Ida Strasmick and Miriam Vernon
The sisters were born to a mother from Chicago and a father from Germany who worked as a traveling salesman covering Texas. When their parents married, their father's territory brought the family to Dallas, arriving around 1924 with their mother pregnant with Ida and wearing a fur coat in the middle of a Dallas summer, unprepared for the climate. Ida was born in 1925 and Miriam in 1928, both at Baylor Hospital. The family was close and small, and although their father traveled frequently for work, they always looked forward to having him home on weekends. They describe themselves as a close, good Jewish family that valued religious education and Jewish culture more than strict observance.
Growing up in South Dallas, the sisters lived across from Temple Emanu-El and attended its kindergarten, which was so good that Ida was double promoted when she entered public school. Nearly everyone they associated with was Jewish, and Forest High School had a large Jewish student population. After their freshman years the family moved to North Dallas, and Ida graduated from Highland Park. They recalled riding the trolley for three cents, walking downtown, and spending Saturday afternoons at the Majestic, the Palace, and the White theaters. They noted little overt antisemitism, though they remembered the Dallas Country Club as unwelcoming to Jews.
As adults both sisters worked outside the home. Ida attended one year at Columbia's School of General Studies in New York, then returned to Dallas to work in insurance claims. She married Max, a native of Germany who came to the United States in 1939, served in the US Army, and settled in Dallas in 1949 to open a cotton company office. Miriam briefly attended SMU, worked, married a man from Oklahoma, and lived in Ardmore where the family ran a jewelry store before returning to Dallas. She later worked for Zale Corporation for over twenty-five years and at Temple Emanu-El for sixteen. Both volunteered widely, and Miriam sang in the temple choir for some fifty years, describing it as a family that took her in. Ida cherished traveling with the choir to Europe and Washington and being proud to hear the acclaimed Dallas choir from the audience.
Full Transcript
good morning good morning i am calling her veer from the Dallas Jewish Historical Society and I have the pleasure this morning which is july the 10th 9 2014 of interviewing ida guggenheim her guggenheimer straz Mick and Miriam guggenheimer Vernon who are sisters and our native Dallasites and I would like to ask you questions of I just want you all to answer whoever feels like it and anybody else can chime in so tell me how did your do know how your parents got to dallas or were they born here or tell us about your your ancestry well our mother was born in chicago and my father
was born in germany and when they met and married my father was a traveling salesman I think that his territory was down in Dallas and in Texas and so they moved to Dallas and my mother was pregnant with me and so that would have been in 19-24 properly i was born in 1925 and i have to tell you that when she they came back trained to dallas and it was the middle of the summer and my mother had on a fur coat she's not knowing to climate here and i think she was ready to turn and go back to chicago oh my does she stay
and pregnant too yeah so that were you born here then I was blind 1928 in dallas in so happens that we were both warning by our hospital that was Florence Nightingale no I was only for 40 more concise across the street it was in Baylor Hospital how thoughts nightingale was across the street it was a much smaller of female whatever you want to call it a hospital that right I'm not sure so tell me do you tell me something about growing up in Dallas during the era well at the time we lived on south boulevard right across from temple emanuel what was good and i
went to kindergarten at temple and it must had a pretty good kindergarten because when i started public school i was double promoted which made me cry earlier not that I was smarter but the school was so good I totally understand yes and what about you I did you go to conquer their kid went to kindergarten at to play manual and I just still have my graduation kindergarten if you have it and you ever want to donate anything we have our cogs here and would love to have anything you had but that's beside the point so what was it like growing up Jewish in South doubtless
you can't allow any different you almost everybody we associated with was Jewish and at Forest High than a big percentage of Jewish students I don't know at that time if I even had any non-jewish friends a problem maybe not and he went to Sunday School at Temple emanu-el yeah oh yeah I was confirmed so you were walking across the street to Temple practically well by that time we may have moved from living right across the street but we were always walking distance I can remember before they FL living on we lived in three different apartments on forest and I can remember living down across the
street from a fire station or next door to a fire station and sitting on the bottom stairs absolutely petrified whenever I've always been fed irons to sirens scared and I would sit on the bottom steps I think you were talking about staying in within about a six block radius if you were across the street from temple emanuel then moving across from the fire station was very close I don't know you're so yeah I think we lived on forest first and then we move well so do you had fun you had lots you had love Oh lots of fun member summers our activity during the summer
was getting together with other little girls and and doing our hair that that was entertainment I'm not sure that anything's changed imagine kids now being satisfied to do that for summer and their summer vacation that was that that was it every summer well until we got bigger and we leave nothing out then we hung out on the corners with the Dino always gangs of kids hanging on old cars and our parents were never very concerned about I don't know nobody worried about crime no you were there at the same time they were on Forest Avenue with us well I'm not not quite my brother was
better yes you know so did you ever come across any kind of anti-semitism at that time but maybe in high school great skills on it for us okay okay of course I didn't graduate for us you didn't I didn't graduate where did you gradually up after my freshman year we moved to North Dallas and you graduated French way to Helen are well that would have been a place where you could have encountered something but we didn't have a mark y know the das country club was very anti-semitic but we we click we had a bunch of Jewish can you talk a little bit louder we
had a whole lot of Jewish kids in our graduate in Christ Highland Park probably more so than a lot of you you mentioned a dallas country club what well though there were only reason i mentioned that it is because that's where they had a lot of the Holland Park reunions and a lot of the Jewish kids resented their having the you know reunions of the debt with all the Jewish kids there and the Dallas country club was anti-semitic well I didn't have any Jewish members at that time were so cute I don't think I had any there may have been so it stores already felt
a little awkward when he walked him I did I don't I don't think I I was in the Dallas country club that laddie way from forest and we didn't have reunions at the Dallas country know that you didn't but varkala yeah he went and I was I was gonna say what the only reunion I went to there and it was a very stormy night and electricity went out and I thought okay that serves you right and then then it came back on and when it went out again and we left but I said that serves you right for having all your reunion so there was
a little bit of anti-semitism that wasn't overt all right I don't think there was at Forest what was it like a temple emanuel the rabbi was rabbi left course we went through a few right boss rabbi ginsberg I don't think he was there when I was confirmed I can get out my confirmation picture but the head rabbi was rabbi leff Louis have you seen many changes in the reform jewish communities and services that you grew up with and what exists yes yes to many it was strictly reformed then and we I think the services have become more conservative and appeal to the younger people which
is the way it should be honest well the unfortunate fortunately or unfortunately life goes on it yeah we'll go away let's trim we have we're the ones who have to accept it now tell me did you all go away to school or did you stay in Dallas and how why are you back in Dallas to live your head alive delerium are the only college I have in New York at Columbia School of German studies and that was just for one year Columbia School of general studies in scott told uh-huh that was an experience I've moved there because friends he was had been in service and
he was entitled to living quarters his wife I thought I didn't know that much about New York and I thought New York you know I'll go to Columbia and it'll be a cinch to get there well they they lived in nyack new york which i never heard of but it was quite a schlep to get into the city to go to Columbia but it was an experience and adventure every day yeah right and eventually I moved out of my friends place and move I moved in with the Jewish family who lived in Washington Heights and that was more convenient but it was an experience and
so you came back here today yeah then I came back to Dallas and went to work what type of work did you do I work for insurance an insurance company doing claims suggesting and Max your husband at many years how did you owe me well I was going with somebody and thank you was ready to change girlfriends and he knew max and so he and introduced us and it wasn't love at first sight but we were very comfortable together and we went together almost a year before we were engaged and then we were going to get married and max said he had to go to
Japan in a month and he wanted to get married before that so we had a rushed up wedding and five years later he went to jail I am I went with him at that time that so you brought up something very interesting which was that it wasn't love at first sight so what happened did you grow into that because this is an interesting thing it's not a very Jewish topic but tell that's and it may be an example of girly into love yeah I think we were probably both ready to get married we weren't that young he was 33 and I was 30 at that
time that was old to get married so I think we were just ready to get married we found out we had a lot in common my father was from Germany and of course he was from Germany he was from Germany max other man no I a half oh yeah max was from strict heart oh he hit came over in 1939 and just before yeah and he was served in the US Army and had a friend who introduced him to somebody in the cotton business in New York that's where he lived his family and in 1949 this company wanted somebody to open the Dallas office so
they sent him down to Dallas he knew nobody here and then we met we were made 55 so somewhere in between 49 well we knew each other i think a year before we married and you met him and oaks happen it's very interesting so he and his family had already moved to the united states they missed yes they weren't there during right they moved here in 30 mm-hmm okay and that's very interesting and so what let me ask I don't know well what's your story it's not interesting sir it's different it's different I my college consisted of just one semester at SMU and I was
not college material so that one semester was enough for me and then I went to work I married at 21 I mean I went to college then I went to work for buddy about a year and a half and then I got married and how did you meet your husband well our families knew each other and I hardly know man his aunt I guess he was that he went into services was in let's see was he from Dallas no Oklahoma Oklahoma and his right was she his aunt or just a friend suggests that he would he was in service and she suggested that he was
lonely and that she thought it was a good idea that I should start writing to him and service and that's I didn't know where she didn't know what you say when you say things like that I wonder if I'm oh so you married and married and moved to oklahoma oklahoma city Ardmore ardmore we went to a small town I went to a very small town and Debbie was born married in 49 she was born in 56 and we had a jewelry store southern Oklahoma's largest Joey stores with statins joy and life in the small town was just really not for me I always said it
was only a hundred miles from dallas you all wish that way that it was only a hundred miles from dallas and that was the only good part of it so you came back and bring back i came back to dallas uh-huh without him without it i came back to dallas Anjali lived here ever since and i have worked I worked for sale corporation for twenty five and a half years and then I worked it typically manual for 16 years and then I retired 03 years ago you know both of you are terrific examples of people who chose to to work outside the home in an
era where not a lot of women were doing that they were marrying and staying home and you are you are both career women well I married I worked until I married mm-hmm and then except for one year after we were married on I stayed home mm-hmm well that's fine but you still worked in the business world so you yeah have an understanding of that out interesting and you too but you've been working all along I worked a total of about 40 so what's it like being retired after all those years oh ok what do you think are Oh were there any challenges that either one
of you faced growing up in Dallas anything at all that you can think of what challenge is or was can you think of anything exciting that happened to you what's um what would a terrific evening be like for you or a day I'm throwing now to lack way back way or right now whatever we can well now what a nice evening is so probably going out to a nice restaurant for dinner with friends infinitely in fact yeah well you both volunteer at the temple so much which is once they don't so much anymore but I did yesterday's for the things for the High Holidays seems
like you're always at a table yeah registering people which is lovely and Maggie a memory and an Ida are you volunteering to as the temple this much you know they don't call me no I used to do meals on wheels I'm used to do some volunteer work would be caring congregation mm-hmm they don't call me anymore well sometimes they wait to be called you know I had told mentioned it to him at Temple University don't call me um would like to do some volunteer work I saved the younger people taking over some of the things that we do well that is nice to to see
ya the excellent loop is there any advice that you would have for people coming into the community just be active if you want to make people new people and just leave afternoon now you have one daughter and do you have any child on the Sun and do either one of them lives close by debbie lives here in dallas XP is a retired schoolteacher she taught for 33 years she's still very she retired very young uh-huh she's a retired schoolteacher okay nice and what about your son are our son lived here with his family until about 11 years ago and he's with microsoft when they transferred
him to see so that's where he's lived ever since and they love it out there I first I thought oh well they'll want to come back here when it's given a chance but I don't think they will climate has a lot to do with it yeah yeah the rain doesn't bother them it's their outdoor people they have a lovely home with them on two acres with a beautiful yard and everything and grandchildren do you have grandchildren at two granddaughters yes yes 124 and 128 it just became a mother ah great-grandmother yeah yeah that's hard for me to say a going way back to your parents
and weird where did they you said they came from Germany you're my father your father came from Germany and what about your mother do you remember those shoes from Chicago no before that her family her family I remember her mother I remember my grandmother and vaguely remember my grandfather any any stories about them when did they come to the United States were both born here ok both the mother's parents were born mm-hmm Oh a great grandmother came from Harlem our mother xonar essence so a heavy emphasis on Germany and and Holland then and then coming to the United States you know remember any family lower
any kind of stories about your grandparents I'm trying to do this so that your children and grandchildren will be able to correct me if I'm wrong but that's the only thing I can remember about my grand father is one time when they were in dallas and we were living in south dallas and he used to walk downtown now is that in fact he stormed off the other wasn't all that fun he used to walk over the oakland street bridge I don't really remember that walking downtown I can remember walking to town from where we lived on forest wedding florists down the block from where you
live that's right that's right I don't ever remember walking that far what we took the trolley yeah it was three cents to accept really yeah and it ran riding right on forests and blue and the little trolley would go by at all hours of the day and night and we used to go to the movies and majestic and the palace on Saturdays yeah it was always downtown sandy afternoon in the double feature movies and then how much was it I don't remember but I remember the white theater was 10 says the White was at the end one end of forest down the west end no
that was intended but I remember his kids that and I shouldn't say this though but we would go to the wide theatre and we would buy a bag of popcorn and we get an end to where it was just almost empty and then somebody else would take the bag back and ask him to put a little bit more butter in it of course he would fill up the pocket one again and then we'd eat that down and we really got our money's worth because the the popcorn man was death and he didn't quite understand what we were saying so we got our nickel source or
whatever one any more than you were naughty girls if there might have been some boys in there okay I don't think it was all falls well you've seen a lot of changes in Dallas has what are you thinkin it's it's just exploded to marry some unchanged that's all inside has changed and you don't resist it do you don't like the services at Temple have changed so much right are you complaining or are you welcoming it or somewhere in between not welcoming it they I don't comply I mean getting more used to it yeah mmhmm yeah I don't I don't complain because I know there's nothing
to do mm-hmm you know we don't it goes off on this we used to ah ah yes yes yeah it is different but it's dead we like to also don't go you know that once a month they have the service with the yield prayer book and we thought well we'll go always go but we don't you mean you're sort of out of the habit yeah well I think distance now you know you when we were in South Dallas it was much closer and everything distance is now to govern services but do you remember going to services on friday night and South Dallas I don't know
that was just did it wasn't nearly as common to go on Friday nights it seems like of course we've always had Sunday School yeah well so you all are if I can sum it up you've lived a very good life into Ellis it is brought to you stability and interest and you went to the movies and do you remember and in plays and music and the temple and you've built your your lives around social activities and volunteer activities and work activities in your case Ida okay it sounds like a very full life and very satisfied very satisfied never wanted to live anywhere else you you
all seem so compatible I've always thought there was a great deal of camaraderie between the two of you there is we I can't ever remember any growing up wait that was just enough I was the little sister yeah there were there were three years between us but I was four years ahead because of my time at temple emanuel priest good look but we didn't have the same we won't ever need a new up and we appreciate it with each other because our family was close small and small and godaddy traveled as Mary mentioned a lot so we always were glad to have him home and
just a very close family when he was like her and your mother never worked outside the home okay so it was a traditional type of a family would you Father travelling so he was home on the weekends so occasionally he would be had to be gone more than a weaker to meri jaana okay basically he was someone weekends and so a good good story just a religious life everything uh I mean we never wanted for anything we were just a very close good Jewish family never never really a religious family we got the religious education well talking about a cultural a cultural community cultural Jews
and did you ever have any breakthrough aha moments when it came to your Judaism when you felt stronger about it maybe a first trip to Israel I felt that way who did you go with well the first trip was with the temple car and my second trip was with grab by Zimmerman and why did the first trip affect you that I guess just being for the first time on Israeli soil and you I couldn't get over everybody's Jewish there I never seen quite as many Jews and it's just a different culture it was quite different and I was proud to be in G and I
think I brought some of that back with me good good ok that's a good that's the type of thing that I'm looking for and that camaraderie with the temple choir did you sing in the choir oh ok no but I was fortunate enough to make several trips with the choir that was thanks to Miriam and talk just a little bit about that I knew there was something that I wanted to discuss with you and the experience of singing with the temple choir because it's an on you it seems to me an unusual social situation well we're like family once you've been in the choir everybody
sort of takes you in like your family and I don't say I'm acquire any more unless it but how many years did you sing I would probably join the choir this not the firt I wasn't one of the first but I was within the first year now what year was that well the choir just had their 60th and seriously he just has what it I'm just 60th anniversary so I must have been in the choir for 50 some odd years and what do you mean by family taking you in are you talking about when you would get sick and well yeah that and when we
got together it wasn't like we were strangers something we weren't just singing together we did a lot of things together we had some wonderful trip and we had some wonderful choir director Sam Adler started our choir and Simon Sargon was with us many years and we were just considered ourselves mr. falker if you know the worst yes it's not enough i give it that's a wonderful feeling did you you said that you got to go along I didn't sing in the choir but Miriam was kind enough and to include Debbie and me on several of their trips one to Europe with the choir and one wants to Washington and the third one was who went to Washington the wit of the year the holocaust museum open they're so so and I was always in Europe especially I was always so proud to be able to sit in the audience then hear this magnificent choir internationally known quad from Dallas and Here I am sitting in the audience listening to him that is pretty turnt exciting it really was just we needed you in the audience we did I always have such a big on yes but Debbie an hour we're always there with them and that is a wonderful feeling to have that that was your club that would ya mm-hmm that's very interesting I don't know if anybody's ever spoken about that before well thank you so much both of you well we advise you if you're out doing us a warning yes to do it thank you it's a pleasure you