Janet Hershman
Janet Hershman was born in Dallas in 1934 into a large, close-knit family with deep local roots. Her mother, whose maiden name was Yanik, was born in Dallas, as were Janet, her children, and her grandchildren, making them a four-generation Dallas family. Her father was a lawyer who served on the Dallas City Council at the time the city agreed to build Central Expressway and develop Fair Park, and his name appears at the main entrance to Fair Park and on several buildings. She grew up first in South Dallas and then in East Dallas on Tokalon Drive, with a sister named Paula and beloved aunts who were like second mothers. She recalled long Passover seders at her uncle's house, listening to radio programs, and childhood summers shaped by the polio epidemic.
Janet attended Lipscomb grade school, J.L. Long Junior High, and Woodrow Wilson High School, where she was one of only a handful of Jewish students but never felt anti-Semitism. Active in the senior play, the newspaper, and the annual staff during the week, she spent weekends with her Jewish friends riding the trolley downtown to theaters like the Palace and Majestic and visiting Neiman Marcus. She attended the University of Texas for two years, pledging a sorority, before transferring with friends to Northwestern University near Chicago. The summer before transferring she was set up on a memorable blind date, complete with a playful switch, with Sunny, who was from San Antonio. They married when she was eighteen, and she left college to settle in Dallas.
In Dallas, Janet and Sunny, who worked in real estate and once ran a lumber yard, raised three children: Michael, Susan, and Lori, and enjoyed seven grandchildren. Janet worked in retail at a linen and gift shop, ran a candy and dried fruit store called The Nutcracker with Sunny, and later worked at Neiman Marcus before spending more than two decades as a recruiter and staffing coordinator. She joined the Council of Jewish Women after marrying and served on many boards, including Jewish Family Service and the Visiting Nurse Association. The work she treasured most was the Panel of American Women, founded around the time of school integration, where panelists of different faiths and backgrounds shared their stories to ease integration. Above all, she valued lifelong friendships and hoped her family would stay close and give back to the community.
Full Transcript
tell us a little bit about your involvement with the Jewish Community well when I was still in high school I in the summer I would go to uh the thrift shop that was sponsored by the Council of Jewish Women and I would work there in the summertime and I mean you know volunteered in the summertime then when I got married I joined the Council of Jewish Women and through the years I was vice president of different things and I through them I was on the Visiting Nurse Association board and a lot of different boards but the thing that I loved most and got the most
out of was the panel of American women Carolyn tobian started it around the time of integration when the schools were becoming integrated and there was a moderator there was a Catholic a Jew a Mexican Aman an Anglo I think that's all and we went and talked to tons of organizations and people telling our stories and trying to ease the integration and I don't know that we did but I got so much out of it I I learned so much from my co-panelist in fact one day I had one of them over for lunch and I made her a sandwich I said now do you want
Fritos or potato chips she says I want Fritos but I like potato chips too I we're so conscious of everything you know we didn't want to have any bad feelings toward anybody and I was on Jewish Family Service Board and several different things what made you feel best about all your service in the Jewish Community was there a particular project that you worked on that you really enjoyed well I said like the panel of American women I love that particularly but I liked all of it I liked the idea of you know contributing to the community I was at one time the young younger set
chairman and uh I like that I didn't like asking people for money but I I liked being active in the Federation all right Janet 1934 Dallas Texas let's go back talk to me about when you were a little girl what do you remember I remember living uh in South Dallas and then we moved to East Dallas to tokalon drive which some people say is the prettiest Street in Dallas but we moved there so there weren't a lot of Jews there uh but I went to all through school there lipsum grade school J Long Junior High and woodro Wilson High School and recently my grandson had
a tournament a basketball tournament woodro and so I went back to see it and my school is just beautiful and they've added on and my grandson says to me m said show me where your home room was I said said I don't couldn't show you that I don't remember that but I can sing all the words to the alma mater and the fight song If you want to hear it but he declined he declined that anyway we was it was a much smaller town we had close friends that lived in South Dallas and then they began the move to Highland Park and further north but
we lived in Lakewood in my class in high school there were five other Jews that was it and maybe five more in the whole high school but I never noticed any anti-Semitism at all the only thing I do remember and I don't know why because I was very young was in swing swinging next to a girl in grade school and she said to me you're Jewish aren't you and I said yes I am she said but you don't look like the Jewish Family that lives next door to me and I said why should I they're not relatives of mine and I still remember that what
did your parents do my daddy was a lawyer and when I was born in 1934 he was on the city council the Dallas City Council and he was one of the ones that at that time they agreed to do Central Expressway and also Fair Park his name is on the the main entrance to Fair Park and in many of the buildings there because he was on the city council at that time and so they put all the council members names up now back at this time which was going backways and they're thinking about Central Expressway which you know today we all know it's like a
just a major Super Highway did they ever talk about how they came up with that or why they figured where to put it you know how all that work I don't know that I just know that they were foresighted and they thought that the city was growing at that time and that they needed a main highway so they they talked about Central Expressway talk to me about your mom a little bit my mother mother was her maid name was Yanik and she was born in Dallas I was born in Dallas my children were born in Dallas and my grandchildren were born in Dallas so we're
four generation Dallas sites right she had three sisters and one brother we were very close family my aunts I had two aunts that never married and uh one that did and they were just like mothers to me also and we were very close um Yanik are a huge family I'm related to a lot of people in Dallas some of whom I don't even know but a a lot of people and I remember saders at my uncle's house that went on forever they seem interminable you know and I would sleep on the couch sit down on the couch and rest while they went on and usually
for Passover it's around the time of chickenpox and measles so usually one of us had it at Passover it's a large family and we're very close family now did your folks ever talk to you about the depression and how it might have affected them no they really didn't I remember my daddy had a picture taken he was just starting out in law practice and he had a picture of himself at a desk his desk and he put all these law books on so that he would look busy but I know it was very difficult for them yeah I remember that was your dad in the
service at all no okay your grandp parents mhm do you remember them I they were both all my grandparents except my daddy's mother were not alive when I was born she was the only one that I knew and she lived to be 102 was she here she lived in Dallas then she went to a Oklahoma where her daughter lived and then she came back to Dallas to Golden Acres where she uh lived till she passed away what were the things that you and your friends and uh your sisters do for fun when you were little well my sister was Paula didn't have television but we
had radio and I can remember listening to Dr IQ and the shadow and and Stella Dallas and all of those that's what we did and and we did go to movies uh we the families did a lot of visiting on Sunday afternoons which you don't have that anymore you know they'd come and visit and you'd talk and serve tea or whatever right but I remember one year when the polio epidemic was so bad and all the swimming pools were closed and we we couldn't go swimming and that was long before people had these M mansions with pools private pools you know you went to a
club Columbian Club or some pool and we couldn't go swimming and we couldn't go to movies because we were all afraid of the polio and that was before the shot and we used to somehow or other we managed we played at home and and Jacks and dolls and all that kind of stuff and we managed now when you were a young girl World War II broke out do you remember remember any of that no no I don't I was young very young for World War II um I remember when President Roosevelt died I remember hearing that it was on the radio you remember how that
affected you at all it affected me for some reason or other I was think I was eight or nine years old I wasn't very old but I had written him a letter and I had asked him why he didn't have any at that time we called him Negroes in his cabinet and I don't know why I was 9 years old I was worried about that already but that and uh he didn't answer me but I always had this real admiration for Roosevelt until in his later life I heard other things about him not being kind of being anti-semitic I don't know if that's true or
not but I did admire him so at a small age you were you were worried about everybody being equal I guess I was yeah well good for you done that all my life talk to me about high school life what was that like for for you it was great it was a wonderful time I loved high school I had two sets of friends I had my non-jewish friends in high school and my Jewish friends outside of high school so during the week I was involved in school activities I was uh in the senior play I was uh editor of the newspaper I was on the
annual staff you know I did all that stuff but on the weekends I was with my Jewish friends and we would take the bus or the trolley downtown and go to the movie at The Palace Theater or the Majestic and go to Nan's and look around and and we had a wonderful time yeah you know when you're mentioning some of these historical places here in Dallas the Majestic Theater of course nean Marcus how how has Dallas changed in your mind over the years oh my gosh it's gotten so much bigger of course and stretched out and there's so much going on traffic is terrible and
it doesn't matter what time of the day or night you're on Central it's busy and the towway is busy and but that's progress so now you know when you're you mentioned Central Expressway and of course your dad was very involved with starting starting Central Expressway when you're on that Highway and you're you're sitting there in gridlock you ever think about your dad at that moment no I don't no after high school now on college or yes After High School my daddy was a graduate of Texas University M and he told me when I graduated that I could go to any school I wanted to As
Long As I went to the University of Texas so I went to the University of Texas for two years my first two years okay I pledged A5 my sister had been an A5 she was at four years like I said older than I was but in our after the end of our sophomore year I don't know if you've ever heard of the sophomore shelf or not we felt like we were on on the sophomore shelf and and what exactly is that that is the boys now are starting more interested in the Freshman than they are in what we would have been a junior so gotcha
so we decided Pauline graier which Pauline Pierce and Shirley shamam who was my roommate at Texas we decided to transfer to Northwestern all right these are friends of yours those were my friends yeah and we transferred to Northwestern in Evon okay suburb of Chicago and where how did you pick that school out of the we just heard about it and we decided we'd like some cold weather for a change and we we all transferred up there but the summer before we transferred I met my husband and Pauline graier Pauline Pierce and I are two days apart our mother her mother met my mother she was
the first woman she met here in Dallas so they were in the hospital together so we kind of grew up together and when we were about 11 we got to be very good friends when we were 17 uh she was dating David sakur and he was from San Antonio and my husband Sunny is from San Antonio so they fixed us up on a date but we thought it would be fun since it was a blind date and sunny didn't know me when he called me to make the date I asked him how tall he was and he said oh I'm about 5' five or six
I said oh that's too bad because I'm 5' 7 in my flats and I always wear high heels and I don't know what made me do that cuz I'm not a practical joker but anyway so we decided that Pauling would be me and I would be Pauline and we let David in on this secret so he they picked us up at Pauline's house and Aunt Regina and unle that's her parents were they're not really my relatives but we called them that they were sitting in the living room when Sunny came in and I went to the door David greeted me as if I were his
date and we went and sat down in the living room and then in stalks Pauline in her high heel shoes and sunny rose up and his eyes hit hit hit her right about in her bosom and it was hysterical it was all we could do to keep from laughing so when we went to get in the car David was driving and I said um I have to sit in the back seat because I get car sick so of course Sunny had to sit in the backseat with me and then we told him that I who I was I think he was very disappointed I think
he he was very interested in Pauling anyway we started dating and um when I went away to Northwestern he asked he said to me do you realize this could be serious and I really hadn't but I was 18 years old but in those days you we married young I went away for a quarter and I came home and got married yeah yeah so I didn't finish okay you didn't finish and then where did you guys settle Dallas he owned a duplex on fitu and we we we settled there okay and what what business did son he's a real in the real estate business he had
a lumber yard at first with his brother-in-law they did building but they also bought you know property then I started to work I um worked at padil Fair which was a linen and gift shop in North Park and I loved it it was like going to a party every day because they had beautiful tablecloths and dishes and all that kind of stuff and I loved that but then we went to New York one year and we saw this place on the corner of Times Square that was a little candy store that had fruit dried fruit and candy and nuts and we decided that we would
open that store in Dallas Texas we did not take into the reality that we were not on Time Square so we first opened it was called The Nutcracker site s we t and we had candy and nuts and dried fruits and I would go to the different gift shows and buy containers to put the candy in and and we made fudge and it was just wonderful but we couldn't make it about that time the economy took a nose dive and people weren't buying $20 a pound candy and we were in business a couple of years but then we couldn't make it so we closed and
then I went to work for the in circle at demons for a little bit and now I'm still working at the uh impr premise I've been there 24 years this summer I'm a recruiter and a staffing coordinator there wow and I love what I do what's the happiest time in your life probably College was because I was on my own I could you know away from home I could more or less do what I wanted when I wanted and I loved my I loved it loved the people I was around and had a great time mhm now in your lifetime there's been so many momentous
occasions on the national scene of course you know you were a young child during World War II Kennedy assassination here in Dallas the moon landing in ' 69 Martin Luther King assassination um trasy of 911 was there something that really affected you they all affected me I remember when Ken D was assassinated I was at the beauty parlor and they had the TV on and we saw him and then by the time I got home he was dead and we went to school and got the kids out of school because we didn't know what was happening we didn't know if it was a single occasion
or what was going on and all week we were glued to the TV set and it just you know the picture was in our mind forever yeah um as far as landing on the moon we were in Santa Monica at the dell carada and we watched that and it was very moving very historical we loved it yeah um the Martin Luther King I mean all of those things just play a really big part in your life and you never forget it you never forget where you were when you heard about it and what you did when you heard about it and 911 I was at
work and we watched the two planes and we couldn't believe it it was just horrifying just horrifying yeah yeah recently we took our 13-year-old grandson for his bar mitzvah to New York for bar mitz foret and we went to the 9/11 and he was just as engrossed in it as we were it just a wonderful tribute to the to the people that died yeah now your husband a but everybody calls him Sunny um you have three kids together right seven grandkids right no great- grandkids yet no but but soon I hope so hang in there they got to get married first okay okay my oldest
child is Michael hman and he's married to Terry Herman and he has three children Margot uh Jake and Eric my second middle child is Susan zetley married to Steve zetley she has Corey and Jennifer and my baby is lri Judson married to David and she has Julie and Scotty was our first Grand kid child was Julie Judson and we waited a long time for her everybody else was my friends their grandchildren were graduating high school and college and I just had my first grandchild so when she first began to talk for some reason or other she she knew we were grandma and grandpa but she
reversed it so it was paga and Maga and then she went through a time where she put a t on the end of everything so we became magot and Paget and that's what they all call us that's my family what advice does Grandma want to leave to the Next Generation to me it's very important to have friends and I have some very good friends I have one friend that I started first grade with and then I have have friends that I've been all through school with and 40 50 years 60 years probably we've been friends and I think it's very important to have friends uh
I think they're as closest relatives really some sister some like sisters and things you can talk to and they're always there no matter what goes wrong or what's good they're always there and I think it's important and I hope my children have those kind of friendships that they can enjoy and rely on the thing I wanted most in my life was for my children to be close because you can have lots of friends but there's only one family and I want them to um to be good parents to be good contributors to the community and to Remember to Remember Me and uh you know maybe
remember some of the things that I did and maybe that they would want to carry on it well you did a great job today thanks for doing this thank you for having me