Howard Cohen
Howard Cohen was born in 1941 in Chicago and grew up first in an apartment on Kimball Avenue, then in the Hollywood Park area, where his younger sister and brother were born. His father immigrated from Russia at age 13, unable to speak English, and was put to work on a suitcase factory production line; by age 27 he owned his own suitcase factory. He became a pacesetter in the Federation, joined the Twin Orchard country club, and was a founder of a synagogue with friends. Howard's mother was born in Chicago, and her parents owned the well-known Goldberg's delicatessen on West Roosevelt Road, a gathering place whose friends included championship boxer Barney Ross.
Instilled with a strong work ethic, Howard worked summers in his father's Chicago factory beginning around age six, depositing his wages at the Northern Trust Company until he had saved enough to attend Tulane University for four years. A devoted sports fan from childhood, he attended Chicago Cubs games on his own from a young age and later ushered at Wrigley Field and Comiskey Park. He graduated from New Trier High School, where he counted future star Ann-Margret among his friends. At Tulane he earned a business degree in four years, taking graduate courses as an undergraduate, and met Carol through his fraternity roommate.
When Howard's father passed away shortly after his graduation, Howard set aside plans for law school and took over running a family factory in Grayslake, Illinois, that made molded suitcase halves, later helping other manufacturers keep their lines running. He and Carol married in 1964 after becoming engaged in November 1963. They moved to Dallas to raise their family, eventually having four children, and Howard joined the Waldman firm in the insurance business. In Dallas he served on many boards, including the Foundation for Greater Jewish Dallas, National Jewish Hospital in Denver, and Camp Better America, working largely behind the scenes in community and Jewish life.
Full Transcript
Howard 1941 Chicago let's go back to when you were just a little boy what do you remember in Chicago well I remember that my parents when I was growing up we lived in an apartment building on Kimball Avenue and when I was about five years old my father and mother were building a home not too far away the area was called Hollywood Park and it was a street called Satan Lewis Avenue and so when I was about five or so and we moved in there and we subsequently had my little sister and my little brother and I think my sister was born when I was
seven and my brother was born when I was about nine what did your folks do what your dad did for Oh interesting my father came to the country when he was 13 years old from Russia couldn't speak a word of English they threw him in a suitcase Factory and he was on the production line and he was 27 years old he owned his own suitcase Factory he became a pacesetter in the Federation joined a very fine Jewish Country Club in Chicago called twin orchard and was founder of shara Tikvah synagogue with some of his friends and was a very religious and a wonderful person one
of my best friends unfortunately he passed away at age 52 or 53 from smoking when he was 5 years old in Red Square he was rolling cigarettes and selling them when his 8 year old brother and he was smoking from age 5 on incredible did he ever tell you about the journey to come to the United States no he did not tell me about the journey he told me when they landed and how he was put into the factory and he was very very tough on me as far as developing a work ethic so when I was 6 years old going on 7 every summer
I worked in his factory at 560 Westlake street in Chicago first year I made 75 cents an hour and I took my $30 check and every week went to the Northern Trust Company and deposited in my savings account the next year I made a dollar and a quarter the two dollars and it kept going up and up and he had me in the production line even though as a union shop probably breaking all the rules but he owned the place and nobody said anything to him about it and by time I was 16 years old I had enough money in that savings account to go
to Tulane University for four years Wow very good tell me about your mom my mom what was born in Chicago her parents owned Goldberg's delicatessen on West Roosevelt Road which is a very famous delicatessen famous were there pastrami and corned beef and all the Jewish folks in that area would hang out and one of their dear friends my grandfather's good friend was Barney Ross a world championship boxer and every time Barney would have a fight at the Chicago Stadium they would have the victory party at Goldberg's delicatessen afterwards and there were many victory parties yeah and what happened when he lost well Barney went into
World War two and unfortunately became injured and got on a narcotics and when he came back he did have some fights and obviously didn't perform as well as he did prior to that but he went down in history as one of the greatest all-time prize fighters yeah yes tell me about I had two sets of grandparents my father's parents father's father came over when my father was maybe about I'm going to say six years old and he left four children and his wife pregnant with their fifth and he came to Chicago was a cobbler and saved up enough money so that he could sent for
his whole family and he starved himself so he probably didn't weigh more than 80 pounds as I knew him growing up and he lived him about 90 great guy I'm his wife passed away when I was about five years old so I obviously didn't know her but Julius and what was a phenomenal guy and last few years of his life he lived in our home in Glencoe and he wanted to go someplace he'd call my father Eddie the machine and let's go but every day you live to his early 90s he would take a nap and when he'd get up from the nap you take
a piece of rye bread with a little pocket knife cut off the the crisp of the bread across take a shot of VO whiskey take the bread and then take a little apple and that would be maybe 4:00 in the afternoon when he got up for his nap do that every day and and he would watch the cub games with me and he was not happy with the catcher because he thought the catcher was an idiot standing back there with the pitcher throwing the ball at him and then having foul balls hit against him so he said if you ever play baseball don't be a
catcher they came from Russia no they did no he came by himself and then and then and then interesting enough he saved all his money over a period of about six years or so and he gave the broker enough money for five children and his wife but the broker didn't do the transaction properly and only sent five tickets so my father's oldest brother never made it over really yes well they had communications and they were afraid to go back and look for him because see if it could they and they had fear that if ever went back they would be captured or unable to return
then they when they did they didn't publicize it or communicate it was my father I'm gonna say he was probably around 1923 or I was right after his bar mitzvah my other grandparents owned the delicatessen as I said and they were there characters and you know dealing with the public and everybody was their friend and they had a lot of friends and for some reason in the mid 40 my grandfather got it all and got disabled and he had some kind of heart condition not described in detail to me but the doctors advised him not to work anymore so they closed the place down and
retired yeah okay so Goldberg's closed then yes okay what'd you do for fun as a kid growing up sports always enthralled me and still involved a lot in sporting activities basically as a fan so when I was five years old my uncle asked me what did I want for my birthday and I said I would like for you to take me to Chicago Cubs baseball game it was the first one I went to and I became hooked on it and because my parents if their early age had a lot of freedom they gave me freedom so when I was six years old I was riding
taxi caps in Chicago by myself going on the El and taking you know just so I would sneak off to a cup game for 60 cents getting into the Grand Stand and we'll watch a game and every once in a while the Glencoe schools we missed a doctor's appointment and went to a cub game in the afternoon on a friendly note and we just you know been following all the major league teams since in high school I was a nanny for a musher on the weekends at Wrigley Field at Comiskey Park and had the privilege of doing the White Sox and the Chicago Cubs along
with the Chicago Bears and the Chicago football Cardinals so it was just a lot of fun yeah as an usher do you remember any of the players very well remember them all yeah in fact between my junior up - my freshman in high school I used to hang out at Northwestern and the train stops and about eight or nine guys in their 80s get off the train from Wisconsin led by a guy named Al Curly Lambeau they're all wearing a baseball cap a white t-shirt khaki shorts kids shoes each one's carrying a two suitor case and they walk in the abbot hall and curly gets
on the table and says gentlemen he says I'm el Curly Lambeau former coach of the founder of the Green Bay Packers and retired but I'm here to teach you gentlemen how to play professional football and if you'll listen to me in four weeks we're gonna go out and beat the world champion Cleveland Browns but you have to listen to me and do everything that I asked you to do without an attitude and we're gonna be a team and we're gonna be successful and have reach every at Cal aesthetic was beat the brown speak the Browns went out there four weeks later and beat the hell
out of them and as college kids 21 22 years old Ralph Giuliani was the quarterback from Notre Dame rosey Grier from Penn State who went with the lunch with every day in his 1950 Buick Roadmaster along with Mel Triplett who was a running back from University of Toledo Mel and Rosie both started as rookies for the New York Football Giants and you're just great guys and those that team went out and and just did a great job that night and it was a it was a most fun football game I ever watched yeah yeah now when you're listening and Curly Lambeau did you did you
know at the time how big of a deal he was no I didn't realize how big I knew there was a Lambeau Field and you know but I didn't realize how big of a deal he was until I really got older and studied it and he was just terrific for along with George Halas they were phenomenal for professional football yeah in World War two you were born right at the beginning of the war no yes it did it was financially prosperous for my family because my father owned this suitcase Factory and he had a lot of sewing machines so he got an order from the
Air Force to make parachute belts and they made him like crazy in quantity and so he would he had a really nice contract with the United States Air Force making parachute belts yeah does he know why he got that contract I have no idea but again when he came to the United States he did not speak a word of English and so when you go from 1923 you go 20 years further and he was in his early 30s at the time evidently somebody called him Murray read something in US News & World Report which she read religiously you know he wasn't bashful so he probably
picked up the phone I imagine and he said I could help you out and let me make a sample for you yeah after high school he said you would went out to Tulane mm-hmm that you helped fund from working as a kid that's right why Tulane well I wanted to go to a good school and I wanted it to be warm living in Glencoe I'd ride my bike a a couple of miles down to central school in the sixth seventh and eighth grade regardless of the weather and I just been not like cold weather and so there were there very few schools in the south
that were as opposed to the number of schools in the north and true lane was one of them and somebody said it's Harvard of the south I said let's try it out yeah and it had the best time of my life was your high school New Trier High School in Winnetka Illinois yeah now a lot of famous people have come out of that nice they have did you know yeah my old girlfriend and she is and Margaret Olsen in fact Bobby article whoo it was a year ahead of me who does a lot of television commentary and basketball here we are on a plane one
night flying with the Mavs to Memphis on the team plane and I said hey art remember the junior prom when I took Ann Margaret and you took Patsy Nelson and we doubled and Patsy Nelson I think Mary George will and so we we had a good time together well when they first moved here I got to be good friends with the gentleman who started the team his name as norm signed you in norm started the team with Donald Carter and I was coaching norms daughter and soccer and he came to me one day and said hey I would like for you to be an owner
part owner of the Mavericks and you could give me a letter of credit for 585 I said what does that mean he's about five hundred eighty five thousand dollars and you get out four-and-a-half percent of the team I said I could get you the letter credit but if your team goes bankrupt my wife would be very mad at me because our four kids may not go to college the letter of credit will be called and I'll lose my membership in the family he said well that's not gonna happen I said well it happened before with the Dallas Chaparrals Folsom and his buddies had a pony
up money to send them to San Antonio for Angelo to take him over and B they became the son of Tonio Spurs and I said I can't take that chance he said okay I'll get you good tickets which he did and I'll get you a piece of the business you can't have all the insurance business because I have to spread it around and so they've been clients of mine now through three ownerships and every once in a while we have an opportunity to maybe go to an away game and so it was happened to be that particular event so is your wife angry that you
didn't take that four percent ownership she never brought it up but our four kids did go to college and law school and it worked out just fine yeah was there a teacher in high school that really made an impression on you yes there was a lady who was in the in math her name was mrs. Kelso and we math was my favorite favorite subject and we the teachers at New Trier a lot of them had PhDs all of them had master degrees and so they were very wonderful teachers and very personable and very hands-on and they were very giving as far as their time if you needed help go see him in the morning but there were a lot of good ones there and tell me about n Margaret Ann Margaret was a great young lady and she was born in Norway she came to came to New Trier we became friends we really weren't boyfriend and girlfriend we were just good friends
and she was very sweet and was always complimentary if you did something nice for her she was very very thankful I bury good love person so were you surprised at all when she became a famous star no no she started at Northwestern her freshman year and during Thanksgiving there was some guys that she knew in a band who lost their lead singer and they said come to Vegas for Thanksgiving with us and they were doing a lobby show and next thing somebody heard her and they they took her right to Hollywood Wow Wow talk to me about two lane to Lane it was a phenomenal
school got a business degree in four years the professors in the business school were terrific in in your junior and senior year they allowed undergrads to take graduate courses and and get greats and credit for it and so I was lucky enough to take a few and wound up graduating in four years with 144 hours and and learned a lot and didn't have to pay extra to take master courses so after Tulane were you gonna go back to Chicago what were you do I was on my way to graduated Tulane at age 21 and I was on my way to DePaul University Law School and
got home and my father had passed away I mean a few weeks after I graduated and he had a factory in Grayslake Illinois that manufactured molded suitcase halves at that time you know over fifty years ago the style was you have a hardside suitcase to protect your your clothes Samsonite made the best suitcase at that time I mean it was well engineered well constructed properly priced there were a lot of imitations or knockoffs for that and so he being in the luggage business had a factor in grace like Illinois which is near the Wisconsin border that allowed other luggage manufacturers to purchase these molded halves
and the various sizes whether it be a little Train case all the way up to a an overseas case and they came in different sizes and so when he got sick the factory was going to be sold to a friend of his named IRA Katz who owned Hartmann luggage company and they were then located in 11 Tennessee because we were providing the molded halves for their worry line at the Hartman Factory and when I got down there to sign some checks as my father after he passed away and during this transition period friend named Leroy Winer called from West Pittsburgh Pennsylvania who owned airway industries
it's Howard you don't know me but I was a good friend of your dad's and our plant needs your help because our molar in Woburn Massachusetts is bankrupt or is and the plan is locked up I can't get any parts out of there and I need to keep my production lines going and your parts will fit perfectly so I went little plant manager and I said we got enough material can you people work a few hours overtime and let's help Leroy out and one thing led to another and we wound up with a second shift and I wound up coming home at midnight and I
just never made Law School because I was working and it was a really good and and then MBA PhD in Business Administration being the purchasing agent the production manager the sales manager and trying to figure out how to pay the bills where did you meet Carol Carol and I met at Tulane and she happened to be having a cup of coffee with a dear friend of mine named Bob tesslar who happened to be my roommate at the Alpha Epsilon Pi fraternity house so Bob introduced me to Carol and he was the editor of the student directory and Carol was the assistant editor and she got
paid like $50 and Bob gave paid 150 but Carol did all the work which is the way it should be and so we became friends two years later Carol suitemate who is sweetheart of our fraternity a girl named Elizabeth Jane Caldwell from Tallulah Louisiana decided that Carol Jean and I should go out so Elizabeth Jane worked out a deal where she called me on the phone and we're talking but prior to that she said Carol Jean down the hall to get a dictionary for her and insisted she go get it right now so Carol Jean comes back with the dictionary and Google is James says
thank you by the way Howard cones on the phone and he's taking you to the fraternity party on Saturday night now neither one of us knew at that time that we were going to even go out because you know Elizabeth Jane who's a our dear friend both of ours so we decided to go out and the name of the party was the Grouse ball and I was the chairman for the fraternity for social activities from my second semester sophomore year till I'm graduating so this is my first semester senior year and we had the grouse ball and it was a great party and then we
just started going out afterwards and worked out and so this was like in October and Carol went home for Thanksgiving and was going to be engaged to a gentleman real nice guy here and he picked her up to the airport and they went back to Carol's house and there in front of the house and he said now here's the engagement you know whatever any she's no sorry I can't accept this and here in the house are her parents his parents family members all waiting and I had no idea that this was even that she was going to get engaged we were just going out but
I told myself at the time don't mess this one up because she's fantastic and so I went back a good friend of mine Ronnie Finkelstein who was picking up his wife-to-be from Kansas City and I went in Ronnie's car went the airport and Carol had no idea I was gonna pick her up and she smiled and and then we decided that we are going to do something together permanently and maybe we're talking about maybe having six kids but we stopped at four so we got married we got engaged Carol's here behind me so she graduated in 1964 and we got married right after she graduated
and we got engaged in November of 63 of the same week the president kennedy assassination that was at Carol's parents home here right here in Dallas now so did you move to Dallas well I was still running the factory so Carol went up to Chicago and started taking graduate course at Northwestern and I'm running this little factory you know trying to make a living and we were doing fine and Carol loves books so the first month were married I get this bill from this bookstore of these hard bounds and I said Carol Lisa next time go get the you know the paperbacks which he did
for a few months and then after I took her the library and got her a library card because I was making 156 dollars a week and we were kind of spread thin yeah so what brought you to down what brought us to Dallas Carol is loving it in Chicago unfortunately we had some miscarriages along the way and we had our first child Kalyn and we brought her home from the hospital and she was four days old and I looked at Carol G and I saw her moving to Dallas she said why it's a lot nicer to raise children in Dallas in Chicago how do you
know well I'm your younger brother Steve who's 10 years younger than we are and watching him grow up for the last five six years and he's getting ready to go on now the University of Texas remember he was 12 years old when we got married wearing a white tuxedo jacket in the wedding party and now he's not 12 anymore he's 18 and but I we've been coming down a few times a year and what a great place to raise kids and long behold we announced we're moving we get pregnant with Scott then we get pregnant with Wendy so we wound up having Irish triplets three
children in 37 months and then four years later we had mark and so at that point we even thought we wanted to have six but we did the geometric progression and we figured that two is twice as hard as one three is six times as hard four is twenty four times as hard and when you go to five at 720 times 120 times or whatever so you know with all these rivalries we decided four would be enough here yeah I joined Walden Brothers because when we got married Irwin and Bill Walton said if you ever want to come join the firm we'd love to have
you so I called him up when Kay was born and I said do you remember that offering get down here as fast as you can we have us we have a position for you now are you involved with the Jewish community in Dallas we are yes tell me about your well in our firm we're very Steve Waldman and our partners so we decided that both of us cannot go out and run every organization as the titular head or whatever so I've been behind the scenes Steve has been the face of the organization's right now he's president Dallas Jewish Holocaust he was president of other like
Dallas Jewish Federation and a lot of different things I've been on many boards but not as an officer I was on the board still M of the Dallas Jewish excuse me Dallas Jewish foundation the foundation of Greater Jewish Dallas I'm on the board of trustees for national Jewish Hospital in Denver I was former chairman of camp better America where we bring the troops in from Afghanistan or whatever and give him a nice five-day vacation with their families and go through the whole drill and meet with people the Pentagon and there were some financial things that did come up that really didn't appear kosher to me
so I decided to resign which I didn't and I never ever looked back happiest time in your life happiest time in my life having a wonderful wife having wonderful children having wonderful grandchildren in there they all come together and to equal many happy happy moments was there an invention in your life then that came along that you went wow how did I ever get along with that well the invention that is you know we used to talk about Dick Tracy watches growing up and here they are today and if being 75 years old almost you know I'm not computer or literate or savvy like my
8 year old grandkids are and they they have it all over me so the whole internet is just so mind-boggling every time you know here they're taking pictures and within a second texting it to me all hands-free I mean I still don't know how it's done I mean it's hard to believe that it's here but it is here and technology just exceeds itself every day now in your lifetime you've lived through so many remarkable events of course the Vietnam War era President Kennedy assassination the moon landing something good in 69 for the first time of course the tragedy of 9/11 was there something in your
lifetime that came along that really stood out in your mind you knew exactly where you were what had happened well interesting you mentioned 9/11 because there's a major airline that commissioned me to write the long term care insurance coverage for all of their pilots and the first meeting was at the Los Angeles hub at the John Wayne Airport for the group of pilots that were positioned in Southern California and so on 9:10 I left my office went to Campisi's picked up a child's order of spaghetti in a small pizza then got to the airport and landed in San Diego stewardess woke me up and said
you're the last one to get off the plane sleeping and walk across the motel next morning my partner Steve Waldman calls and said hey I want to let you know there's something crazy happened I said well me about it and this was like 7 o'clock California time my meeting was not till 9 o'clock and so he said no turn on CNN yeah I can't I thought maybe Israel was blown off the map and there was and so you know as opposed to having all these hundreds of pilots and from any leading to have any we since afterwards rolled it out but that was Quincy dental
in time was something that I'll never forget well you and Calvin married 52 years four kids nine grandkids what advice does granddad have for the next generation well the first advice is you got to be careful because you're a granddad and you're not a dad and so you got to be careful on what information you could give and how you could give it and because you know the parents your children our children are the parents and they have all the rights and all the privileges and all the responsibilities on the other hand even last night we were having dinner with some of our grandkids and
our and and our kids and they're they're all wonderful they're all smart they all have the great educational opportunities and I just want them to do the right thing and so I do in a subliminal way I try to remind them even though how spectacular they are not to have a slip-up if some kids have like a week before our high school graduation they do something really stupid and it it hurts them for the rest of their life great job thanks for doing this today well thank you you