Henry Miller, Jr.
The Miller family's Dallas story began around 1870, when Henry's great-grandfather, Aaron Miller, arrived from a part of Russia the family called Russ Poland, reportedly coming by way of Illinois. A Hebrew scholar learned in the Talmud, Aaron conducted the first Jewish religious services in Dallas as a layman before a formal congregation was organized. About three years later he sent for his sons, including Henry's grandfather Sam Miller, who came with his first cousin Sophia, later his wife. The family established a small corner grocery store, first near Old City Park and later at Bryan and Bogel streets. Sam Miller, like his father, was a serious student of Jewish culture and served as president of Shearith Israel before joining Temple Emanu-El in his later years.
Henry's father, born in 1890, left school young to work at Sanger Brothers before entering real estate in 1914, the year Henry was born, eventually opening his own firm in 1919. Henry grew up in South Dallas, first on Wendelkin Street and later on South Boulevard, in a home built around 1920 among many prominent Jewish families. He attended John Henry Brown School, Forest Avenue High School, and SMU, finishing his coursework in 1933. To help pay his way during the Depression, he began selling life insurance, later joining Bankers Life of Des Moines. He married Juanita Vance in 1945 and adopted her two children, Vance and Patricia, and the couple had two more, Henry III and Jacqueline.
After returning from World War II service under General Patton in California, North Africa, and Italy, Henry joined his father's real estate firm as a salesman in 1945. He became a partner, and after the company incorporated in 1960 it grew rapidly, eventually becoming the largest real estate brokerage and management company in Texas before merging with Grubb and Ellis. Following his family's tradition of civic service, Henry was active in United Way, the YMCA, SMU, and numerous real estate organizations. His deepest commitment was to the arts, helping organize the Dallas Opera in 1957, serving as president of the Dallas Symphony and Dallas Ballet, and leading the campaign that raised over 50 million dollars for a new symphony hall.
Full Transcript
this is Robert Beer we are about to do an oral history of Henry S Miller Jr this is going to take place at his offices at the Island Park Village we are about to have an interview with henry s miller jr whose family has lived in dallas many years and made many important contributions to our community and we want to welcome you We have a policy of asking you to state your own name. And Miller, it's not such a problem. We don't always get the right pronunciation. Yeah, my name is Henry S. Miller, Jr. And we would like to explore the background and history of your family in Dallas, and in Texas and can you help us remember when your family first came to America and from where in Europe they had been?
I'm sorry that we do not have more precise documentation of this so I'll tell you what I recall which will probably be in general terms it's my understanding that on the Miller side of the family my great-grandfather whose name was Aaron Miller was the first in family to come to Dallas approximately the year was 1870. He came from Russia, a part of Russia that I remember my grandfather calling Russ Poland so apparently it was either on the Polish border or maybe it was at a time when Poland was or at least a part of Poland was included as a part of Russia but anyway it was from that that part of the world I don't know this for a fact but it was my understanding that he came to Dallas via Illinois now whether he just passed through Illinois for a short period or whether he lived there for a longer period I don't know but anyway I think it is fairly well
documented that he came to Dallas about 1870 and I also heard from my grandfather Sam Miller and have read in some of the early histories that my great-grandfather Aaron Miller was a Hebrew scholar very learned in the Talmud and so forth and that before there was even a rabbi in Dallas that he as a layman conducted the first Jewish religious services prior to organization of a formalized congregation it's also my understanding that after he was in Dallas for about three years that he sent forth his two sons and I think some daughters as well but the two sons were Sam Miller my grandfather and Max
Miller who was the father of Lawrence Miller and so they would have arrived in Dallas about 1873 and it also my understanding at the same time at well at that time my grandfather would have I think been around maybe 19 years old and also with him came my grandmother who was a first cousin of my grandfather's her name was Sophia Miller and they were later married here in Dallas at the home of the Middenthal family my grandfather my great-grandfather and my grandfather established a grocery store a little corner grocery store I think that the first location was at the corner of Beaumont and Gould Street
which is I think only about a block from Old City Park and also near the location of the original sheriff israel congregation back on there okay later on my grandparents moved the grocery store as well as their residence to the corner of Bryan and Bogle streets which is near the what now the Dallas Technical High School and was also fairly near the old St Paul Hospital and actually is only about five blocks from the present headquarters of Henry S. Miller Company. This was a small corner grocery and they my grandparents and their family lived in quarters I'm not certain whether it was above the grocery store or next door to it or back of it but anyway it was adjoining the grocery store and this is where my father grew up and as a boy I worked in the grocery store he had four brothers and one sister and attended grade school at the old Cumberland Hill school on North Ackerd Street that's now the headquarters of SEDCO and then later attended the old Dallas high school on Bryan which is now part of a whether it's the business school of the what do they call those special high school magnet school I think for business now Bob do you want me to go into any more about my grandparents or continue with my dad's career or what.
Did Sam stay in that business? Oh yeah, my grandfather Sam Miller stayed in the grocery business until he retired which was I think think about maybe the early 1920s or possibly the late 20s and then sometime after his retirement he went into the insurance business during he also like his father was a very serious student of Jewish culture and religion and the Talmud and he was somewhat of a philosopher and was looked up to by people in the community when there was ever any question about authenticity of yeah yeah proper relief religious procedures to follow he was president of his congregation he was president of sheriff Israel for several years I think in the about 1911 to 16 or something like that and remained active in that congregation for a number of years after that but during his latter days probably in the 30s and until his death he joined Temple Emanuel and attended services regularly there.
Of course my father was very active in the temple and that probably had some influence on my grandfather Your dad also was president of the Temple of Mania Right My father was president of the Temple I think sometime probably during the 1930s my father was born in 1890 I mentioned the school that he attended at age of 13 or 14 he dropped out of school and went to work for the old Sanger brothers as a errand boy in what was then their wholesale department not only were they in the retail business but they also did a wholesale business and he worked in that department and progressed from being a messenger boy to being an assistant to mr.
W O Connor C O N O R who was the I believe the credit manager for Sanger Brothers and my father worked there in that capacity until 1914 which was incidentally the year I was born and he resigned to enter the real estate business. Mr. Conner later on was one of the organizers of what was now the Republic Bank, or I guess the Republic Interfer, Republic First, whatever they call it now. But I think they started out calling it something like the day and night back but anyway mr Connor later became chairman of the board of the Republic My father started with a firm called Davidson Davis and Company in 1914 They had offices in what was then called the Bush Building, which later became the Kirby Building.
he sold started selling houses that had a drawing account of $150 a month and but when our country entered World War two in 1917 the firm was dissolved because one or both of the partners in the firm went into the service at that time my father went to work for Flippin Prather realty company the developer of Highland Park and he sold lots in Island Park during that period was also very active in Liberty Bond sales drives Yeah, did Dan ever mention what those original lives sold for, relationship to debate, is probably... I don't remember that, but I'm sure they would... Quite as brilliant, yeah. then after the war in 1919 my father set up his own office as a real estate broker specializing in the sale of as he called it business and investment properties.
Say where do we go from here Bob You doing wonderfully So Dad is now in the real estate business and you a young lad that was about five years old at this time You have I believe a brother named Jack Right. Okay, yeah. As I've already said, I was born in 1914. At that time, the family lived in South Dallas on a street called Wendelkin Street, 3616 Wendelkin. And five years later, my brother was born. His name was Jack Miller. And then several years later, my sister, Carmen, but about 1920... like we pointed out that the common is now the current president of the temple of the mountain was right 19 about 1920 my father built a home on South Boulevard 2714 South Boulevard the I remember the architect was a man named Anton Korn K-O-R-N and it was in a block across the street from the Lawrence Miller family and many other friends of our family were living in the same room.
Could you mention a few of those names? One of our next-door neighbors was the Frank Levin, L-E-V-I-N family. On the other side was the Abe Bowman, B-U-L-L-M-A-N family. and there was also the Goldbergs forgotten now just what His first name was, but Mr. Goldberg was the son-in-law of a man named Max, not Max, but I think it was I. Rudy. Then the Asher Cans lived in the corner of the block. I sure can was married to Blanche Linz of the Linz brothers family and there was a family going the other way called Iskovitz I don't know what's happened to them and next to them was Dr.
David Wurtzman an optometrist whose daughter Evelyn later married Zellner Eldridge Dallas lawyer and next to them was the Herbert Marcus family and on the end of the block on that side of the street was Harry Siegel who was in the liquor business Siegel liquor and he also owned the what was then called the Bluebonnet hotel on the other side of the street on one corner was one of the Sanger family I don't remember his name but his daughter Evelyn Bell later married Sig Bat and the next to them was part of the Bromberg family Louie Bromberg I'm sure you knew and Alfred and I think one or two spinster sisters lived in that house next to them was the Henry Bromberg family.
And then next to them was the Kramer, part of the Kramer family. This was a Kramer who was in the jewelry business And in that same house lived Leon Fetchenbach who in some way was related to the Kramers and the Brombergs and then the next house was the Levi family the parents of got your Levi Marie Bitterman and Elaine Landsberg and then next to them was the Mallinson family the parents of Herbert Fred Clarence mountains next to them for a long time was a vacant lot where all the kids in the neighborhood played ball then later that lot was bought by a family named Wyll W-Y-double-L the parents of Easer Wyll her name was Smith that used to
be with the Federation for so long many yeah yeah and then next to them was the Lawrence Miller family and on the end on that side was the Rudy family so yeah I can see every house and the people as they were at that time where did most of you go to school well we went to grade school at the John Henry Brown school which was on Park Row it was only about a block and a half from our home and usually went home for lunch right and then we attended Forest Avenue the high School which was probably a half dozen blocks away way my
I after graduating from Forrest High School I attended SMU had my first automobile which was a second and 1928 Chevrolet Coupe and Arthur Gottlich and I used to go together at SMU he's now an MD but he lived on Forest Avenue neighborhood that was the Fair Hall from South Dallas County at that time right yeah one throwing car at the end of my first year at SMU we were really into the depression I started SMU in the fall of 1930. And so in order to help pay my way through school, I started selling life insurance, originally for Southland Life, because one of my uncles, Sidney Miller, had been with that company.
my grandfather was a big help to me then and we used to go together to make calls and that was a wonderful experience for me to be with him and learn so many things from him not so much about business but about his philosophy and ethics etc I continued in the life insurance business after I finished SMU I finished my work there in 1933 and then took my last year by correspondence and then joined Bankers Life Company of Des Moines which is now called the principal life insurance company my younger brother Jack attended the same schools John Henry Brown forest high school and SMU while
at SMU he was captain of the swimming team and was on their weightlifting team he was an excellent athlete he and I both went into the service and even before World War II started Jack graduated from SMU in June of 1941 and went directly to Quantico Virginia and entered the marine officers school up there was commissioned second lieutenant volunteered for one of the Raiders Marine Raiders battalion the one headed by Colonel Evans Carlson and James Roosevelt was the executive officer that battalion Jack participated in several of the island raids and was killed On the island of Guadalcanal in December of 1942, I was already a
reserve officer before the war, having gone to some of the summer citizens' military training camps. And so when I went on active duty, I was stationed in California in the Desert Training Center under... We're resuming from side one on the recitation of Henry S. Miller, Jr. on his family history. You may proceed if you will. As I was saying, I went into active duty in California in the Desert Training Center under General Patton, and then later was in North Africa and Italy. It was during the war that you met your wife. Yeah, it was after returning from overseas. that I was stationed in Hot Springs Arkansas where my wife Juanita Vance was working as an army hostess and we met and were married in March 11 1945 she had two children who were then eight and ten years old I adopted the children and they took my name Vance Miller and Patricia Miller we since had two other children Henry the third and Jacqueline Patricia is now mrs David Donofsky and Jacqueline is mrs Peter Stewart My sister Carmen is about 12 years younger than I She, we lived on South Boulevard when she was born, and she attended John Henry Brown School, and had, I think, barely started at Forrest High School when it was decided that she would attend Hockaday School.
And she went on to finish at Hockaday, then went to SMU where she received her bachelor's degree, major in psychology. from there she went to Western Reserve University in Cleveland received her master's degree and then to Columbia University in New York where she got her PhD she practiced some clinical psychology and also joined the staff of what is now the University of Texas Health Science Center in charge of their clinical psychology department. Later she married Dr. Ludwig Michael they have two children a boy and a girl and the son Andrew has just received his MD degree from UT medical school in Dallas and is working as an intern at Baylor Hospital so what else?
let's go into went into business with your dad you were in the insurance business when I came back when I came back from the service economic conditions that improved real estate business looked more promising than it did in the mid so I asked my father if I could go to work for him as a salesman You had a little office in the Southland Life Building, annexes that, I recall. It wasn't the annex, it was the Southland Life Building on the corner of Commerce and Browder. fourth floor there was just my father and a secretary and so I started out sharing an office with the secretary worked as a salesman for my father on Commission and the first property I sold was a house and our block on South Boulevard that was owned by the Asher cans I think I'm correct about the price I believe it was $8,000 but it was a fine house that's the reason it brought so much money.
This was a time that the community was beginning to move out of South Dallas to North Dallas. Yeah my parents were still living on South Boulevard at that time because when we first came back from the service at that time stationed in Hot Springs, Arkansas, housing was very scarce so we moved in with my parents Juanita and the two children and myself until we were able to find a house to rent for ourselves. What year did you go with Dad? this was at the beginning of 1946 actually it was toward the end of 1945 it was in October can some of this be deleted if I say something that you don want on the record But one of the reasons I remember the date is that I know we were living there on Halloween.
because on Halloween, you know, when the kids go out, and our son Vance, who was then, I think, barely 11 years old, came home all beaten up, and we were shocked and asked what happened. And he said he was just walking around the neighborhood and a gang of boys came up and he said, Boy, are you a Jew? And Vance, who was not a Jew, said something like, Well, what if I am? and they proceeded to beat him up. So, you know, that's something that... It's a less desirable commitment. Yeah. Anyway, I worked as a salesman for my father for about four years. Business was getting better all the time.
and I like to say that when I started making more money than he did, he invited me to be his partner. So we had a partnership. We then called the company Henry S. Miller Company and we operated as a partnership for ten years. It was during that decade that we began adding other salespeople, not many but a few. My father had told me that he liked the setup that we had, but if I wanted to expand the company, it was okay with him. So in 1960 we incorporated the business but the initial capital of ten thousand dollars consisting of office furniture and fixtures and by that time we had moved from the old Southland life building where he had been for over 35 years to building in 1712 Commerce called then the Vaughan building now part of the M-Bank complex it was really in beginning in 1960 after we incorporated that the company started to grow faster at that time there were about a dozen people in the company including my father and me, our salesman, and I think we had two secretaries.
I remember Mr. Green. Yes, Jay Green was one of the early associates. My father, when we incorporated, was chairman of the board and I was the president. And it continued that way until my father's death in December of 1968, when I became the chief executive of the company. And during the 60s, I guess it's the latter 60s, one of my sons-in-law, David Danoski, joined the firm. I proselyted him away from the old Empire Bank, where he was the credit manager, to become the secretary and financial officer of our company Then when I retired as an executive of the company three years ago David succeeded me as the CEO of our company In the interim after my father's death, my son Vance Miller, who had been with the company a number of years, became president.
I was I think in yeah it was about 1969 and but in 1975 Vance decided that he would like to become a developer so he resigned his office with the company continued to be a major shareholder and member of the board but operated his own business as Vance C Miller interests which is continuing today about four years ago I guess my other son-in-law Peter Stewart who had previously been with his family company the Stewart company decided that he would like to join our company and has been with us for the last four or five years as a department head in the company's North Dallas office my younger son Henry S.
Miller III also went to SMU as did all of our children and became associated with our company first in Houston when we were opening the Houston office later became manager of Houston office and more recently has joined me here in my office to help me in the operation of Highland Park Village and other properties that I have a personal interest in So that I'll have more time to do other things. Yeah, right. In your usual modest way, you haven't mentioned that, I believe, you became the largest commercial and industrial real estate factor in Dallas, maybe the Texas market, totally. we did become the largest real estate brokerage and management company in Texas and I guess in the south and at the time we merged with Grubb and Ellis three years ago we were the fifth largest in the U.S.
at that time we merged three years ago we merged with Grub and Ellis based in San Francisco which was the fourth largest company and after the merger the combined companies became the third largest Grub and Ellis was a publicly held company it was is listed on the New York Stock Exchange. So this enabled our shareholders to become shareholders in a publicly traded company, giving us greater liquidity and greater capitalization. and it has worked out very nicely. One area that I don't want to neglect is, in addition to the family we've discussed and your business, you have been such an important community leader in giving your time and your counsel to many community-wide organizations.
And I know the Symphony and I know a number of others, but I rather you recite them Okay I tried to follow the tradition set by my grandfather and my father in participating in community affairs such as taking an active role in such things as United Way and membership on the board of the YMCA, being a trustee of SMU. SMU, my father and I now are trustees of the Texas Scottish Rite Hospital for Crippled Children, and we have participated in business-oriented organizations. he and I were president of the Dallas Board of Realtors and I was also president of the Texas Association of Real Estate Boards we were both trustees of Urban Land Institute and I've been president of the local chapter of the American Institute of Real Estate Appraisers of the Society of Real Estate Counselors, of the Institute of Real Estate Management, and Society of Industrial Realtors.
I've also been a trustee of the International Council of Shopping Centers. My father and I have both been active in the International Real Estate Federation, and we both attended a number of the international meetings around the world. I suppose my principal commitment, as far as time and money is concerned, has been in the arts. that's partly the influence of my wife who before we were married She was interested in all the fine arts. She directed a church choir and majored in theater when she was in school at the University of Oklahoma. My first major assignment or job in the arts was in the organization of the Dallas Opera in 1957.
I was one of the three or four organizers of the Dallas Opera and was its president for the first seven years. I continued to be interested and on the board. Arthur Kramer Sr. had the Metropolitan come down for a week or two, but you felt that the community was entitled to more opera for some of the rest of the year. Well, actually, the reason behind it was to help the Dallas Symphony. The symphony was having difficulty in attracting and holding good musicians because their season only lasted for 26 weeks a year so some of the people in the symphony felt that if we had an opera company that utilized the symphony musicians that it could add several weeks of employment So, well, my wife Juanita was, I think, president of the Women's Symphony League at that time, and Gertrude Shelburne, Miss Sam Shelburne, was president of the Symphony Association, and I think the two of them, together with John Rosenfield, who was a music critic for the Dallas News, cooked up the idea and they approached a number of businessmen about hitting it up and when they couldn't get anyone to do it they finally asked me to do it said if I just take it a year while I was getting started anyway it lasted for seven years I have also been president of the Dallas Symphony I was asked to take that job back about 1975 when the symphony went broke and we had to nurse it back to life And with the symphony I also headed the Cornerstone campaign which raised over $50 million of private funds to build the new symphony hall, which is now their construction.
and I have been president of the Dallas Ballet and currently heading a financial campaign for the ballet. I am also interested in the theater center and the museum. I've been president of the Civic Music Association. I'm on the board of the Greater Dallas Youth Orchestra, the board of the Dallas Classical Guitar Society. I'm now on the board of the Dallas Lyric Opera which has a summer season at the theater in the Snyder Plaza Plaza Theater Pirates of Penzance Right yeah These are, well, I'm also on the board of the American Symphony Orchestra League, which is sort of the trade organization of symphony orchestras around the country.
Now being flipped, the Millers have brought a lot of sweet music to Dallas. God bless you. Anyway, it's something that we enjoy doing, you know, as well as having a feeling of making a contribution. I think for one day we have given a good fair share, and I want to thank you so much on behalf of the Dallas Jewish Historical Society and the National Council of Jewish Women who who are sponsoring this oral history series. And we wish you good health and continue the ability to do good works for many years to come. Thank you.