Ida Ann Zweig
Ida Ann was born in Dallas at the Florence Nightingale facility and spent her earliest years living briefly with her grandfather before her family moved to a duplex on Colonial in South Dallas, rented from her uncle Jay Coleman. Her family, including grandfather Benjamin Harris, came to Dallas seeking a warmer climate. She grew up surrounded by a very large family, part of the Harris side, with her father one of eight children. Her uncle Teddy Harris served on the Dallas City Council and worked as an accountant, and it was he who introduced his sister to Ida Ann's father. The family treasured its history, including a photograph of her great-great grandparents' fiftieth wedding anniversary in 1915.
After attending college in Oklahoma and briefly other schooling, Ida Ann worked for three years at Neiman Marcus downtown, where she encountered celebrities and remembered warmly her interactions with Stanley Marcus and Mrs. Marcus. She went on to work as a secretary and bookkeeper for roughly forty years, including a short stint at a North Park jeweler, a position with Glazer's, work for her brother after her father passed away, and six and a half years connected to DFW Airport. A dedicated worker and early riser, she often went straight from work to aerobics, and credited her bookkeeping skills to her mother, who had been a bookkeeper herself.
Ida Ann received a phone call from her cousin arranging a date with a cousin of a friend, and after their first date on February 28, 1961, she married that December. Her husband hailed from Coleman, Texas, later moving to San Antonio. They raised two sons, Louis, who works in the hotel liquor business, and Brian, an optometrist, and she delighted in her four grandchildren and two daughters-in-law. The family kept many Jewish traditions, with her mother hosting holidays and Hanukkah celebrated together on Christmas Day when the men were off work. Raised to treat everyone as equal, she was proud of her family's warmth, closeness, and continuing involvement in Jewish life in Dallas.
Full Transcript
on Nancy Ungerman today's December the 7th and were at the air and Jewish communities pecan Center and I'm speaking with Ida and Goldman today hello good morning how were you born in Dallas Dallas Texas so and then which part well I was born in Florence Nightingale which is part of a okay those you know oh yeah but we lived with my grandfather for a very short time when I was very little and then we moved to my uncle Jay Coleman's duplex that he rented to us on Colonial in Southtown yes yes and we lived right next door to a band Rosalind Katz and then on
the other side was read by Abramowitz who was related to the hopin stains and quite a little little group over there but it was wonderful it was just wonderful what conversation would snot with uh you know I don't remember that's a good question but we were wish yes actually yes there are so many relatives for Harrises up in the East it's huge but the family is very nice and there was not one hair name from boys they were all girls someone didn't have the girls had boys so there were no terraces what got you here to Dallas I think that my grandfather Benjamin Harris he
and his wife wanted to come down here because she she was a client so there relates the climate so they wanted to yeah so everyone was a member of shares that is wrong it was very nice because everyone's together but updates there were so many relatives I have named colleges brother your father brothers lots of brothers and sisters my father is one of eight my uncle Teddy Harris who was the City Council and here and also on Dallas Park he was an accountant for son being Brad and Goldman banking company and he introduced his sister to my day yes how did you meet your husband
yeah well let's start with your eyes yes well I received a phone call from my cousin of mine Cecile Rosen's wide Susilo golden roses file and her best friend at that time was Shirley oak and they said we want to introduce you to Shirley's cousin and so he called me and we had her first date and I thought and that was actually 1961 February 28 and then we married that December well do you think he said I think so I think so I really believe so so see his he had relatives here because he's actually from Coleman Texas it's right outside Abilene and they when
he was 12 he moved to San Antonio so then he came fever in itself and then he went off to school and then he finally moved to doubt so where did you go to college I went to college in Oklahoma and then I went to school for a half a semester NSE and then I went to work at Neiman's for three years downtown very exciting very exciting all the celebrities uh-huh sure sure yeah that's wonderful if you have any stories about who is Stanley yeah oh yes well I will tell you crazy story you may have to edit this I would always be away from
my my counter I was on the first floor where everything happens everybody all the celebrities coming and chill wills came up to this oh I don't you are you know it really John Wayne's wife came up and I was I couldn't even talk it's very exciting and uh but I was out of mind my space for awhile out of my area and I saw Stanley mark that he said miss go and how are you - dassit yes mr. Stanley I'm just fine I better go run it back so that was a funny story what I loved what happened it was scarves and blouses and one day mrs.
Marcus came and she said I'd like to see a scarf and a soldier this gorgeous form a scarf beautiful and she said now you know I'm mrs. Marcus she was adorable when she was like I loved working there was wonderful you tell me about your children how many well I have two boys Louis he's 51 Brian who's 50 and Louis's in glaciers hotel liquor he's one of the vice presidents and my son Brian is an optometrist here they live yes the luck of the goldens well I think I hope so we just want to be around all day yeah and my four grandchildren tour in college and to her one sixth grade one's a sophomore creamy hummus bringing so much they're all four just blessed to have them living yeah oh yes they're
not allowed to leave that's what we all said honey I know in Eglin were you brought up in a religious we kept kosher for some degree when we live in South Dallas but we would go out all the time to state places and daddy was a member of the Dallas athletic club downtown which he was so we were down there all the time you know like having shrimp so I don't have to tell you so when we moved out to North Dallas mother said I don't think we're going to keep kosher anymore but for Passover you better just get out of the house because everything
has to be clean the counters that she had her pasta man side dishes and my mother was always the one who had all the all the holidays toward the hair side she did break fast she did a rush Hashanah lunch she would to Passover well Hanako it was very interesting we had to celebrate on the day when the men were always off because everybody worked so we always had at Christmas Day and we would go to each one of my uncle's homes because my aunt was and we would have our Hanukkah presents and and do all that it was really it was so we just
kept we were very closest family tell me how large for those tests over dinners how do you how did you do the tables well you would rent the table that's not for us my mother had it she just should we did the best we could but then after a while my daughter-in-law said I'm gonna have it passed away and so she like had this unit must room like this and we had to because we would we would have my cousin Tina's family so right now they're 21 and my brother and I worked one so it's quite a lot of people but now we had to
split that up however we do have breakfast at my brother's house that's just your mom like that's easy beautiful it's just beautiful and we have Hanukkah at my son Lewis's house at Rosh Hashana is a my son's daughter's house Stacy she's very active Stacy bear she's very active in alliteration and so it's very nice I love let's see Uncle Jake he used to have parties on New Year's Eve it would rival anything as just far as love and that's what it was all about and since I was the youngest relative the youngest girl anyway yeah there was one more younger daughter but she she's been
gone now for probably about twenty years but after she heard you had used Diane Goldman but now there are only eight of us out of the 23 are there any like crazy experiences you'd like to share or remember sharing as you were growing up know something well you know in the old days really bill days I could get off my bike or I could count my roller skates I didn't even know where I was nowadays you can't do that no no I mean so we were sort of carefree in those days and my mother knew that I probably would be over for dinner or something
you know during the summer but we spent a lot of time in Los Angeles where my but a lot of the family once they first started moving to North Dallas and we found a question I like to ask is is there any particular wisdom that your father or mother passed on to you to live by I have to say that they did guide my path mm-hmm my mother was a natural leader mm-hmm I've been on brownies and Girl Scouts and sisterhood and she was a dancer and Ruth Ruth Blair its Rockets it's it after they married my daddy and so and so she never worked
anymore but she was in everything and with all our family being so involved in the city including the governments of course Johanna Dolan who was a state rep also because I've been City Council and sadly Harrison of course it was many honors and they'd like to give me I've never really been super involved in things because I worked and I think that that's probably what it was that worked off and on for probably 40 years so I was a treasurer and sisterhood with Israel but that was all then I was working so it was very hard for me but but I like that because it
was I wasn't doing anything that's not going to be there for the children and pick up from school and take I might have had to do that when I was working so and then my aunt Tilly when she finally came back here and in 73 tell me about your sideline career because it sounds like a career I mean you put it on the side yeah besides the demon it was it so it was Nemeth yeah well I worked for Nemeth for three years and then I was really a secretary for most of the time however were very short period of time about six months I
worked for Morris jewelers in North Park that was really funny I see it was body naturally but I'm really the secretary my mother always told me you will learn to type and of course Underwood typewriters so now you just been on a computer so I was a secretary for several different companies and my son Brian and I worked for my for my brother after my daddy passed away then we work for Mexico so how is the secretary sounds like you're an early riser well you have to be and then really right after work I would go straight to aerobics so my husband my husband he
had to always wait till about 7 5 - but you thought that's all and you have to do some of these or so - do you have any particular hobbies i I really don't per se and I think when you I used to needlepoint but you know when you for such a long time you don't really the hobbies are straight on and took aerobics for such a long kind of played tennis on city league but then I'll head to the back to work that's what you but we've traveled a lot and my husband's not well and so I actually travel more than most and not
as much as some but we've had some amazing trips and I miss that and I miss the cruises and I missed your but that's all night you've got a full lunch okay I'll just wait cross-country and track and you did that going very busy yeah I'm terribly busy you'll be very busy doing that but my mother was a wonderful archivist and she had on her wall hopefully a good frame she doesn't like to this and this is of my great-great grandfather and grandmother on their 50th wedding anniversary which was in 1915 and they married they married in Russia and then they came here he then
they moved to England and with their family and then in England had a couple more children and then when they came to the States they settled in I think they went to Hartford George because that's where my grandfather was born he's the youngest and then so I never met them but my mother's playing this and we have trains of everybody's wedding including my grand my grandmother and so it's been very nice this is we love this what was your great-grandfather's trade what I don't know I'm not sure I'm not sure when my grandmother's maiden name was Manson that was the real name and they married
in Russia when he came here first and he went through and you know they're asking their names and they said what is her name and she said that here'sh and he was going to say the next name and they said your name now smacks lips you know that that's what they didn't understand but I thought this was wonderful and I didn't really like that there's a Loving Cup like this that is engraved with every single grandchild great-great child on there toward this event cottonwood that wouldn't but it would've been something else to bring you if that is what a Jane well I'm trying to to
take a picture of it it just doesn't there's some K bits of brass Hotel okay it's not tall it's just they gave it to every single person who was there it had all the great grandchildren all the nieces and nephews it was amazing so I have it because my aunt Tilly had it so I have yeah to do it for a family thing well yeah it's really sort of fun this is a picture I think this is a picture of my mother and my aunt Tilly until ago when she moved to California she was this was taken in 1960 my aunt Tilly okay president of
Hadassah there and then when she moved back here she became Hadassah president again that is an ocean that's an ocean they are on the ocean of I've never heard the city galleta California I know it's such an amazing it's amazing I just had to show and then my aunt chilly my aunt Tilly she graduated pharmacies go in 1990 and she and she went to st. Louis school pharmacy and they had their one hundred and twenty-fifth anniversary she was she was the only one here with the lungs in 1990 there was another one in 29 and so everyone just had to go meet her I mean everyone had to meet her because she didn't have two pharmacies all together and and they we were sitting at the table and with a whole lot of people who had to sit with Miss Tilly and they made their speeches and whatever and they said miss tilly do you have anything to say she said me what she opens her person there's a three-page speech you know
we're in for it now but she was when she was wonderful because she talked about everything in that adorable yeah but she had the standards for a pharmacy in California nor husband worked in the pharmacy with her it was weird I never had any children so my brother I really read your oral drug you know cuz we were there so often she loved the thesis she loved all her nieces and she loved my brother where did you get your bookkeeping skills actually my mother was a bookkeeper I think she worked for I sense your ego is you wanted to tie what she knew how to
type anyway and she would show me things so when I was treasurer of baby-g she set up all the books for me she always did everything and she was our advisory but then when I went to college I actually took bookkeeping it was so interesting yeah so I guess always had a knack for that yeah did they were you ever dragged into the computer era you know what was really fun excuse me what was really funny is I was working for glaciers and it was a day they had meeting with all the secretaries and they said today we're going to go under the computer know
it and we were all it was just like really so they show we had a little tutorial for several days but the only problem was that I didn't have to do a lot of the things that they were showing so it's more for the men to do things but of course it eliminated a lot of a lot of filing and so forth which you know there's no files in this day and time using very little but but I thought it was interesting so that's how I was but right now my computer is down and I'm waiting for my man to come out that it didn't
parts you know interesting so you didn't get that yeah you what you do you do and you learn something new and even if you don't want to go to work work it's really good therapy you know I just I loved it I loved being there because then you're the boss and you know what you're doing and they rely on you of course always that's what they do and you have to be there yeah do you have animals because that thanks mate they growing up Oh totally yeah sandy it was our first dog and then I had boots and pepper was her son and they passed
away and I my children would seem to be allergic to animals so we just didn't get any anyone didn't get an animal and then my son when he was off at optometry school in Houston at the University of Houston on time to school he adopted a cat a kitten I don't know how he did that so when he was home of course he would always bring the cat home and I thought I got to get me one of these mm-hmm so one Tonica he and his wife kitten and she was with me for seven and a half years and then I found out that my
grandchildren were a little allergic you know and like any pet and and but I found this woman who's a pathologist in Coppell Texas and she took my cat and she has a and so I got to see him a couple of times but the only thing is she didn't know you know cats don't tend to remember I guess I know dogs do of course that's for the best camera but she lived 18 years so but Billy she was with Margaret Margaret bill are your children active in the Jewish well Lois is on I think now maybe he's dropped a couple of wards so he's probably
on a 12 yeah no seriously we're not older I'm sure and Brian being in the optometry business has always just been so active in that that he never joined anything to be active he might be a member of something but not really because he's been so busy with all the stores and being partners with somebody in Oklahoma City and everything so so busy but he met his wife in one of his stores and she came in for threat exam and he said you have to come and work that was it and there my other son was he met his wife at school I know -
my very blessed recipe oh I know I know I my brother my brother and my sister-in-law is like my sister I don't consider her any more any less and one of my cousins can you hear it's hesitating nervous his daughter she's like a sister so you're surrounded surrounded yes we just had our very smallest Thanksgiving we've ever had we only had about 30 at her house that was the smallest one we've ever had we don't know what to do it that's that tell me is there advice is there any certain advice verbal advice that you have tried to pass on to your children and have
they listened yeah they really have because my parents really instilled on us everybody is equal totally because after all they lived in updates they didn't have what we had here but I think because of the fact that well Texas we don't consider ourselves the south you know important Texas and so the consequence I never was prejudiced toward anybody I didn't I never thought that mark never thought that my boys don't and you know when you go to a school that has Asians Indians yeah blacks you have everybody you learn so much of these private schools little it wouldn't be mess with that so I'm really
glad that that all happened you know and I have black friends that I've had for over well over 50 years one actually she knew me before I was born no and my children children are not that way but my grandchildren I think that's and that you got from your parents right Randy always told me just to be respectful of everybody and be a lady not that order and mother was just such a ball of this everything and I did see her save a boy from drowning once it's very exciting I mean it was excited now to get on in a fair way and if I
was in full know in a lake and she just we're with her Scout troop was going on but he started screaming yelling I guess the parents couldn't swim but she was too swimmer she had 16 medals in swimming besides being a dancers very interesting and daddy was a golfer had one hole-in-one and finally my son Lewis this year June 28th got a holy one where he was at the honors and now he's joined and so he was very excited and I said do you know that you did your part it's just absolutely smiling dad just screaming dear didn't you know insane that's my boy you
know that's my boy and he said well what would nanny say I said she'd be screaming and yelling that's good happens you know wasn't that funny you were so surrounded by families I always ask this question but it no no the question was is did you meet with any anti-semitism growing up probably it's so little but because I was a child I went to culminate the colonial school it's all Pennsylvania like right off of colonial but it's on Pennsylvania Avenue right south of course Avenue which is now Martin Luther King and that was a little bit of it they're not in the classrooms but sometimes
a little bit on the playground and I just had to ignore it so I never even made a big deal about it and a lot of Jewish kids in the school mm-hmm like Jane Hopkins Marie London because they're all my contemporaries mm-hmm we never just wasn't a thing but then I didn't even get to go to the forest avenue High School where all my cousin's mostly wet everything but I just went to we moved to Preston chart so when took Preston Hall Elementary just as a eighth grader and then went to hell first so see we didn't even have any blacks in the school then
we didn't I mean we just didn't have anything like that and the kids who were in BB jus were respected by the kids who worried why teens although they're good with us a whitey I mean that's just the way it was and I'm very good friends with a lot of the girls are graduated with in 56 because every two months we have a lunch and then I worked on the committees for having the big 50th which was amazing and I will tell you a funny story can I tell you sweetheart the 50 is was amazing it was too it's just fabulous and so we're leaving
and I'm leaving with Robert glazier at this one Phyllis and there are three allenmeyer Clifford story and so we're leaving and my husband turns to me he said who is that fat bald guy you were talking to I said which one but it was true I mean it was true it was so funny but weren't very close in sujay beard and I are very good friends so and I enjoy that because that's really fun we get to find out about their kids and then we have it at house and every every two months or at a restaurant yeah being able to get about twenty girls
that's all yes well what if I left out is there anything I could you can add we don't tell us a little bit about Ida but we know plenty oh we know plenty well Dallas changed for you have a lot of good ways well in the condos and apartments in the influx of people who have come here I've never seen anything like it I'm amazed and of course as you won't know how Toyota is coming and they have there is a construction construction site now that's going to be an amazing conduct and so we know about this because it's north of us where I live
and they said all the condos going out all the prices are raising so high and I'd say that probably a fourth of the condos in this new center because of Toyota are already I thought they have I don't think they're broken ground very interesting so everything is going north all around Beltline Road to to Spring Creek I've never seen such beautiful condos beautiful apartments young people and she's wonderful many people and the school's out there are fabulous playing the West that's amazing at Frisco now is just kind of tentative so you know we're really we're really blessed and having my son Brian and Lois here
of course and of course they always do ask me who is the favorite well I'm the favorite dog with a favorite but I always tell them even the grandchildren my favorite is always the one who needs me you tell them that but I bet I'm lucky you know and and my husband some of his family was here so that made it really nice and then some of his family lives in Austin so we go and see them and so maybe he said that they're all coming here for bat mitzvah in May for my granddaughter so everybody would be together said I like it to be
and we're very close with that well thank you what a lovely life and interview this has been your own kind life you've lived thank you I enjoyed it so much I feel this is the continuation with Ida because she left some some things out that are very okay well I have to tell you that my daughter-in-law Robins why she was president and council she was president the night group and council she's been amazing she is just a wonderful wonderful daughter I consider daughter Lori is just bright and smart and beautiful as both the girls are and we are all very close I'm so proud of
my girls and Lori does a lot of things at Greenhill mother said she's just amazing I just and your grandchildren my grandchildren are something else because I just love them they are just they're my pride and joy of course and I'm so proud of them they're doing extremely well in school and why don't graduate in another year and graduate in two years and then I have whether the names David's why David is Louis's he goes to you TD and he's a junior specializing in a computer and it's very good very smart and then Lauren is as the University of Kansas and she's just very bright
it's very very bright and Matthew is he'll be 16 this month and he's in cross country and in track but he's also does welding and does some artwork and he won a prize at DFW Airport when I worked at DFW Airport for six and a half years once a month as a an advisor but just as a messenger and he entered a contest there and we and he won honorable mention I thought the painting was really good and he was very young and he goes to get reward and it's in an envelope and he opens the envelope and there's just a piece of paper in
there and he says where's the money it's a chair it's really cute but then but he is really very talented very smart and Katy is my little bright little 12 year old that she really is a very smart girl plays ball but you know they're just they're just loves of my wife for them but I'm so lucky to have my my two beautiful new daughters and my sons and it's just perfect everything is perfect that okay it's perfect and you let it somewhere in there know what they're talking about you're on them no that was fine that's fine I mean you edited so far yeah
I can't wait to interview you again find out about your great great French spoken yes [Laughter]