I can only say is that everything people warn me about never happened. That doesn't mean there weren't people who didn't want to do business with me, but they never said it to my face.
They may have taken my dip and put it in the trash can, but they did it nicely. Do you know that they might have done that? No, I never knew one I was sure of. I had reservations on them. By and large, people take the base value. When you moved after a year and a half of staying in a garage, you moved to a house. How did you move in Dallas? Well, we bought a house on Kelton, which is one block below Lover's Lane, about halfway from Inwood to the airport. And I called Waltman, because I had met him, and I got my insurance for my company.
And I called him and told him I need insurance on my house. And he said, where do you buy? And I told him, he says, what in the world are you doing way out there? Lover's Lane was like Plano today. And the house was 900 square feet. And I lived there about seven years Did you have any Jewish neighbors at all there Yeah, there was one across the street. It was a dentist from New York. He and his wife didn't like Dallas. I think the wife missed calling mother on the phone. I stayed about a year, year and a half. Packed up and went home.
Did you join a congregation in those years when you lived there? Yeah, I joined Temple of Manuel in South Dallas. We used to take our kids to Sunday school. and then bowled at the bowling alley. Mr. Sheps had a bowling alley, so everybody went down and bowled, and after bowling, go pick our kids up and take them out. And I was a member there until about Linda went to Temple to see the rabbi, because the man she wanted to marry wasn't Jewish. And it was a... Who was the rabbi then, Henry? Who was the rabbi? Who was the rabbi? The present emeritus rabbi. Something happened anyway.
They came home very upset. I don't know why, even to this day. something was said and they just packed up and left. And then we joined Temple Shalom. I was already a member because I... Well, that was years later, Temple Shalom, though. You were a member of Emmanuel for years and years because Shalom was... I was a member for years and years. But Shalom was originally in the church on Preston, the Methodist, having air conditioned the church. I was very interested in how everything was working out. So I used to go to services there periodically. And even when I was a member over at Emmanuel, so we just moved over.
Over there. Your company, what was the name it is, until you retired? Is it the same company from when you came to Dallas? I came down with a man who was a sheet metal man. He was my dad's idea, I need somebody older. So he and his wife came down. He had a lung problem he developed in the Navy during the World War II. He was up in the Aleutians, whatever it was, from the cold weather. So he had to go to someplace where the weather was a lot warmer. So when he came to Dallas, he came with me. But it didn't work out. So who was your, did you have a partner?
That's my partner. Oh, what was his name? Tom Daniel. Oh, so that's, so your company's name was Cone Dan. That's right. And how long did he stay with you and your company? About three years, like somewhere around there. I see. But you kept the name. Yeah, when I broke up, my dad came down, we talked to my banker. My banker had said to me, I called a contractor once because it was the 11th of the month that didn't have my money. I didn't have my money, we didn't eat. So I called him up where he ate lunch at the old Dallas club that used to be downtown on St.
Paul. I called him there because I know he ate lunch there. He said, why don't you go to your bank, Henry? And I said, well, if I had a bank, I certainly wouldn't have called you. And he took me down and introduced me to Dan Rogers. Dan Rogers has a school named Dan. I'll tell you about your school. And Dan liked something about me, I don't know what it was. And he did things for me that my father didn't believe. Until the day my dad died, he never believed Dan did things that treated me like a son. And without him I wouldn't survive. So we uh stop saying OK Henry let get back to Dan Rogers who was a bank officer and helped you He was a key man in my being able to stay alive Okay, okay.
Most people who I was friends with know that my dad wasn't poor. My dad was very rich. But my wife and I decided if we were going to go someplace and create a whole new deal, we should do it on our own. And so when I called this man about his not paying the bill on time, he took me to the bank and introduced me to Dan Rogers, who was a senior banker in the town at that time, handled cotton and oil, a quarter of a million dollars, which was big money in the late 40s and early 50s. And anyway, he asked me to go home and make a whole new statement based on what we call great market values.
If you bought a truck, they had to sell to you to the government price, but once you But once you owned it, ran it one mile. It's a used truck. You can sell for whatever anybody needed to try to pay for it. So I made a statement of $3,700. And 3,200 of the 37 was trucks. So I had $500 for operating capital. Count your seat will hold. So let's just say, so we can say with confidence, is that the first few years were very difficult, but with the help of Rogers the banker and other people, you survived. Till the day my father died, he never believed what Dad and I told him.
What Dad did for me, my father wouldn't believe. He said, nobody would do that restriction. But he did. And I remained alive, even through a lawsuit. I had only 14 months. Some man, a Jewish man, decided that he wasn't going to pay me. And he knew that I had no capital or I wouldn have been living in Al Guto garage And I needed to get him into court It took me 14 months And on the courthouse dumps he paid me with your plus interest Dan Rogers if he hadn stayed with me I would have died Right. But you went on and you survived and you thrived, actually.
And I'd like to get into now, tell me what the Jewish community was like in Dallas throughout these years, and then we'll get through all your involvement. But what was the Jewish community like then? Well, a Jewish journey was possibly more than one, like, they were the old timers and the newcomers. It depended on where you made your friends. It depended on if you could afford to be a member of the country club, which I couldn't. You have certain friends. So that it was a relatively small community. There wasn't a big town even, much less a big Jewish community. And the friends that I made were probably a half of them were people who would come during the war or like I did after the war.
And the rest of them were people who were old-timers here. And probably the families that did most to help us were the Walton's, Irwin and Bill. They treated us real nice. But overall, we've been friends through the whole gamut. A lot of people came, like I did. But most of them had been here during the war and either came back or just stayed here. So that's how I met Al Guto. When I first came here, I met some guy who ran a drugstore. He was a pharmacist. He said, hey, do you know Al Guto? I said, yeah, I went to school with him. He says, he lives here.
He had moved here, started a scrapyard some time before the war, and he had done very well. The first home I was in that I had a meal was at Al Butoh house when he lived on Junior Street And he and his wife were very nice to us That how it happened when he bought the big home and moved off of Junior That how I happened to be able to get the garage Right, right. So tell me how you got involved in the Dallas Jewish community. Well, in the early days, the organization that had the most activity in the Jewish community was B'nai B'rith. Eventually I became sort of the...
I can't exactly be the leader, but I was more active than most people. So I developed programs for my B'nai B'rith Lodge. If you're old enough, remember the plays that we used to put on, real productions, two, two and a half hours. We used the high schools for theater. And that's where I met a lot of people, through that one activity. I got involved in the Federation during the war, I think it was 48. I got involved with some of the leaders of the Jewish community by doing fundraising. And so I began to get to know people. And then Donsky, while I was in Israel, Donsky put me up for a member of the Board of Directors of the Federation.
From that point on, I was working generally in the whole community. Now, as far as B'nai Griffith is concerned, your involvement is so outstanding. Can you tell me about the Anti-Defamation League and how you became so important and that beautiful plaque that we saw, your recognition, and the award that still exists today? The ATL in Dallas was a paper organization. The man who was in this territory lived in He would come over once in a while and have a lunch and get some meat together. He transferred to New York. That left nobody here. He turned over the southwest region to me. I was the only guy that really worked.
So I kept it alive. even when the Yom Kippur War hit. The Yom Kippur War occurred just before the end of the year. The bad problem with that really caused real grief. The bulk of the fundraising for ADM occurred in New York and California. The big dinners they had over Christmas and New Years, They'd raise their money at these big dinners in cities that had thousands and thousands of active Jews. Well, all the money went to Israel during that time. You couldn't get ten people to a dinner. Any money that was available went to Israel. And so a friend of mine, Dave Wiseplash, said, Henry, if you're trying to hold this together, why don't you and I sort of finance ADL until they get back on their feet?
So Dave and I finance ADL in Dallas until New York. Eventually we get fundraising, and once they were firmly established, they set the man down here. We got to bring their office. But before that, it was really deep and high. What did you do? I mean, what did the anti-defamation do? What did you do? Well, the bulk of the things we did down here in Dallas were to take care of people who had problems. In those days, there were still plenty of people being harassed with swastikas. all sorts of things. So our problem was twofold. One was to build the ADL at the same time try and keep people from becoming overly upset because of some pranks People did a painting of swastika or something else.
And of course, this was right after war, and people were still touching about anything that referred to Nazi Germany. and that mainly was our job that we did here. Do you remember ADL? Originally it was set up by the old families in the United States who were tired of the clowns on stage making ridiculous figures of Jews, big noses and all sorts of stuff. And they decided that wasn't good, not only for the poor people, but it wasn't good for the rich people either. What you need to do is get a better image. And that's what was building up all the time was ADL had to have a good image, so that newspapers would write favorable things, Hollywood wouldn't make favorable movies and wouldn't make the bad movies.
In those days, on the stage, which today is mostly just women in clothes on, but in those days, that was really the humorous part of the entertainment. And so changing that was just a slow, steady kind of grind. And that's what we did was try to raise an image, a projected image that the community would like. How successful were you in the early years? Well, today, to go back 20, today, this year, we'll have our 24th year of the Henry Cohn Award. In the very first year, the city fathers decided that these dinners by all the organizations in order to raise funds would have to stop just too damn many.
And all of them stopped except ADL And the people who came to the ADL dinner was the city leaders And they never, they realized that our fundraising wasn't for our own spending for things that we'd like to do. I'm sorry to repeat that. You were talking about the importance of the ADL. It wasn't just for spending. Well, yeah, it wasn't the social identity. It wasn't the social identity. It was, but ADL in Dallas has done a fantastic job. The one that I remember most is some eastern religion came out to North Dallas on Plano, bought a large piece of property, and had it zoned for a church and for homes.
and these people got jobs. They were not rich people by any means, but they came from a country which was nothing as forward as the United States where they had opportunities and everything else. And they built nice homes, and they were getting ready to build a church. People in the Taino area, people nominated for offices and elected, decided they didn't want them to build a church. So they rezoned the land. And these people hunted for somebody to help them. Eventually they wound up at the ADL door. We have no idea who set them. Somebody said, if anybody will help you, it has to be the ADL.
And Mark heard the story, and he said he would do what he could. So he went out and got a few of the leaders of the community and he said to them, don't you think we have enough trouble with all the things that have happened, the president getting shot at and all the other things to get such bad publicity. All you need is one more publicity about what you're doing to these people. And then Dallas will be a pariah And anyway they said well eventually they agreed they would buy back all the stuff for what they paid for Well, this is 10, 15 years later.
It should have been worth a lot more. So then Mark went to another community around Dallas. got the city fathers there and said, here's a bunch of great people. Here's what's happening. We've got to move them someplace. Help them where they are now. And they agreed that they would do everything they could to move them at the least expense. And they moved them. And the people are going to build a beautiful church. They've got their own little community. and everybody's happy with the end result. Are you still very active in the APL? Only in certain areas. The younger people have to have something to do.
I mean, you can't keep being the top dog. If you're doing it, you're going to lose. So eventually what happens is the younger people begin to take over. what you used to call the light work. To get out and find answers to problems that the office needs to know something about. Mainly I work on this dinner, and this is where I spend my time. And it's a great deal. It's a great fundraiser. Oh, it is. We've had as high as 700 people at $250. The dinner costs you probably $50. The miscellaneous costs you another $50 or $20. The rest is what goes to New York.
They financed all the projects that we involved. And this year, 2000, we are on a rebate. a man named Tom Hicks, known worldwide for his devised athletic teams. He's one of the owners of our new stadium. We're talking hundreds of millions of dollars. Tom has agreed he's About two years ago we had a Jewish man who was honored, who was in the television business. He had a company that furnished in your home the cable television. And Tom Higgs was one of his financers. So Tom was asked to go ahead and do it. As a matter of fact, the cable television man was awarded the quote, an award.
The two people who spoke for him, which they always have two people, one was the governor of Texas, who is now running for president, and the second one was the mayor of Dallas. And so you get to meet a lot of people. did Likki show you the picture on my spots? The governor and Likki and I. Oh, all right. Yes, I did. George Bush and you. Let's go on now to all your years with the Jewish Community Center. How active you were and how instrumental you were in the building of the Jewish Community Center. Well, I kind of followed Edward Wolman. I started on the neighborhood because she was active in it.
and I, the head of the council, and he got active at the center and I followed behind him. The center, between ADL and the center, the center really was something great for me. involved in fundraising. There were three people who really got that project on and running. One was Donski, the other one was Murray Mumbus, and I was the third. We raised both of the funds. Then I worked with the architects. Every Monday I would go down the architects office at 8 o'clock and he didn't work to know, going over all of them. He knew how to make a great building, and did a beautiful job.
Who he Who he Oh the architect or something Yeah the doctor was just somebody that somebody brought in and it turned out to be a great choice He and I got along good, so I kind of worked with him so he would understand the flow of a Jewish center, how things would do, what these various areas we were setting up, what they were supposed to be for. And between us, we got a very compact, a lot of usable space, nothing for show, but a good center. A number of years later, I was told by somebody from the headquarters of all Jewish centers who was visiting But our center was probably the best performing, usefulness, dollar for dollar of any center in the country.
And we don't have a real fancy lobby because the little building that sat there for years before we built this big building, the little building became the lobby. So we couldn't doll our center up. It's great in the community. Today we now have two centers, satellites, both of them are in Plano. We had a small one for just young children. We bought the old YMCA and that eventually will absorb the other building. We busted the seams now. I mean, the people who didn't believe, this part of the world was like the old Germany. If you act like the Christians, talk like the Christians, and do like the Christians, they'll leave you alone.
They won't bother you. So even the rabbis, the temples, Emmanuel, said, join the YMCA. You don't need a ghetto of your own. I fought that ghetto problem for about three years to get enough money to build. Tell me about that. That is so important what you just said. I heard the story about your own personal story and raising some money that you needed for the Jewish Community Center Can you tell us about that You talking about my wife Right Yeah, the war started in Israel, and on a Tuesday night, I still remember, we had a meeting at the center for fundraising. have I heard guys who have piles of money saying, well, I'll give $2,000.
I went home and I said to my wife, I said, I'm a guy sick. You hear this tiny country dying, and these guys are nursing along with nickels and dimes. She says, well, what do you want to do? I said, well, we don't have any money except what we put aside for furniture in our new house. I said, how would you feel about getting your furniture quick? She said, do you think it's important that I do? Now, this was to build, help build the Jewish community. Is that right? Yeah. You had to have 12 gifts of $100,000. and I couldn't raise 12 Donsky and Munbus couldn't we raised 10 they wouldn't give us permission to build until we got 12 we had a fundraiser who told you if you don't raise 12 you're not going to be successful so I went to Donsky and Munbus and I said tell me $60,000 up front because you could pay over five or six years, whatever you want.
What would the interest be worth at the end of five years? How much would it total? They said, well, what are you trying to do? I said, well, if I can total $100,000 or close to it, I can get up to $11,000 and I think we can build. So the thoughts, get them on this, got together, and they said, that should be fine. So we made the 11th contribution. And you did that with your furniture, supposedly? Then when we moved into our new home you know and we have four kids so the house gets a lot of use If you wear the cloth down put a little cotton tuff stick out you just brand new home And I got furniture with this tuff stick.
But you know, nobody ever failed to want to come to my house. It was built for meetings. It was a great house. And everybody wanted to use it. And it took us seven years for me to raise another stash of money to do the furniture. But in the meantime, the Jewish Community Center was built. Yeah, the center was built. And we have a room there now. I had my Mary phone with me. It's the children's room. That's what Mary wanted. So the center and I have a law industry together, my family. The center and a law industry. Tell me about, just going on, there's so many things to talk about, even when we touch on some of them.
Weren't you experimental in a golf tournament for 20 years to raise money for the agency and ACA? Yeah, my B'nai Brith group had a gang that played golf once a year at the B'nai Brith tournament, but it was way out on Grand Avenue, and they usually had a dinner before. And so eventually the dinner became where they would sell the teams. And eventually this thing began, the people who wanted to, did the work, got tired. And it looked like I was going to die. So the Dallas Lodge of B'nai B'rith, which I was a member of, had been chairman for a number of years. decided we'd take over the golf tournament, called the Vinay Brith Golf Tournament.
We raised about $35,000 less the cost of the dinner for the golfers. And that money was really the backbone of the Vinay Brith for years. Well, there were, not all the kids could go to the district conventions and national conventions. They couldn't afford it. And when I ran the golf tournament, we set this money up to do those type of things. And you did it for 20 years? About a time. I had four or five people who were the backbone. They knew everybody's handicap. They knew all the old timers. I didn't know them yet. But they knew which of the guys would lie about their handicap, which guys he could trust.
Like Freddie Aplon, he knew everybody in the government. So we used to put on a tournament and it became a great tournament. So, and you carried it on? So we took it out to the country club eventually. They charged us $1,000 to open the building on the day it was already open. Then they doubled it. While the cost got so high that all the work we were doing wasn't bringing in very much. but there was one story that I was someplace in a party and I was standing in a group and somebody mentioned my name and the lady next to me says, are you Henry Cohn?
And I said, yes. She says, well I was a chapter mom of the women, the kids, the girls and every time we needed money, they'd say, call Henry. She said, you know, in all the years, I wasn't sure there really wasn't Henry Cove. It's just like somebody's story, like Mother's cookie jar, you know. This is maybe 20 years later, she finally found Henry Cove. This leads me into all of your fundraising, and tell me what you did for a federation I'm sorry. Federation. Tell me you were very involved with fundraising and federation and I just want to know all the things that you did Well I worked in the drive for a long time Then the leader of our community Jacob Peltman and I became friends We went to Israel together a couple of times.
And he began asking me to run the drive. And I said, I don't like the way the Federation works. Still. And I said, I do all the work. Dotsky and I and Willie Ballman, we do more work than any ten people in the community. And we will work. So for six or seven years he asked me, and then one day he calls me up. I said, well, I can't call my office. I go over there. And he had just given me a couple days, or maybe a week earlier, the $100,000 from the center to build the building. He said, Henry, I'm telling you, I'm not asking you.
I want you to run the tribe. So that kind of puts me under the gun. I can't say no to him. And everybody but me knew that he, because of certain business problems, was cutting his pledge to $300,000. I want the biggest giver in the community cuts down big gifts dinner. Everybody else said, well, if he can cut 300, he's all three times as rich as me, I'll cut 100. I lost $800,000 in the dinner. Now I know why Jake asked me to hold me to take it. What do you expect about me? It was a long time ago. Anyway, I was in the construction area of the center.
I was running the drive and I had some other commitments I can remember who they were I really was struggling in those types of business it was a ton I took it for two years and I did a good job. I lost a million and a half that I could account for, and I raised from news sources about a million more. That was only 400,000 less than when I started after two years. It was a merciless job. My community honored me by making me the only man in history who was never asked to sit on the board of directors of the Federation after running and driving two years.
Why do you think that was? I'm a hard guy. I've been asking for somebody to put in a decent computer system so you could know where you are day by day. They never would. It's too expensive. My deal with Jake was, I run the drive. I call the tour. It's all yours. I walked into the office and I said, you've got three weeks to get on a computer. There's two systems that you can get on quickly. One is California in LA and the other is Cleveland. The Cleveland one, people say, is the best. And we were on a computer in three weeks and you'd think that that everybody was happy.
Henry did it, and that made it there. I should have let them look like they did it. I didn't have time to take it. But you still continued over all these years involved in Federation of Fundraising. Have you? Well, no, because I can remember Willie Waldman and I had lunch one day, and they don't send me any cards anymore. And I said, you know, it's the same thing with me. But one thing they did every time they had a card that they thought should have been doing something and couldn get ready to do it they send it to me Two days ago I was at the wedding reception of a man who had given nothing to charity well into his middle age And it took me three years to get an appointment to see him.
And when I got to see him, I had asked for 30 minutes. In 30 minutes, I got up, closed my book, come out the door, and the guy says, where are you going? I said, my 30 minutes are up. He says, sit down. Today, he's probably one of the most generous men in our community. He says, Henry taught me to give. Henry, I was at a dinner one night a few years ago, Howard Richowski. Yeah. And we were talking about him. And we all know what he has done for the community, giving his house to organizations, his philanthropic... Piles of money, too. Right. All of his philanthropy.
And he told me that Henry Cohn taught him everything. He knew nothing about giving to charity. He knew nothing about what was important, what was involved, what the Jewish community did. And it was you that did it. And the Federation, with all their guys getting all the publicity, getting the news, the Federation couldn't touch it. They never really did anything. He knew it. I guess he knew something about by the time I got into there, that three years of pounding on his door. And he's done, one of the greatest things he's done is he's helped a gal, her name's Betty Ford, the East Dallas Community School.
They, somewhere about a year and a half ago, she got whatever the rights are to have one of these schools that are out of the school system, the New Braco school. Like a charter school. And he's built a $4 million building for them. Now he didn't put up all the money, but he's raised the money. And what he didn't raise, he put up. He's done a great job. And you were responsible. You were responsible. In the Federation still, this is not the only one. There were a number over the years, there were others, nothing is as big as this, but there were others who never gave to charity.
I can remember one just once sent the guy's office from 8 o'clock until 4 or 5. The guy had an office attic. He had to go out through the ring. He didn't get out the back door. There was no back door. No windows to climb out or nothing. And this man was pretty well to do nothing. And Murray says, you ain't going to get out of that office until you talk to me. So I wasn't the only one there, authors who did it. Well, we're talking to you, thankfully, we're talking to you. Tell me about your involvement in the Dallas community, civic, culturally. I know you were very active in literacy.
Tell me a little about some of the activities you did in the Dallas community. Well, I found out pretty early that the lunch clubs where I was a member of the Lions Club, they do a great job. But in those days, most of the people in an organization like that don't know any Jews. And they don't really deal with things properly. You know, they'll order ham for lunch. Those things that are really stupid, but they don't see it being stupid. So anyway, eventually I dropped out, but I kept paying my dues. And years later, one of the big international organizations came to my door and I said, look, here's the whole story.
If you want me to join and take a membership, don't do it. I don't go to these things because I had a very unhappy experience. And I don want to put anybody else in a position where that would happen If I not worried about me I just saying it not good for the organization They kept coming to my office and they said it won happen Anyway, I joined and it happened. And one of the officers... Is this the locker you're still talking about? Huh? What is the locker? This is the turn of both. Henry, tell me some of the other civic organizations that you've been active in in the Dallas community.
Well, probably the one where I spent the most time. I didn't subdivide my time to half a dozen organizations. But I was in one. I was active, and I contributed to the operation. The one I spent the most time with, and which I really have a great fondance for, was an organization called Operation Lift. It is now just called Lift. L-I-F-T, Literacy Instruction for Texas. And I learned at the very start that the city of Dallas and other cities all over the country, about a third of the people are illiterate. They can't read or write. And the schools keep turning out more and more. So this organization had people who were willing to teach these people to read and write at no expense that these were volunteers.
They had a whole school system of volunteers. And after a while I began to realize that this organization was hamstrung because it had no vehicle for raising funds. And so I began to do fundraising. And I held my annual meetings at the Jewish Center where a man named Weiss agreed of the Riot Act and told him as a member of the board of an organization it involves your willingness to not only give but to raise funds. And from that I got some of the people to get active in the operation. There were a lot of things involved in it. I went to one of the foundations, the Dallas Foundation, and I asked the people, the two people who ran it, for help in finding people interested in education who would be willing to give me some advice and help so I could more people.
And they just didn't have any interest. We don't tell names of our people that put money up with us, and we don't get involved. And eight years later, they called up my office and said, would you like to move in our building without any charge for the rent? But see, the education became du jour, became the thing at that time. We had the image for the work we had done. Eventually, it's now under the aegis of the Meadows Foundation, which is a $700 million foundation. It's the one they talk about. I'm long since out of it. I think there are people who work in that type of deal better than I can do.
What do I do about charity? My dad was a very charming man. And I know that he did a lot of things that I wasn't aware of because later on after he died, my brother would tell me some of the stories about kids he sent to college during the Depression. So I kind of raised on it. I did my first fundraising when I was 12 years old. It wasn't the United Jewish Appeal in those days it was something else I can remember what it was But I collected from the kids a penny a day a year In many cases the families objected saying we do it for the family And I said, but he's got to learn sometime, and this is the best time for him to learn.
I was only 12 years old myself. And so I raised funds from the time I was 12 years old. So was your father your role model then? He sure was. She was your own model for it. And so, wherever I've been, even though there were tough times, I had a wife who felt much like I did. And we always had something for charity. I don't care how tough things got, there was always something. the story of Mama's culture, of culture. But we, we were able to survive and that, I don't think it ever hurt us. So, I was, one of the questions I was at when I asked you was who your role models were, and it sounds like your wife, Miriam, and your dad.
And your dad? He was, Marion's father was a role model. He had three men's stores and he managed them well. They spent very little. They didn't throw their money away. He wrote checks one Friday, paid all his bills to clean the world and everything was fine except the banks didn't open on Monday. And he eventually lost his stores because he didn't have any funds. Couldn't operate. And somewhere in the mid-40s, he paid the last check off. He paid every one of the people. Even though it was his money the banks closed on, he paid out of what he earned as a clerk in a men's store.
He paid every debt. So on both sides, on Marian's side and on my side, we saw charity, real charity, not give another $100, not that big charity. And I have survived. Everybody tells me I can't do these things, but I do, and I still survive. Someday I may not. Someday I may step over. But we'll see. And Reed, tell me now, I don't know, I guess I saved the best for last as well, tell me about your family today. Well, Marion is gone. And that tore a pretty big hole in my life. We had four children. Today, one lives, and that's Linda, she lives in Portland, Oregon.
Carol, she lives in Dallas. Bobby, he lives in Dallas. And Alan, he lives in Houston. Alan was married once before in Germany when he was in the Army of Occupation and he had two sons. He was divorced many years later when Andrew came home. He remarried and he's living with a gal down in Houston who was very active in the community and he works right along with her. Carol has taken on an activity over at Temple Shalom and she's now, the last few years has become very active in things outside the house. Bobby, Bobby's got a tough go. He was cheated when he was born.
He was very, very sick. The doctor didn't think he would live. But he said if he lives, he may have some problems. He does But he a good kid He honest He works hard And everybody likes him Linda, who lives in Portland, has two daughters. Alan has two sons. Bobby has no children. And Carol has one son. So we have a nice-sized family. And your grandchildren, some of your grandchildren are married, isn't that true? About a month or so ago, one of the daughters, granddaughters out in Portland was married. I have one of the grandkids. I may have a great grandkid for four or more.
Anyway, that's my family. They're all good people. They all do something in the community. They're not lazy. Now we get to my life. When Marion died, it was a long, hard year. If you never live with somebody dying of cancer, knowing you could die. From first, everything was kind of normal. Then the doctor advised that she not drive a car. So I could take her shopping. The night life was pretty normal. Then she became sickerly walking around these big supermarkets. him a problem. I found there were some that had wheelchairs with baskets on them, especially over at Sam And we whistle around and make it like it a game And eventually she couldn talk about that So I would put her in an institution.
So I stayed with her. It was tough. We'd go to the hospital, not infrequently, and every time it seemed we went to the hospital, I ran into a gal whose mother was dying. She, the first time I heard it, they paged her. And it seemed each time we went back after that, she was in there for some sort of emergency for her mother. Anyway, both Marian died and your mother died. And at one point, a month or two later, I was sending thank you notes. And for a few people I just called, joking. I'd say one to save 30 cents. So pretty cool. And Linky and I, we had been playing tennis together as a fill-in.
I used to play, we had four guys who played over Caliburns. They had a tennis court in the subdivision. Somebody couldn't make it. I had a big caliber called Linky and she joined. Whenever there was a community, somebody had a bar mitzvah. They joined certain people that were active in the community. I'd see Linky there and I'd dance with her. Anyway, I called her up to thank her and we had dinner one night. And over a period of months things got pretty close Anyway I told the rabbi and he told me Judy says when a husband dies a wife should mourn for 11 months. when a wife dies a man should mourn 30 days and I said why?
he said well he said men are not made to live alone and so they say 30 days that doesn't mean you forget I used to do services every night. But it's different for me. So anyway, 11 months after Mary and I, I think I got married. The rabbi said, I can tell the good marriages because when somebody is gone, They want to get right back into the arms. The bad ones, they don't. They want to get any closer than a 10-foot pole. And we just have to get with it. But I will tell you that this hour plus has been wonderful. I have enjoyed every minute.
I've learned so much about you. I know that people who see this will be so impressed. You've made wonderful, marvelous contributions to Dallas, to the Jewish community, to your family, to your friends. And I thank you very, very much for giving me this time. Well, thank you for taking the time to hear about my life.