Jack Greenberg
Jack Greenberg was born in 1927 in Iowa City and grew up largely in Fort Dodge, Iowa, a town of about 30,000 that felt the hardships of the Depression. His father and several uncles worked for a chain of women's ready-to-wear clothing stores, and his mother helped in the store as well. He recalled Saturdays spent at the library and the movie theater, and the small but close Jewish community of roughly 45 families who often gathered for late dinners after the stores closed. His maternal grandparents came from Lithuania, and his paternal grandmother, an enterprising woman who later ran three furniture stores, came from Austria. In time his father bought his own store, and the family moved to Iowa City and then to Alton, Illinois, where Jack was one of only five Jewish students in his high school.
After high school Jack returned to the University of Iowa for three years, then studied retailing for a year at Washington University in St. Louis. He entered the U.S. Army in December, was stationed at Camp Gordon, Georgia, and trained in radio communications. A severe reaction to a penicillin shot kept him from shipping out to Korea with his unit. After his discharge in 1953, drawn by an aunt and a group of Iowa fraternity brothers who had settled in Dallas, Jack decided to leave the cold northern states behind and made Dallas his home.
In Dallas Jack first worked for Neiman Marcus in its junior executive program while selling women's shoes, an experience during which he was troubled by the segregation he encountered. When his family relocated south, they opened a store in Preston Center specializing in clothing for larger women, which they ran for about 18 years before selling. He then joined his wife's family business, the Charles Curtain Company, a home furnishings manufacturer, where he worked for 32 years until competition from overseas closed it. Jack and Carol, whom he met at a memorable New Year's party featuring a young Trini Lopez, raised three children and had seven grandchildren. A longtime temple member, he watched the Dallas Jewish community grow immensely over the decades.
Full Transcript
check 1927 Iowa City It's Going Back Time what do you remember when you were a little kid I don't remember too much about uh we had moved to Fort Dodge Iowa uh I didn't know what the the Depression was but I remember uh this was a town of about 29 30,000 and uh there were approximately 85% vacancies in the downtown area uh my dad was working for my dad and all my uncles were working for a chain store group of women's ready wear stores and uh I remember my mother worked to the store also to help him and on Saturdays I would uh come to
the store and then they Dro me over to the library and I pick up about five to six books go back to the store and I'd read for a couple hours and then they would uh send me down to one of the theaters where they had two features and five Cals for like 20 cents and a a bag of popcorn was a nickel I'd spend the early evening there and then I'd come back to the store and uh there were quite a few Jewish families in the small town about 45 families and in short D yes and uh after the the stores would stay open
till the last C the last farmer left and um then about uh a dozen or so of the Jewish families they'd get together and they go to One restaurant and they'd eat dinner late like 9:30 in the evening 10:00 anyway uh uh we you know growing up in the depression we didn't know uh not to have something you you uh played with a piece of chalk marbles uh whatever it was a it was a different thing we didn't have television we didn't have uh uh all the things the kids have now the U the computers the tablets and all right so when you when you
moved to Fort Dodge was it because the Depression hit your family and no my father was with this chain store and he was transferred to transferred okay yes and we lived there for about 11 or 12 years uh I think I went from kindergarten through the sixth grade and at that that time he bought his own store and uh three or four of my uncles they all had gone in business for themselves they helped each other that was the I think the family way then uh you would help someone get started and um we uh we went back to Iowa City and we lived there
for quite a few years and uh he had lost a lease on a store and then bought one in Alton Illinois where I went to high school and I was one of five Jewish kids in the whole High School uh happened to be pretty active uh played a couple years of basketball on the team but uh uh you sort of mailed in were you excited about that or was that a tough move for you that was a tough move yeah because as a kid you get sort of grounded you have friends that uh you've made and uh you're happy and here you got to pull
up roots and I guess it's similar to uh someone who's been working with I in uh it's like I've been moved in uh every few years you pull up Roots but um uh coming out of the depression uh everyone ended up having their own business then right now talk to me do you remember your grandparents at all yes quite vividly um my uh maternal grandfather and grandmother I believe were from Lithuania vilda and um uh sorry to say my my grand maternal grandfather was sort of a miserable human being he was suffering from uh rheumatism or arthritis and uh never was a happy person we
would come down to St Louis to visit during the summer and uh uh I can remember he uh always was telling my dad how to correct me or punish me uh my uh grandmother on my uh dad's my dad's uh mother she was from Austria and she married a gentleman by the name of Jacob Greenberg and um I don't know where he was from I presume Austria also they had three children my dad Lou uh a brother Harry and a sister Ida and for many many years well first of all they lost their dad I guess when my dad was about six or seven and
for many years uh we thought she remarried another man by the name of Greenberg all the cousins had told me I was one of the youngest of the group so when Carol and I were married we went up to St Louis to visit the family and we're having lunch one day at my aunt's house and on the clear blue I make this statement how unusual it is for a woman to marry two men by the name of Greenberg and she looked at me as if I was out of my gourd and she said where did you get that idea and I said all the cousins
had told me that that's the way it was and she said no she met this man by the name of Abraham krupnik and she said I've got three kids you want to marry me you change your name to Greenberg and he did wow so anyway uh they had good for her they raised the three kids but they also had one after that so uh anyway uh there's another story that goes along with it my dad uh was living in Long View Texas when he was 8 years of age and uh we never knew why well a uh I guess You' call it a short-tail relative
put together a history uh my grandmother's maiden name was wasac crug and uh he did a history of the r was krugs going back to the early 1800s seemed that she had a brother that lived in Long View and when she lost her first husband she moved to Long View to be close to a member of the family but she did end up going back to St Louis and uh as a after she lost her second husband she did have three furniture stores which she ran she was quite an enterprising powerful woman wow that is that is amazing did your grandparents did you ever hear
why they came to the United States um get away from the uh pression in Europe uh vill was not the greatest thing in place in the world to live and uh I think Austria was very uh Germanic at the time um they uh they ended up coming in through New York Ellis Island and so many but uh St Louis was one of the major stopping off places and they both both grandparents ended up there uh a very interesting thing took place at our wedding Carol's Aunt the oldest one Celia and my dad sat down together and they discovered they were in kindergarten at the Jefferson
School in St Louis when they were 5 years of age they had never seen each other since since then that's that's amazing now you say St Louis was a major drop off point yes why why was that with New York Chicago I mean how did St Louis get into that picture uh I don't know it was a a mertil center at the time I think um I don't know why but uh became a center yes well after After High School um did you go to college then yes I returned to the University of Iowa at Iowa City and uh attended the university uh interesting thing
when U I left school I uh I did three years there then I did a year at Washington you in St Louis in the school of retailing then I went into Korea and I came here for a cousin's wedding I had an aunt living here and I said I just don't want to go back living 100 miles south of Minnesota border or uh the cold States well it was like a an whole Iowa group moved here there was a Dr Coleman Jacobson I was fraternity brother of Mel ceski um will fredman Herby Holland uh there were a whole bunch of us that were fraternity brothers
and we ended up here what what year was this that you graduated uh 1950 did you go to work or did you go into the service 1950 to 53 I was in service I was stationed in Camp Gordon Georgia uh 3 months I went to school at Fort Ben Harrison in Indianapolis and back to the same office in uh uh Camp Gordon uh I happen to have been one of the early ones to go in I think Korea broke out in July and I went in in December I was was pre- inducted uh shores of uh Fort Sheridan Illinois in December it was freezing cold
and uh there was an office clerk he was wearing both a Jewish star and a Christopher metal and he was interviewing me and I said I don't understand this and he said well my parents were Christians and they were killed in automile accident and a Jewish Family raised me so we got acquainted and he said uh where would you like to go for basic training I said anywhere South don't send me right right anywhere North so I ended up in Georgia thanks to him wow interesting now did you ever have to go to Korea no I never got out of the state of Georgia okay
so what what were they training you for anything specific uh when I first went in and after basic training I was in a uh radio uh communication outfit called an anre 5 where the radio is on the back of like a half-rack truck well we had uh gotten our notice that we were going to Korea I came down with something and I went to the infirmary and they gave me a penicillin shot I broke out from my chin to my ankles like I had the measles and I went in the infirmary for like four or 5 days and the outfit went up to Fort Monmouth
New Jersey special training and then overseas I never they never shipped me back to it oh wow so pen you had a reaction to penicillin yes and that kept you out of Korea H now the war comes to an end do you leave the service uh I was discharged uh in 53 and I went back to Iowa and uh I told my family I didn't didn't want to stay here any longer and uh as I had come to Dallas and liked it very much I drove down here about two or three times and finally uh family said well why don't you get a job and
uh we don't want to stay up here either we're going to start looking for a business location in Dallas so I went to work for neans and um that was an interesting thing uh I was in the junior executive program but I was selling shoes at the same women's shoes and uh I came from a state where it was pretty well integrated at the time not integrated but not as bad as Dallas I was there about 3 4 weeks and a black lady comes in she wants to try on a pair of shoes and I bring them out and the manager of the department says
you have to take her in the back in the stop room you can't show shoes on the floor and I was I would say I was in shock I didn't know whether I'd drop the shoes and walk out or just comply with it which I did but how they make you feel miserable yeah yeah miserable for her uh did she say anything to you no at that time um nothing had taken place in Mississippi as far as the race deal uh was concerned but uh I felt miserable I felt like I was the lowest human being on earth when do you think it started getting
better in Dallas well I think after the um the Little Rock incident I think that uh once things uh transpired well the Mississippi incidents that took place um I remember that they didn't even have kind kindergarten in the schools here when I moved here here and I thought gee how far behind when my dad was 79 when he moved here and he hadd gone to karten in St Louis the school system was really a mess hasn't improved a lot as far as the the Dallas Independent School System is concerned um when you met Carol now tell me about that meeting well that was interesting um
I had a cousin we were very close about he was N9 months younger and we piled around together and through him when I moved here I met quite a few friends I I was networking and uh there were approximately 8 to 10 of us that decided one evening we didn't have any place to go for New years's and one of the gentlemen uh had a listing on a house and it had about six bedrooms in it and it was a huge place and been on the market for a year and a half and no one had been interested in so he volunteered the house and
each one took a different thing some of it took care of the catering someone took and uh I was the one that was elected to do get the entertainment and um we interviewed several groups and there was a uh quart a group Trio quartet whatever uh that came down from University of North Texas and we listened to them they said gee they're really good and uh we said well what's the price for New Year's Eve and they said $100 so we hired them and that was try Lopez in his group and it was a fantastic evening um Carol was with another gentleman that evening and
uh he lost out now were you still working for neans at the time um no my family had moved down here and we opened up a store in what's known as Preston Center it was a uh company that uh we specialized in clothing for large women MH what they call large and half size there was uh one competitor here in town and after approximately 18 years they wanted to buy us out so we sold out at that time and um we had not really taken real vacation quite a while while so we had uh the three kids and we went to Hawaii and when I
came back I went to work for her family uh her dad and mom wanted to travel a lot and they needed another person in there so I worked there for 32 years and what was that company it was known as Charles curtain company uh they made Home Furnishings we uh we made about 800 uh bed spreads a day 1, 1400 per drapes a day and um I retired approximately 15 years ago uh I retired from there I've done several different things since then approximately 2008 2009 uh China just put them out of business uh we were I say we they were getting finished unfinished goods
from the Far East and uh turkey and finally China started going directly to the stores we selling the chain stores how have you seen the Jewish Community change over the years in Dallas uh I've seen it grow immensely uh our Temple when I came here had two rabbis uh Rabbi Levi Olen who was a a tower and Gerald Quin now they have six rabbis uh the uh membership was probably a little more than it was at that time I think there's 2800 families but there have been multitude of uh different uh congregations spring up around us some of the rabbis are uh into various different
Civic things uh Olan was on the board of regen of the University of Texas uh very highly respected I think um I think we have some rabbis in the community that are in that same category now in your lifetime there's been so many momentous occasions of course you know you lived through World War II you were in the service during the Korean War uh Kennedy assassination here in Dallas the moon landing in' 69 of course 911 is there something that really stood out that affected you I remember as a kid I had an infection uh I had a strep throat and the only thing they
had to give me was a sulfa drug and I look back at the advances in s but I said myself wow what the computer what the the semiconductor the the whole Hightech world has done for us it's been amazing yeah we live through a pretty good time this generation we've seen a lot of change from uh is there one invention that you thought was the the best one that you've seen cuz you you've lived through such progress I like the computer alone has been what it's done for the medical profession must have done for everything it's now you have three kids and seven grandkids what
advice does Grandpa have for those kids go out in the yard lay down look at the sun enjoy life but in everything you do do the very best you can then you'll have no regrets expose yourself to everything and anything that you may have been an interested in Jack you did a great job thank thank you thanks for doing this today