Henry Jacobus
Henry Jacobus Jr. descended from families deeply rooted in Texas Jewish history. His maternal grandmother, born Rosenbaum in Marshall, Texas around 1870, came from a family that lived in Marshall, Mineola, and Hillsboro before settling in Dallas around 1900. His mother, Dorothy, was born in Dallas in 1901 and was the daughter of Theo Marcus, a cotton merchant and president of the Dallas Cotton Exchange. Through intertwined Marcus and Rosenbaum marriages, Henry was related to many well-known families, including the Neimans. His father, Henry Jacobus Sr., was born in Richmond, Virginia, raised in Atlanta, and came to Dallas around 1920 after serving in World War I, where he met and partnered with Lawrence Pollock.
Henry lived his entire life in Dallas, growing up on Swiss Avenue in a household that always included his grandmother Ophelia Marcus. He attended Lipscomb, Long Junior High, and Woodrow Wilson High School, then studied briefly at SMU and the University of Texas before serving in the Navy for two years during World War II as a radar technician, reaching Okinawa in 1945. After the war he returned to school and graduated from Stanford in 1948. That fall he joined Pollock Paper Company, working in sales and sales management in the folding carton division for twenty years. In 1968 he entered the real estate business, working with his cousin Bud Miller and later Coldwell Banker.
Henry married Gloria Horowitz of Wichita Falls on May 8, 1949, and the couple raised two children, Alan and Sarah; Alan was lost in a mountain climbing accident in 1975. Henry was a founding member and the first president of Temple Shalom, which grew from 38 families to more than 800. He also served with Jewish Family Service, the Dallas Child Guidance Clinic, the Jewish Welfare Federation, and the American Jewish Committee. His parents were leaders at Temple Emanu-El and in the Jewish Welfare Federation, endowing the Jacobus Archives and gifts to SMU, and Gloria served as Temple Shalom's only woman president and built fine custom furniture. Henry also reflected thoughtfully on the American Council for Judaism and the evolution of Reform Judaism.
Full Transcript
I have the pleasure today of an oral interview in the history of Henry Jacobus, Jr., whom, and the date is the 23rd day of April, 1991, and we're going to talk about this remarkable family who has done so much for Dallas and the Dallas Jewish community in particular. and here we go. A good way to start is to ask you to recall when the Jacobus family first came to the United States and from where, if you know and remember that. Well, I really don't know when. I know that my maternal grandmother came to Texas in the late 1860s, and I think they came from Kentucky or Indiana, but I'm not even positive about that.
What was her maiden name? Her maiden name was Rosenbaum, and she had several brothers and sisters, all of whom, or most of whom were older than she was. We think that our maternal great-grandfather was a schoolteacher, and that he practiced in East Texas at a very early time. But it's really interesting, Bob. I think that our parents were very little interested in family history, and have lost so much, including where in Germany they came from. My dad always insisted he was from Germany. I think he was from Poland, but it doesn't matter. and the borders shift yeah the Jacobises came to the United States probably in the 1880s to 90s dad's father was from Germany dad scarcely knew his father who died when dad was at a very young age dad was born in Richmond Virginia moved to Atlanta when I think he was two years old came to Dallas after serving in World War I long about 1920-21.
When Dad came to Dallas, he was working for a disinfectant company, stayed interestingly enough at Lawrence Pollock Sr mother boarding house and that how he and Lawrence Pollock got together and formed a lifelong business association that was wonderful for all concerned. That is very good. Now, your parents met... In Dallas. In Dallas. Right. And your mother came from another very prominent family. Well, that's right. Mother's father was Theo Marcus, who was in the cotton business and was incidentally president of the Dallas Cotton Exchange when the Cotton Exchange building was contracted for and first built. My grandfather, Mother's father, died when I was only one, so I really never knew him, although Mother's mother lived until 1963 and was a member of our household all that time.
And she and her sister-in-law, I think, used to be together quite a bit, Mrs. Herbert Marcus. Well, I think that's right. I think that it was one big happy family, I think. I know that when I was a child, we spent a lot of time with our great aunts, great uncles, and such. You may be interested to know that my grandmother and her brother married Theo Marcus and his sister. Now, this gets complicated, but we have double first cousins. We had Theo Marcus, who married Ophelia Rosenbaum, and we had Abe Rosenbaum, who married Minnie Marcus. Now, that's not Uncle Herbert's wife, but that was Minnie Marcus, who was Aunt Carrie Neiman's sister.
And Aunt Carrie Neiman, I'm getting confused here, but Aunt Carrie Neiman was also a sister of my grandfather, Herbert Marcus, and so on. And, of course, we can add to that Aunt Celia Schultz, and we can add, well, I think that's all of them that were here. Then there was no I think that the Marcus family The Schultzes were the parents of Ray Miller and some of those but I get all balled up in this Get me off of here Did your dad have any brothers or sisters? Yeah. Dad had two brothers and three sisters, all of whom were older than he was. One brother and sister lived in Atlanta with their husbands and wives and children.
One was a bachelor late in life, moved to Miami, Florida, never had children. And the other sister, no, there are two other sisters, one sister moved to Tampa with her husband, and one sister lived in Dallas with her children and husband for a while and then moved to Louisville, Kentucky, where she spent the rest of her life. What was their name? The Dallas one? One of Alvin Cohns. Alvin Cohn married dad's sister, Pearl Jacobus, and had two daughters, our first cousins, with whom we're still quite friendly, talked to. Did your mother, Dorothy, have other brothers and sisters? Mother had one sister who died before Mother was even born, so the answer is no.
So I have no aunts and uncles on Mother's side, although we had a bunch of great aunts and uncles on Mother's side. You recall the year Dad passed away and at what age? My dad died in 1983 and he was 87. And Mother died in 91 and was 89. They both had good, long lives. I'm glad to say. I'm hoping I inherited some of those genes. And I remember them so clearly and so fondly. Now, speak of your brothers and sisters. Okay. I only have one sister, Ann Foles. Ann is four years younger than I am. and she and I have both lived in Dallas all of our lives.
Ann has two children, now fully grown, Alan and Robert. We had two children Alan and Sarah Sarah is our only child now because Alan was lost in a mountain climbing accident back in 1975 So that our immediate family It gotten pretty small That's a day. You and I are related through marriage, through the foe side. I'll tell you about that later. Oh, my God. Same way with a couple of other people in town that I don't really consider myself married to. But the same could be said of Louis Wadel because there's some relationship to in-laws. And the same could be said of Louise Friedman Eisman.
And now it's you. It's too much to take, Bob. That would be. I can understand that. Let's talk a little of some of Dad's community accomplishments. As you earlier pointed out, he went with Pollock Paper Company, and he and Lawrence built an enormously successful and fine business. But earning money was only a part of his ability, and he turned so much of that back to the community. and if you can recall both in the Jewish community and the general community some of the things you remember most proudly. Well, my first recollection of Dad doing communal work, and I'm sure that I was not aware of what he did and didn't do at an earlier age, but during World War II he was very much interested in the USO and was in fact the lay JWB representative to the local USO committee.
Spent a lot of time with it, really enjoyed it, and I think felt totally satisfied. I think it was a great thing for him to do. I mean, great in terms of very rewarding for him. I know that he was early on interested in the Jewish Welfare Federation. He was president. I've heard it said many, many times in 1948 when they raised half a million, they borrowed half a million dollars for the UJA. Dad served for many years in various capacities on Federation boards and committees and such, and the same is true at Temple Emanuel, where he was on the board and was a president of Temple Emanuel.
In a minute I'll get to, A couple of mother and dad's larger philanthropies. Mother was a dedicated slave for the National Council of Jewish Women, particularly the thrift shop. She really adored it and she gave it her all. I'm sure Mother had other interests as well. I know, like, she's a marvelous, was a marvelous sewer and knitter, and during the war I'm sure she did a lot of knitting of things for the troops. But I really am not as aware of Mother doing things other than counsel, and she really did spend a great deal of time with that and never, to my knowledge, would take a leadership position.
But she was a great employee. She would really do the job. So that's for Mother. Then as far as their communal loves and places that they gave some fairly substantial money, SMU, for one. They made a gift to the SMU library to be used as a fund to endow X amount of book purchase annually for undergraduates. And then Mother made a contribution to Dedman College to be used for faculty enrichment. There are really very few restrictions on it. In fact, that's one wonderful thing I'll say about my parents with both their charitable giving and their gifts to our family. They never tied strings to them.
It was really very, very wonderful. And as you know, Bob, the Jacobus Archives at Temple Emanuel was something that they did. Both of them generally much preferred to give to program than to structure. And that's something, too, that I think made them rather unique. I'm glad you mentioned that. And, of course, the archive room which they sponsored and donated fits so well with what we're doing here. And we're going to see that a copy of this gets to them, too, to the archives. If you have some other memories of them before we get down to your first memories? Memories of them in a community sense or family sense or which or both All three as they come to you Well I know I had a lovely childhood I know that I really have no, this may sound trite, but I have no memories of anything other than pleasant things.
I'm sure that I was reprimanded at times, although I was an angelic child, to be sure. We took a lot of great family trips together. We went to camp. I really, I really... Did you go to an Easton camp? No, we went to camp in Estes Park, Colorado. Huh. And not only did I go, my sister went, my two children went, her two children went, so it got to be a family institution. Was that the Y camps? No, Chile camps. Uh-huh. And it was a grand spot. It really was. It was just fine. When we were children, they took us on a North Cape cruise, went to Russia and England, and so forth, and I don't have too many memories of that.
At what age were you? I was twelve and Ann was eight. Then the whole time that I was in the service, there was a lot of correspondence. It's funny, I found a letter that I had written Mother where I was very critical of somebody my sister was dating and I really got a chuckle out of that. I think the nicest thing I could say about my parents, really, one of the very nicest things is that after we were married, they really never intervened in our lives in terms of telling us we shouldn't do this or we shouldn't do that. as you may know, and here's where their history and mine begin to come together Dad was very much in favor of a second reformed congregation for years before it happened and I don't remember just exactly how I got so interested in doing it, along with about five other people from Emmanuel but Dad was totally supportive and after Shalom came into existence, Dad put up some matching money for our land and so on, and was absolutely, totally supportive of our doings for his life, and mother has been as well.
And again, zero strings attached. It was wonderful When I and I shouldn even put this in the archives but when I got ticked off at Emanuel feeling that we were competitors at Shalom and was really very unhappy about several things, Dad had said something to me that I think just again shows what wonderful people they were. He said, I know you're not happy, and if you'd care to resign from Emanuel, I would not have an objection. And that's something I would never even ask their position, I mean, permission to do. and it just again shows you how they really allowed us to be ourselves and incidentally and parenthetically after mother died in February I felt an immense compulsion to rejoin Emanuel and I did two days later so now I'm members of both and I'm not active at either but there you go now I would like to get into your early childhood memories of where you first remember living as a child.
I presume it started out in South Dallas, as so many families did. No, we were uptown Jews. We lived on Swiss Avenue all my life. Grandfather had built a house out on Swiss Avenue in, I guess, 1922 or 1903. And interestingly, my parents always lived with them as long as they were on Swiss. And then when my parents moved off of Swiss Avenue, my grandmother lived with them for the rest of her entire life. So all of my early family memories include Grandmother Marcus, Ophelia. And again, very, very happy memories of that. She was our family gardener. See, Carrie Neiman, as I recall, lived... They just lived two doors away.
They were on the corner. Exactly right, you've got a good memory. They lived at the corner of Skillman and Swiss. And incidentally, I'm sure you've already got this in the archives somewhere, but Skillman was originally Lindbergh Boulevard, and when Mr. Lindbergh disgraced himself by supporting Hitler as it was felt he did, they changed the name to Skillman. So that was interesting. And we lived just about two doors toward town from Aunt Minnie and Aunt Carrie in Oklahoma. Topians were there Lived further away on Suez but in the same block as Aunt Minnie and Aunt Carrie Then across the there were a few Jewish people right in that immediate area If you mention what families you remember Well the Tobians as you said across the street were the Winfield Myers Behind the Winfield Myers on Gaston were the Pearlstones, the Julius Pearlstones.
The Solos lived in that same block with the Myers. The Charles Shaw's... Charles... He sent the children? Yeah, he was. I think the father was Charles. My contemporary was Charles. B. Yeah, then going further down Swiss toward town, we had the Freedmans who lived on Swiss and the Wheels. And I don't remember what his first name was, Mr. Wheel. It's Kenneth Wheel's father, family. And I think that's about all the Jews that lived over there. You started at what grade school? I started at Lipscomb. I went through Lipscomb, jail, Long Junior High, and Woodrow Wilson High School. And again, talking about Jews in East Dallas versus any other place, out of about 2,000 students, I presume there were no more than 20 Jewish kids.
And I'm not aware of any of the Jews in my graduating class. Now, from high school then, from Wilson, did you go on to college? I went, I graduated high school in midterms, so I went to SMU for one semester. Then I went to the University of Texas for summer school and the following fall, then I went in the Navy, and I was in the Navy for two years. When I got out, I went back to Texas for one year, and then I went to Stanford and graduated the following year. And I majored in four different things along the way, and so I've always said that my education was extremely broad and skin deep.
But you came out smart. Oh, yeah. When you finally graduated, did you go immediately into Pollock Paper Company? Yes, I did. I, uh... What year? I went, I graduated high school, I mean, excuse me, from Stanford in 1948, and I went to Pollock September the same year. And I was there for twenty years. I left Pollock Paper in 68, went in the real estate business along with your former associate, Bud Miller, and have been in real estate for twenty or so years. If we can return a little bit to the Navy, what you did there and where you served. I had really, again, a very happy time in the Navy because I never saw a shot fired in anger.
I took a test prior to enlisting that, upon passage, guaranteed you're being admitted to the radar technician training program. I took this test, which guaranteed admittance to the radar technician training program. I passed. This meant that I only had to go to boot camp for one month up in Great Lakes. It was ice and snow, so we didn't do much. then I went to I was stationed in a high school that the Navy had taken over for so called pre-radar school then I went to the University of Houston for three months in primary and I was on Treasure Island in school for seven months so by the time I finally got to Okinawa it was June of 1945 and while there still were some kamikazes I never saw one or shot at one or got shot at by one.
And as soon as the war was over, in September we came back to Washington, D.C. for Navy Day. Our ship sailed up to Potomac, and that was very exciting during seeing autumn color and all of that. Then we had to go to New York City for two months where you could get free theater tickets at the USO at 99 Park Avenue. I'll never forget. And all the time I had the pleasure of meeting really nice people. and then the ship sailed to Charleston, South Carolina, where we decommissioned, and I was there for four months, got out of the Navy in May of 46, and went right back to school.
So I really didn't lose any time in my life, and I had a lot of nice experiences. And you were still a bachelor. Tell us when Gloria came. Yeah, I hadn't even met Gloria until I graduated from college, and I was already at work at Pollock Paper in the fall of 1948, and I met Gloria OU Texas weekend. She was from Wichita Falls, and she used to come down a lot and knew everybody that I knew except we'd never met before. And it was love at first sight. It really was. Her maiden name? Was Horowitz Her parents were Al and Sarah Horowitz and they lived in Wichita Falls since about 1920 What sort of business or field were parents He was an independent oil producer and also had been in the pipe and supply business.
And had come to Wichita Falls, frankly, with a family business, family pipe business, when the oil boom began in that area in 1920, 1921. Wasn't their family the same name in Tulsa or somewhere in Oklahoma? Yeah, but it's not the same. Gloria's, told me this before, Gloria's folks spelled there is H-O-R-W-I-T-Z, and the ones in Oklahoma City with an O, H-O-R-O, W-I-T-Z, and there was no relationship. Her folks all came from the Cleveland area, both mother and dad. You did too, didn't you? Well, my first job was at Cleveland, the retail business. So you met each other on a date, or...? No, we met each other at a party.
And then the following night after the game, there was a dance at the club, and I cut in, and we danced, and... You're still out at White Rock? Yeah, sure was. I had to think for half a second, but it was still the club on Garland Road, or on Garland Road, I guess. And when did you take the big step? We met on October 8, 1948. We got engaged on January 2, 1949, and we got married on May 8, 1949, so we didn't waste a lot of time. I will tell you one thing that's kind of funny, and I always was suspicious. I was teaching Sunday school in the fall and winter of 1948-9, the sixth grade, and I would go to Wichita Falls after work at noon on Saturday and leave Wichita Falls at 6 on Sunday, 6 a.m.
on Sunday, to get back in time to pick up Gene Tobian so that we could both go and teach Sunday school. And one day, one week, it was actually, there was snow and ice on the ground, but I made it, and I always thought there was something funny about it. In This Week magazine, in the Sunday paper a few weeks later, was a scene of Jacobus coming through the snow to this door and the caption was Good old Jacobus I knew he make it That was so funny But anyway that was me good old Jacobus I never missed a Sunday while I was doing that Then once we got engaged, I decided I better not teach Sunday school anymore.
Too much pressure. Where did you live at first, after you married? We first lived, this is interesting, because our entire married life, which is now 42 years, We've lived with the same phone number except for changes in the prefix. We've been in the same school district. We started out in the Prestonville apartments between Hillcrest and Preston. We moved to Joyce Way, lived there for 17 years, and then have lived here on Inwood for 22. Senior, committed people that don't flip from here to there. Not a lot. Part of why. So great. Now, we talked a little bit before about Temple Shalom and the founding of it, and both you and Gloria played a very important part in that founding.
Were you the first president, do I recall? I was the first president, and it was really exciting and it was a lot of fun. We had 38 members. We first met at Perkins Chapel at SMU. That was only for a couple or three Friday nights. Then we met at St. Mark's for a whole school year. At the same time, we started having religious school at Hockaday on Sundays. The community was wonderful to us. Then we moved into North Haven Methodist Church, where I think we stayed six or seven years. Bill McElveney was a minister? Just briefly. He was there just briefly, and I forget the name of the man who came right after him.
But anyway, it was wonderful, and then when we had a rabbi, they even provided office space for the rabbi, which I thought was lovely. It was Rabbi Jaffe and Rabbi Herschel Jaffe. Rabbi Herschel Jaffe was our first rabbi and was with us for about three years, followed by Saul Besser, who, as you know, had been at Emmanuel, and he was our rabbi for 16 years. And now we've had Rabbi Roseman for about five or six. The congregation just now is 25 years old. We started with 38 families. We now have 800 plus. Interestingly and this is kind of demographic I noticed that this year Temple Emanuel had about 40 some odd conferments and I think we got substantially more than that at Shalom with a third as many families So that gives you an idea of the relative age.
It was really fun. When we first started the congregation, when we first had our first religious school, out of, I want to say, 90 children. 78 of them were younger than the first grade, something like that. But it was a great experience. It really was almost more fun before any rabbis came because we had to do everything, and we had a few lay people that really did a nice job of conducting services and so forth. Well, I remember Alec Salenka. Alec was one of the five founders. Ileg Zelenka, Norman Einsbrook, Marvin Gerard, Arnold Kasanoff, Sam Ablon, and myself. We were dedicated early on to going after unaffiliated.
We were committed to not try to get Emanuel members into our congregation, and we really did take very, very few. And it was a fun experience, a great experience. I was president again, sort of a caretaker term, about five or six years later because we didn't really, we had to give somebody else a chance to grow for another year. And then Gloria was the only woman president we've ever had. That's where I wanted to come to. Yeah, and she was superb. Gloria was president the only year we balanced our budget. I think she's been the only woman president of a synagogue in Dallas. Up till Carmen.
Up till Carmen Miller came at Emanuel's, so that's a wonderful tribute. Yes, it was, and she was good. Gloria, in addition to her ability to carry through so well on such an important job, also has a great love in the craft world in furniture making. That's right. For over ten years, Gloria has made fine custom furniture. In fact, that was her business. And she really was, if I may say so, outstanding. She could do everything from copy Chippendale-style furniture. chair to original creative design, tables, chairs, desks, she's made it all. She really is very accomplished. If she goes right to the finish, you don't have to worry about scratches here.
You can get them taken care of. No, she never did. She never wanted to finish. That was not her cup of tea. So what she would do... It was the wood itself. She would design and build and then deliver to a professional finisher for finishing. but ready to finish when she delivered. Really something. At Pollock, what type of function did your work involve? Almost my entire life at Pollock was either in sales or sales management in the folding carton division, which was one of several divisions of the company. And I enjoyed it. It was really, one of the great things was I wasn't working directly under Dad.
That has many advantages. And the company was large enough that even though it was a family company, you could avoid the feeling of it being too confining in that sense. So that was nice. That was good. The company, as I recall, was sold to St. Regis Paper Company. The company was sold to St. Regis in, I think, 1953. And then, after I had left the firm, St. Regis. He continued another ten years or more. No, another fifteen, yeah. Then, St. Regis began selling it off in bits and pieces. St. Regis had not been in what we call a converting business. In other words, they were basic producers of paper, paper board, and so forth.
And they had never been in, really, in the converting business except for bags. And I think they felt like the whole thing, they acquired it. All righty, we start on our second side. What I started to say was that St. Regis sold off really all of what had been Pollock Paper Company and sold the paper distributing business back to the Pollock family. So there still is a Pollock Paper in Dallas, but it is a firm that buys and sells paper products in the state of Texas and has several locations. But subsequent to selling Pollock paper St Regis sold itself so there not even any more St Regis anymore It all champion paper As we're dealing with Dallas history and particularly the Jewish community, there's, I'm sure, a little story of how other paper companies came into Pollock from old Jewish family, Liebman's Texas Paper Company.
Texas Paper Company. Really, I am foggy about that. I know that you're absolutely right. Before, while I was a child, Lawrence Pollock bought Texas Paper Company, which was the Liebman family's company. Whom he had worked for at one time. Yeah, that's right. And all my 20 years at Pollock, I worked for Dick Liebman. who was the vice president of the company and manager of the folding carton division. So it was one big happy family. There were other Jewish people, as you know. Milton Loeb was there from day one practically for 40-some-odd years. Alvin Loeb was there for many, many years. Were they related or in any way, the Loeb's?
I think they may have been cousins. I seem to believe they may have been cousins. they called on us at the EFK. That's right. Then, of course, the other tremendous force in the company was Leslie Jacobs, who came with the company when his company in Ohio was bought by Pollock in the late 1920s. And Les, I happen to think, is one of the most brilliant people I have ever known. He really built a hell of a business nationally with about eight plants across the country and just dominated the bread wrapper market and other flexible packaging products. Just a terrific individual. His son, Les, was somewhat older than me and moved to Atlanta when he got out of the service, so I never really knew Les.
I mean, I knew him, but not really. But the Pollock boys, Lonnie and Rob, were always very close friends of mine. It was nice. It was really nice. The year 68 you ended into the real estate business and maybe you like to comment on how you found that Well I think that most of my years in the real estate business I thoroughly enjoyed I had really never intended to go into the real estate business. I had thought that when I left Pollock Paper I would like to find a small manufacturing company to buy. and my good cousin Bud Miller said as long as you haven't got anything to do why don't you office with us and take this real estate course and get your sales license because you haven't got anything better to do anyway.
So I did. Then he said I'm not going to let you leave until you've made your first sale. And of course once I earned my first commission I was hooked. My first commission, I think, was $2,400, and I was hooked. Since then, I was by myself putting together partnerships. I was with Coldwell Banker for about five years in investment real estate, learned an awful lot, and happily I had some awfully good years because I don't need to tell you, Bob, what we've got today. So I'm now saying I'm retired. You might want to talk a little bit about some of Gloria's accomplishments in addition to her furniture and her presidency of Temple Shalom.
Well, Gloria had spent a great deal of time and I held, I think, was on the board of the council here in Dallas. she at one time was an officer at the Jewish Community Center and had put in quite a bit of time there she was interested as was I in the American Jewish Committee and we used to travel around the state with a group of others that held various kinds of seminars and panel discussions and what have you and we really enjoyed it we spent a number of years doing that Gloria has done other things, but I've got to confess to you that it's getting pretty hazy.
But I think I've certainly mentioned the main ones. My other interests were Jewish Family Service where I was president I was president of the Dallas Child Guidance Clinic have been on the board of the Southwest Family Institute and really I have been on a board and was an officer in the Jewish Welfare Federation in times past. I'm afraid that now I've gotten to the point in life where going to meetings is a chore because it's all deja vu. I really don't... I've been accused of not having a lot of of patience. But what I really don't have patience for is to listen to the same old stuff.
And you know the issues don't change. The same things that are discussed at board meetings today are really the same things we discussed 20, 30, 40 years ago. And one of the things I've discovered is that younger people don't really want me to tell them we tried that and it didn't work. Anyhow. See, you're supposed to now provide historical perspective. Any time anyone asks me for historical perspective, I'll give it to them. Well, that's the wonderful thing you're doing now. They haven't asked you. Not only haven't they asked, they asked, and here you are. And here I am. Here I am. And can you think of some other commentaries that you might like to have on the record?
We don't have your birthday, by the way. My birthday is March 12, 1926. And Gloria's is July 30, 1927. Well, I really... Let's turn this off for a sec, because I think there are some things that I might... We're back on the track again. Early in our conversation, Henry, I think you mentioned that in some of the early days the family had lived in Texas in other spots than Dallas, and because we're closely associated with the Texas Jewish Historical Society, we like to have on record the names and towns. and if you remember the approximate time that they were there. So if you'd mention whether your grandmother, I think you mentioned, was in Marshall, and we'll begin there.
Yes, grandmother was born in Marshall, Texas. About what year might that have been? Well, it would have been sometime around 18, 18, 18. She died in 1963 and she was about 1870. She was almost in the middle. She had several older brothers and sisters who raised her really because she lost both of her parents at a very young age. And the family moved from Marshall to Mineola. I don't know when. What business were they in in Marshall? I don't honestly know. Isn't that a disgrace? I don't really know. I think haberdashery only because I've seen a couple of letters, but I couldn't swear to that.
And then in Mineola, Texas, and then in Hilderberg. The Brombergs were in Mineola. Were they still there? Do you know when your family came, R.G. Bromberg? I don't know. I don't know. That being Henry. It is just shocking how little I do know. about that period. It really is. I just know it in the sketchiest outline. And I know that the folks, well, excuse me, when Mother's older sister was born, she was born in Hillsboro and died, and the family probably moved to Dallas about 1900, and then Mother was born here in 1901. So that much I know. Now, as far as Dad's family, I know even less.
Were they in Cotton and Hillsboro? I doubt it. Now, when they moved to Dallas, several of the brothers were the Southern Plow Company, which was a company that jobbed farm equipment, and they were in that for many, many years. In fact, the company was only finally sold and dissolved. Wrecking the Pacific Street was where the old building was. That's right, and I remember very well. Then Uncle Ike Harris, who married one of Grandmother's sisters, Ella Rosenbaum, who incidentally is Norma Mack's mother, I mean, and so it goes. We're all related. It's just, it's very close. It really is. No Norma Mack mother was my grandmother younger sister child Wonderful lady Yeah absolutely right absolutely right So anyway, Uncle Ike Harris, Norma's father, and Uncle Ike Rosenbaum, my uncle, and Uncle Eugene Rosenbaum were all Southern Plough Company.
And I've now told you all I know about that, I think. So they helped get the cotton growing. Yeah, right, right. And equipment. It was a very successful company for a lot of years. We briefly touched on the American Council for Judaism, which was active in the late 40s, as I recall, in Dallas and had many prominent participants in it. And there were times where feelings against those who were very pro-Israel and turned they against the Council. And if you could share some of your memories of both people and viewpoints, it would enrich our history some. Well, I think I can talk more about viewpoints than people specifically.
Although, as you know, Bob, Dr. Lefkowitz, because we didn't call them rabbis in those days, we called him Dr. Lefkowitz, a grand man, was very active in the American Council. Eddie Tonkin, who probably knew more about the history of Judaism than 99% of the people in Dallas, and I think someone had said he'd even gone to seminary one time in his life, was all of his life a leader of and devoted to the idea that Jews are only Jews by virtue of religion, that we have no business talking about a national state, that we should not have a national state, and so on. And a lot of my parents and my parents' friends believed that that same thing.
They were what I call Pittsburgh platform reformed Jews which specifically said we in our own Jerusalem here wherever we are and denied the peoplehood aspect of Judaism It wasn't until, as you know, the late 30s that the Reform Jewish movement began to formulate a policy that recognized we were a people, that we had national aspirations, and so on. So anyway, to come back to about 1948, just about the time I got out of college, it was really boiling around here about who was pro and con Israel. and my family and I, from what I knew of it at the time, realized several things, that when we saw refugee ships being turned back from our own shores as well as others, that we needed a haven.
And when the state of Israel became a reality, many of us felt that the American Council had served its purpose. but it went on for a number of years after that on a greatly reduced scale. But nevertheless, it existed into the community until, what would you think, 15, 20 years ago in some sizable number. And some of the more ardent members actually did things to lobby against the state of Israel in terms of American aid to the state of Israel. some of the ones that felt the strongest you may remember tried to get the UJA declared not a charitable institution for tax purposes happily they didn't succeed so anyway that created a lot of animosity and that was most unfortunate I think now that begins to fade into the distant past and I'm delighted Did you recall of Rabbi Elmer Berger, who I think was the leader of the group out of Philadelphia?
He was the National Executive Director, I think. Yeah. Did he come to Dallas? I never heard him, but I did hear him quoted making what I think had to be one more asinine. I mean, he got to be, I think, a fanatic. I remember he was being quoted as saying that when he had gone to Israel to look around you could tell where the Arab and the Israeli sections changed by the green line that we know only he had it the other way around, that the Arabs had so much more lush farming than did the Jews. Just the reverse. So, I mean, how sick can you be?
He was not a nice man, as I understand it. He avoided service during World War II, and I shouldn't berate him because I don't really know what I'm talking about. But anyhow, I think he was their executive director for many, many years. You know, while we're talking about changes in Reformed Judaism, of course, all of the Reformed Jews of my age that grew up in this area grew up under the so-called classical Reformed tradition. and many of my friends and peers find it very hard to accept the fact that Reformed Judaism is observing many more traditional things than they did when we grew up. I mean, call it progress, call it whatever, it just changed.
And I get in some big arguments with some of my friends and friends' parents, even more so on, isn't it horrible that this, this, this, and this were going orthodox or it's too Jewish. Well, that's why we're Reformed Jews, I think. We don't get set in concrete, although I'm pretty set in concrete myself by now. No, I think, Henry, that with your wonderful mind and your caring and lovely heart that You will continue in whatever ways you feel appropriate to build a wonderful history of Judaism in Dallas and in Texas. We thank you immensely for adding to our record. You've joined some 200 other greats that we are very proud of and try to give a good cross-section of our community.
Thank you again. And thank you. I'm very close. Enjoy.