Hilde Schwartz

Full Transcript

This morning is July 10, 2014. I am Janine Pullman, and I am interviewing Hilde Schwartz. And Hilde, the purpose of this today is to talk about your life in Dallas and any memories that you would like to share with us, any thoughts, comments, anything you would like to share as your legacy for your family and our community. So why don't you begin telling us when you got to Dallas? We moved to Dallas. I married in the summer of 1950. Can I speak? Is it loud enough? Let's speak louder. Okay. Do you want to start that again? Okay. I moved to Dallas in the summer of 1951.

My gift as a wedding present was a new Pontiac and a territory that my husband got to sell dresses in the state of Texas, Oklahoma, Louisiana, Arkansas, and Mississippi, which for a big city girl from Chicago was a very strange introduction to a new marriage. and to a new way of life and a new part of the world. Having been born in Germany and grew up in Chicago, this was a big change for me. We traveled together for one year, and I never knew there were as many rocky roads, as many stunky little motels as there were on the planet of this earth. However, about every three months of that time, I found a phone in some little town in Oklahoma that I called my mother that I'd like to come home.

And since my husband was a good-hearted fellow who was seven years older than me gave me a very long leash and put me on an airplane in Oklahoma City to send me back to Chicago However, each time I did this, I returned. My marriage to this man lasted 60 years, so something worked. But it took a while to get used to being here. Once I settled in a little bit, I had my husband's mother live here and took me to all the different organizational luncheons in the hopes that I would meet young women. Well, being 22 years myself and not having the experiences of Mahjong Bridge or luncheons with green and yellow jello, this was a very foreign world once again.

I had had a job in Chicago working for 5th Army Headquarters, which was a civil service job. In order to get back on the civil service register, it took some time until they had the division where I fit. So in order to fill up my time before I took another visit to Chicago, I worked at Neiman's downtown for about eight months while my husband traveled. It was, again, a major adjustment. I learned a lot working in Neiman's downtown because Mr. Stanley ran the store. And once you work under his tutelage, you can sell anything to anyone. Once my number came up on the register for a civil service job, that was good because my job, which I don't know what my qualifications were for that job, was I became a WAF recruiter at 1114 Counter Street, which was a government office.

And again, an adjustment of where I was was very obvious because the first day that I went to my job I discovered that there were drinking fountains on each side of a government building one said colored and one said white Again I thought what have you done Where are you? Can we take one step back? Because I wanted just two clarifications. Tell me your husband's name, and if you want to talk about how you guys met, that would be great. You have to guide me because I will go on and on. No, no, that's okay. But also, explain what the job was. It's the WAC, I can't even...

WAC, WAC recruiter. Right. So if you'll explain that, that'll be so interesting. Shall I speak? My husband's name was Bill Schwartz, who was born in Canton, Mississippi, which nothing could be further from Hamburg, Germany, which was my birthplace. He grew up in Jackson when he went to high school. and the way we met, which is a very far distance, he went back to school in Chicago to go to Northwestern and I was dating his roommate at the time. Well, his roommate was on the way out and he kept talking about this wonderful guy that lived with him and I thought somehow I'm going to meet this guy, which indeed I did.

And that's how I met my husband, Bill Schwartz, who is the father of three of my children, all of my children, my job with the Department of the Army, since I was never in the service, but the numbers fit for that particular job description. And what it was was to interview, for which I had very little qualifications, but you grow into a job, I think, was to interview men and women, or mostly women. Blacks were women of the Air Force and women of the armed services at that time. And I sat behind a desk, and these girls came, and I filled out different questionnaires. And it was a fairly well-paying job for someone who really was pushing a pencil.

Of course being that I am a people person I fit into that job comfortably and I was happy that I had it It took up a great deal of my time which normally from Monday to Friday I would spend alone So working from that day on forward has always been very good for me, even though I raised three children with all of the things that you do in bringing up children. and carpools and whatever. Somehow I've always had a little part-time job. And you're going to have to guide me a little bit because I could go on and on because I really don't know which direction you want me to go into.

Tell me more about the separation of the restroom. What other things did you experience with discrimination? You know what, I think A, as a Jew, and particularly a Jew who experienced Nazi Germany, discrimination in this part of the country was, well, it was an abomination to me, certainly, coming from Chicago. However, I gradually adapted to it to the extent that I couldn't understand it. I've always had black help in my house, and they were like part of my family. I mean, each person who has worked for us has worked for us from the day they started until the day they died. So discrimination, I thought, you know, other than my skin matches the rest of the world, I'd be next.

So that was not part of my focus, particularly coming from where I live, and particularly because I'm Jewish. So when you moved to Dallas, where did you live? When we first moved to Dallas, we lived in the Wood Lane Apartments, which is no longer here. I haven't moved very far from my beginning in Dallas, as a matter of fact. We lived in the Wood Lane Apartments, which was behind Lover's Lane, Lover's Lane being Miracle Mile today. From those apartments, our first house was on Druid Lane, which is a little street right behind the Wood Lane apartments. And that was a two bedroom floor furnace, air conditioning, window unit house that we We probably had more fun in and entertained more without any of the accoutrements of anything, because we didn't even have any furniture.

It was furnished. And we had young neighbors. And again, we didn't have any children for the first five years. Therefore, I worked. We were free. My neighbor, I did not have a car. Bill, my husband started teaching me how to drive in Chicago as a very patient to be husband person and taught me on a stick shift well at that time he was very patient and to let out the clutch he said let out the clutch honey well it was hard to learn however once we got to Dallas and the only car that was available to me was a driver that worked for him that would leave the car in front of my apartment and he would teach me again on that.

It had a stick shift. But things changed then somewhat because by then we were married and when I didn't let out the clutch it was like, let out the clutch. The next thing when Bill would be on the road and I didn't know how to drive this car I had a neighbor who had a Malay Ford, and she says, come on, I'm going to teach you how to drive. And she and I chugged down Inwood Road, which at that time wasn't quite as traveled as it is today. I'm talking about 1953, which is before half the people I know were born, I think. And we chucked down in the road, and it was, I mean, I learned.

And she would scream at me, let out the clutch, and off we went. And from then on I probably could drive a Mack truck However once I learned to drive things got easier for me in Dallas because there no way that you get from here to there Right. So what type of things did you guys do for amusement when you first lived here? You said you entertained? We had a tape. We met one couple. Well, I must say this. There was a nucleus of older people who were refugees, new Americans, who one or two of them were friends of my parents, which brings them much older than I.

but they had a group of, they knew a few what were called then young people which included me and the Newbergers and a few other people who are now either dead or old people as well and through that we met a few people Selma Rayfield, whose husband was in the furniture business used their home as their showroom and entertained constantly so as to people like us and other young couples who had no furniture would see. And ultimately, the first group of people we met was in this manner. We also ended up buying furniture from this man, which half of it I still have. Some of it I got rid of, and I wish I had it back because he was a European furniture maker who learned to make stuff that would last for the rest of anybody's life.

So this is kind of how we began meeting people, you know, little by little. The fact that we did not have children until five years after we were married was somewhat restrictive to this extent. I worked. The people we met had young children, so I did not have the commonality of that. But somehow we managed. I helped Bill when he sold dresses during markets And eventually well it was actually ten years after we were married that he went into the life insurance business which has turned out that it was a successful business much more appropriate to the man than the business he was in But because for a slender southerner to be in cold, windy Chicago was unbearable.

So any port in the storm to bring him to Dallas, Texas, where the weather is warmer, brought him into the dress business. It was a good means to an end at the time. But ultimately the career that he chose after that was infinitely more suitable to his personality, to his education. And in so doing, by the time Bill made a career change, we had two children. we had a mother-in-law and a half as financial responsibilities and I grew up a whole lot during that time in this sense the people that you surround yourself with who are running buddies that you think are friends become less running buddies because you can't afford to run and less friends, therefore.

And it's a lesson that I think to have learned that is very important in choosing who's really who and what's really what. And by then already, I think I was maybe 30, maybe a little older, that I learned that lesson. And I've never quite forgotten it. And unfortunately, our nucleus of friends of very long standing has diminished due to we're all old people. You know, we're down to three or four. And I treasure those people very much, more particularly since I'm alone without that. but I was very fortunate that my husband and I had a very long and very good marriage So you have to guide me a little bit because otherwise I would go on and on No, that's okay.

You mentioned that your mother-in-law moved, did she move in with you or did she just move to Dallas? Bite your tongue. No, my mother-in-law lived here. She had a daughter who lived here and came because Bill's brother went to SMU. So there was family living in Dallas, which was one of the reasons we lived here, because it was sort of warmer, it was mid of Bill's territory, and it was preferable to Oklahoma City. And it was a family. You know. So that's how that happened. My mother-in-law and I were very good friends. She never lived with us. She got help from us a little bit, as she did from her daughter and other son-in-law.

My mother moved to Dallas after living in Florida for a number of years and did pretty good for a long time and then had some challenges that became my responsibility, of course, being and only child. And because of that, I have reacquainted myself with Bunny Radman, because Bunny and I became very good friends because she was very good to my mother. And she settled my mother at that, what's that place, those apartments off of Central? They were built at that time. A veranda? No, no, it was independent living, whatever it was. It's irrelevant. And I still see money. And she's another one of these people that goes way back in my life.

Right. Well, you mentioned that your mother-in-law introduced you to luncheons, meetings. What organizations did she introduce you to? Well, it was mostly Council and Temple and Sisterhood. No, National Council of Jewish Women? And were you involved with them? Not really. I was very involved in my later time, once I quit working and once I, uh, I had children who went to Sunday school and all of that. I became very involved in Temple Manual, in their sisterhood and all of that. I was never particularly involved in counsel other than my dues. And I kind of felt like if I'm going to be doing anything for anybody, I can't spread myself so thin and still bring up three kids.

you know I have more time now but and I have reactivated myself into volunteer work because I feel the city has been good to me and my family and to give back somehow is good for me and it's also good for maybe a little bit who I'm giving back absolutely you mentioned your children What do you have, what kind of fond memories, I'm hoping you're all fond, of the kids growing up? Anything special that you remember? Well, you know, of course we all think our children are brilliant and fabulous and everything else, but you know, I don't know, each of my children, being an only child, I have always found it rather interesting how each child is very different.

And my family particularly is different in this sense. My oldest son and his next brother are two years apart, which is the way normal people set up their families. Each of those children mirrors the The personality, Jimmy is like his father in very many ways, and my next son is very much like me. Then I have a third child who is ten years younger than Jimmy and eight years younger than his next brother, who is very different than each of those children. And that's, we call Larry the prince, and that is not because he is equivalent to a Jap. I don't mean that. He's a very hard-working, bright kid.

However he is the entrepreneurial child in my family who also is called the prince because circumstances being what they were instead of being able to go to public school he went to private school And instead of wearing a K-pop jacket like his brothers did in the winter, he wore a down jacket. You know, that number. And yet, as I say, the boys are close. they are very different from one another and I think the difference makes it work each one of them is married my youngest son is married for the second time the first time produced two fabulous children one of whom I just bumped into in the hall here who goes to camp here that marriage ended in divorce his second wife who is considerably younger than my youngest son, who is 46, I think.

I forgot. I'm very good with numbers anyway. And she is a very young woman who has taken on the job of two teenage children in a magnificent way, really. And she has an eight-year-old child of her own. So this family is like another whole new family, for me especially. So that's kind of where we are. And as children grow, each of my older boys took out a year of college, and I was very grateful that they had a father who came up hard. Bill grew up during the Depression. His father was in a business that sometimes he was in the commodity business, sometimes they had money, sometimes they didn't.

So he sort of understood what the score was in terms of how the world runs. And when the boys decided they wanted to take a year out of school to find themselves or to do whatever, he was the one who, I don't know, I would have been quite that strong, but we agreed basically on things where our children were concerned We would discuss it without them knowing it He wanted to send them in the army and I said there nothing doing on that You did that because you needed the money and the education but it's a different army. No, they each took out a year from school, and he said, that's fine.

If you can afford yourself, go for it, which each one did, which served a much more significant maturing process. Jimmy worked in a guitar store and probably worked in a restaurant or someplace in the daytime and woke up one morning perhaps and said, you know, Schmuck, my father is going to pay for me to get an education. I'm going back to school. and Steve had a job tending bar in Austin where all of the main governing people worked and he made so much money we were afraid that he'd never go back to school but he too decided and I think the most defining part of his going back to school other than thinking, you know, he had an interview with someone who was in commercial real estate, which was something that interested him.

And that person told him, listen, Steve, I would like to hire you, but I hire no one unless they finish school because I don't care what you learn or what you take. It's a way of knowing. It was Hurl Weitzman, who every time I've seen him, I've said that to him. He said, look, quit telling me that. I don't want to hear it anymore. But it was a very significant way of Steve going back to school and decided whatever I take doesn't matter, just get out of there. So that's sort of how they are. So you said you had grandchildren. Tell me about some of the grandchildren.

They're incredible, like nobody ever has grandchildren. No, I tell you, unfortunately, two of my older grandchildren, because I am not computer literate, I cannot stay in touch as much as I would like. Jim and Susie have two children Alison and Matthew who when they were growing up we were very close Allison is the girl that I never had and a sharp wonderful young woman Unfortunately she chose to live in New York. And she seems to be able to afford herself there because because she's offered Jimmy's payroll, and that's nice. Matthew and both of Jimmy's children were sent away far away to school for their education, which, you know, you do that, and they end up someplace far away.

Because Matt's career orientation has something to do with film, and he went to a special school somewhere that was specialized in that, and therefore he lives in California. So each of those two grandchildren are a little bit out of my realm because if I had the thing that I could show them pictures and do this and that, and to pick up a phone, it's time-consuming at best, I think, when you're busy people. I'm a letter writer, but young people are not. They don't even know how to do that. That's a lost arm. So we see each other at Thanksgiving, which is when they both come to Dallas for Thanksgiving holiday.

I was just in New York. Unfortunately, Allison having a new job did not permit me to visit with her in the city. My family, who lives in Port Washington, had a medical emergency, which I couldn't go by myself. So that didn't work out. Those are my two older grandchildren, whom I knew longer because they're older. My younger grandchildren, who live here, are amazing children because their mother, who was my youngest son's first wife, turned out to be not the mother perhaps a child would want to have. When my son was divorced, they had joint custody, which also was not an appropriate ...decision so that Larry was able to sue for full custody of those children, which he did.

Therefore, there is some stress in that family. However, I can't say enough good stuff about his new wife, because she is a very young girl herself who has taken on these two children. One is 17 and one is 14 now. And it has become a very loving household. Larry has been an incredible father since he was father and mother under some miserable circumstances for a long time. So, you know, everybody kind of does their thing. And it's a somewhat new experience for me even though I've only been widowed four years. It seems like much longer than that. I'm a little more dependent on my children than I used to be.

And they think of their mother as being sturdy and strong and independent. Well, I kind of grew up that way. And like we said on the phone, my growing up, part of it after I left Germany, it makes you strong. And it makes you perhaps more resilient. but it's not a part of my life that I want to relive very much even though I was fortunate enough to have both of my parents immigrate with me but my father was a physician who had to redo all of his medical work in order to work in this country and in order for my family to maintain food and clothing on their back, my mother worked as a nurse, and they didn't live together, which put me in a lot of different foster homes, which was not a good thing for me I was lucky enough my mother remarried when I was 16 15 16 16 which was the best part of my growing up from then on because she married a man who accepted me as his daughter and provided me with a fairly stable kind of home.

So that's kind of all I want to say about that. But it does influence you in terms of what you want for your family and how important it is to me, sometimes to the point of aggravating each of my children, not necessarily for me personally but they together are a unit because they are my legacy in this world you know because I never had brothers and sisters which makes you a little more aware of how important that is like I just was in New York to visit my first cousin whose mother and my sister, and my mother and her mother were sisters. And we are very close.

And she's like the sister neither one of us ever had. So it was a very good trip to see, you know, and she's been here to visit us with her husband a number of times. Our children, except for one of her boys, who know my kids, don't know each other. but that's too bad. But I have a very strong sense of family because half of my family was sort of splintered, let's say. Right. If you had some words of wisdom or some special message for your children and grandchildren, what would that be? Well, part of it is kind of what I just said. Right. Take care of each other.

It makes me almost want to cry because it's very close to my heart. It truly is because I didn't have that. And I want that for my children because financial security a big house a small house all of that to me is bullshit It is in the reality of things because I've been there and I understand that. Because if you don't have that, nobody else really, you know, and I have to watch my mouth because I tend to be vulgar sometimes. and this is for posterity and I would look really bad. I really would. But I think that's the only thing that really matters. And I think people who don't, I don't know, maybe having been an only child and having the kind of background that I've had, this matters to me a lot more.

and sometimes because now I don't have the stability in my life that I had being married to a grown-up like my husband, it matters more, which sometimes is a real pain to my children, I'm sure. And I am grateful that I have a job because that way it occupies me in a way that I don't, you know, like, Poor mommy. I can be a person. Tell me when I have to stop talking. No, I think you've done wonderfully, and I appreciate so much your willingness to share and the interesting life of Dallas since the 50s. The life of Dallas since the 50s was a lot easier, and we're not doing this right now, are we?

Yeah, we're still going. The life in Dallas was a lot easier because I think families are more connected with one another than they are now. They are more splintered. I used to think my mother-in-law and her daughter would play Jewish geography endlessly. These are people who grew up in the southeast. And I said, I wonder if I could ever do that. Well, I've lived in Dallas long enough now that I come across people who are native Dalasites, of which there are few, of whom there are few And I find that the core of Dalasites is still very viable when they still walking straight up I went to a brunch not very long ago, and everyone at that table, with the exception of, of course, me, had lived in South Dallas.

And two of the folks lived on top in the same building. One lived downstairs. I thought to myself, isn't that wonderful to have that kind of thing? You know, like there's a Goldman family, many of whom I know. Well, they, you know, they all are connected somehow. And maybe it's because having no connection, except what I've made for myself, disappears to me immensely. And I would hope that in the future, not won't be my future, but maybe my children's, that that will remain in our city to some extent, because families are so splintered. we send our children away to school, far away, some of them, like my grandchildren, to where, you know, at least two of my daughter-in-laws grew up in San Antonio.

So there is that connection within, you know. As I say, that, I think, is the core of our city, and I hope it doesn't get lost, or certainly our Jewish community. Right. Well, I think that the importance of connectiveness and family is obvious. And I'm sure you've taught your boys. One would hope. You know, what matters is how things evolve in time. You can only expose them to the way you'd like to bring them up and what matters. And hopefully, I must say, each of our boys grew up in a way that it wasn't necessary to have a certain kind of drain board in your kitchen.

or every child in our home did not have his own bedroom, they shared a bedroom. You know, I can't explain it exactly, but somehow our city A very thing-oriented city. Materialistic. Yes, thank you. You know, I don't speak your language very well. If I spoke it any better, you'd be here three weeks. No, no. But we are very materialistic in our... And I hope, since our kids are doing well financially, that they have taught that to their children as well. My children didn't get a car the minute they were 16. That wasn't their birthright. When they could afford to chip in towards stuff, my husband would go on the note with them.

My grandchildren, well not Jimmy's kids so much, but the other ones. Well, Jimmy is older, perhaps he got it beaten into more. But, you know, I've got a car. Which, I'm glad you're doing so well, but those things bother me and that's stupid. Because I've done without and with. So perhaps that colors my vision of materialism. And believe me, I like good stuff, that's not good. But I also don't mind doing without. If you had a wish for the future, what would your wish be? My wish would be that you know that a very heavy question for me to it a selfish wish because I already been wishing good stuff for my kids I wish that my health would remain good enough as it is now.

I wish that I would not live so long as to be physically and mentally impaired so that I could not function in some way because I see that. I saw it, unfortunately, with my mother, which was in my care, lovingly, though it may have been. I see it in the volunteer work that I do at Legacy. and to me it is the biggest tragedy that can befall on somebody and I know it's a very un-Jewish thing to do or to wish for but if I'm viable and if I can function and walk around and run around North Park and do all the fun stuff I like to do, terrific.

Hilde, I wish you all the strength, the health, and long life so you can do it and enjoy it. Well, you know, I'm already 86.