Janine Pulman
Janine was born in 1951 in St. Louis, Missouri, where she grew up as an athletic, happy-go-lucky child who loved being active and involved. Her father, Hillard Young, served in the Navy and was stationed in Hawaii after the attack on Pearl Harbor, later working for many years as an optometrist through the Famous-Barr department stores. Her mother worked until her children were born and then became a stay-at-home mom who was very involved in the Jewish community, including Pioneer Women and the temple Sisterhood, as well as in her daughters' school and Girl Scout activities. Her grandparents came from Europe and Russia, and her mother's mother was the glue of a large, close family known for feeding twenty or more relatives at weekly and holiday gatherings. Janine attended Ladue Horton Watkins High School, known as Ladue, where she was a cheerleader and active in student council.
Janine attended the University of Texas at Austin, where she met Charles, whom she married in June of 1973. The couple lived in Houston for a couple of years while both attended the University of Houston, then spent a year in New York while Charles earned a master's in tax law. When Charles was offered a job in Dallas, they settled there. Janine, who had studied education and special education, began teaching, encountering some frustration when certification requirements and course transfers between universities proved complicated. She and Charles raised two daughters, both now married, and Janine credits Charles's aunt, related by marriage, with helping bring the two of them together.
Janine's community involvement began in 1980, after her daughter was born, when she sought more in life and was referred by the Federation to Jewish Family Service, where she started volunteering. She was also active with Hadassah, ORT, and the National Council of Jewish Women. In 1990 she joined the JFS staff to help with the Russian resettlement program, matching Dallas Jewish volunteers with refugees from the former Soviet Union and helping families acculturate, an experience she found phenomenal and kept up with some of the families for years. She started the New American News newsletter, co-coordinated the food pantry, and helped create Mitzvah Central with Barbara Schwarz, the Centerpieces for Tzedakah fundraiser, and the Gerald Klein summer internship program honoring Rabbi Klein. She retired the year before the interview, guided always by treating people with respect.
Full Transcript
Janine tell us about your involvement with the Jewish Community I started uh back in 1980 when my daughter was born and I decided there needed to be more in life than just diapers so I went to the Federation who referred me to Jewish Family Service and I met with sus Who was the coordinator of volunteers then and I started volunteering for Jewish Family Service in January of 1980 in addition to that I was um a member of hadassa a member of ort on the boards um National Council of Jewish Women and uh over the years I took active roles up until 1990 when I went
into um employment with Jewish Family Service because of the Russian resettlement program coming in right tell us about that it was an opportunity for us to bring people over from the former Soviet Union and give them the freedom and the religious freedom that they had hoped to gain mostly it was um for their children the goal for the most of the families was for their children not to have the struggles that they had and by and large it was a success from that perspective religiously I think the Dallas community may not feel as if it was successful religiously but this is a group of people
who knew they were Jewish and weren't really comfortable with religion but they knew that Judaism was their life for the most part that was important to them now you're helping these people come from a foreign land right um how was the satisfaction for you for me it was phenomenal I loved it my role was was to help match um Dallas Jewish volunteers with refugees who are here and so I got to learn firsthand a lot of the issues dealing with resettlement I got to work with the families the Russian families as well as the American families in the process of getting people acculturated right now
did you ever keep up with any of the families as they became members of the community there was one family in particular we kept up with they are still here I just had lunched with the daughter who at the time was eight with and so we had lunch with her and her baby so yes we've kept up I see people on and off my daughter is going to one of the weddings in Houston of one of the girls that was resettled here in Dallas um I will see people in the grocery store throughout the community um it's great a lot of a lot of people
are still active and still involved and they look at me and they'll say Juka that which that was their word for Jewish Family Service it was very satisfying over the years how have you seen the services in the community grow aside from the fact that the JW Jewish population has grown um Services especially from Jewish Family Service um grew to meet the needs of the community whether it was in counseling whether it was in career and employment whether it was in volunteer programming whether it was for the elderly um we just did what we needed to to serve the community we were not always an
end to all means we couldn't do everything for everyone right but we did we were out there trying to figure out what was needed and we did working at Jewish Family Service was um my life I identified with Jewish Family Service people identified me with Jewish Family Service and there were several things that I felt that um I initiated I was trained by sus my the woman who held the position before me and she was a wonderful role model and mentor and um going into it my experience with the resettlement program was phenomenal as I said earlier and it helped I my role was a
I was a conduit to facilitate people to feel good about themselves so that they could find a volunteer role that they liked they were comfortable with and they were proud of doing and I helped facilitate that um but as part of what I did I started a newsletter for the new Americans we called it the new American news and we would use the newsletter to help with the culturation issues it would be translated into Russian and so I initiated that um and then when I um at another point in time I shared with Jean Sturman the role of coordinating the food pantry at Jewish Family
Service and that was also an interesting eye-opening experience that helped me understand more about poverty um and I found that over the years I would use my a lot of my philosophy in life very much matched the agencies and at one point I'm not sure if it was my philosophy or the agency's philosophy and I imposed it on the agency but um treat how to treat people and how to give them respect was something that I knew from the beginning the agency said was number one and that was important to me and I work very hard with volunteers trying to help them understand and manage
themselves in a way so that the client was respected uh regardless of the type of volunteer position and then I can't remember the exact year but in the late '90s we began a new newsletter uh called Mitzvah Central for families because there was a trend in volunteerism that kids needed to do mitz for their schools first it was Sunday school and then later the public schools came into it and so Barbara Schwarz and I developed Mitzvah Central which was a newsletter of listings of volunteer opportunities out in the community and it started I think with three page and when I left last year it was
at 85 89 90 pages and just phenomenal you know opportunities out there for people um I started a fundraising program in for the food pantry at the agency we called it centerpieces for Sedaka and it was a program that other Jewish Family Services had utilized uh which was decorated baskets kids could use them for their Bar Mitzvah we used them in weddings we used them in Gayla luncheons so we utilized that and we started that and it was a wonderful fundraiser for many many years um Cheryl Bogan came to JFS with a project and she wanted us to be able to develop internships for kids
and we started the Gerald Klein summer internship program in memory of Rabbi Klein and honoring his memory he loved having kids being able to get ahead and being able to get an have an advantage and so I developed the program based on a program that was done in Houston and we started that program for summer internships for student high school students not college students but high school students and um that has grown as well so I there were quite a few things that I felt very proud of okay let's go back to the beginning now okay St Louis Missouri 19 1951 what do you remember
when you were a little girl I was very athletic I was silly um I loved just having a good time and and being act active I hated going to school I I didn't want that separation um but once I got to school I just I enjoyed being there I was an okay student I wasn't a wonderful student did better later on um but I was I was a happy go-lucky kid yeah yeah I know that when I was probably in third grade my mother was asked to um go do the neighborhood drive for March of Dimes I'm not exactly sure she did it for several
different organizations and so she would send me and so I was that was my first job soliciting and I used to go up to people and say but Mrs so and so would gave me 50 cents you need to increase it and um word got back to my mother and I found out that wasn't what I was supposed to do but I think looking back it was smart yeah but it was fun I had a good time um what did your dad do my father was an optometrist and he uh worked in through the famous andar department stores which is now Macy's uh but he
um he was an optometrist for all for many many years and his name was Hillard young and I say that only because um at one point in time I think I must have been married and had kids already there was an obituary in the paper for a Hillard young and we thought there couldn't be another Hillard young and by that same token there was another Janine young and me being Janine young I was at work a couple years back and I get a phone call from a girl who said which I couldn't hear her very well but she said Janine uh this is she did
say this is Janine young and I said yes this is Janine young and our phone conversation was a little bit crazy because I didn't think there would ever be another Janine young but in fact she was Jewish she is Janine young and she was in Dallas and married a Dallas man and um informed me there's another Janine young in Indiana so how bizarre is that I grew up never having anyone by my name yeah so was different for me now was your dad in the service during World War I father was in the Navy was he in World War II yes where where was he
stationed he was stationed in Hawaii after the attack after okay after the attack did he have any uh stories from from the war that he shared with you my parents both died last year and so I was going through a lot of their uh paperwork I found my father's diary and he was stationed in St Louis before he left for Hawaii and and that's where he met my mother my father is from Cincinnati and um got to know my father in a different way you know through his diary I am putting a website together of all my parents my family stuff so all of the
kids and the grandkids will have access to it the pictures the stories um it's going back to my grandmother's recipes I got pictures I mean it's a huge project good but that's what I'm doing um and at some point in time I will probably my sister and I will start writing stories down um but at this point it's not there yet there isn't anything specific he was a pharmacy mate Pharmacy First Class whatever it was that medically that he helped with remember your grandparents at all I do tell me about your grandparents my mother's parents um were from Europe and my grandmother was the glue
in the family uh I guess as many grandparents grandmothers were she was a wonderful Baker a wonderful cook and would have 20 30 40 people for dinner weekly uh especially for the holidays she was always feeding she had many brothers and sisters and she was always feeding them um and the family was always together it was just growing up was a lot of togetherness and I can remember when a cousin came to town he was a foreign correspondent with the New York Times and and actually um devised their New York Times first computer which was interesting um but I remember when they came to town
and and the whole family it was like we would just go as a group in Mass wherever and I remember one time as a little girl we used to go for fireworks we'd go to Washington new and I would sit I would stand with um AUM who was my cousin's Nanny and she would hold my ears because I couldn't stand the sound of the fireworks and I was just a very little girl and I remember telling this story to my daughter who at the age she was in her 20s she had already graduated from college and we were just we decided to take a drive
through Washington new campus and walk around and I was shocked at how much smaller the stadium was it was just a small field right and it's a child it was humongous where' you go to high school I went to Leo okay which is also the real name is Horton Watkins but everybody calls it Leo okay um I was a cheerleader in junior high um and I ran for city council I was active very active in volunteering in school student council um very active very involved now after high school was it to worker on the college went to University of Texas at Austin okay and uh
was there for four years graduated met Charles in Austin we started dating um shortly after um I arrived well no it was a year after it was my sophomore year and his junior year um but we tell a funny story and the story is that his aunt is related by marriage to my cousin's husband's family by so it's all by marriage so it's all clean and we met her and the rest of the family on my way to Texas and at that that point in time which was August of 1969 she in informs me of this wonderful nephew she has and I rolled my eyes
appropriately at my mother saved me get me out of this and sure enough didn't find out until a year and may maybe 14 15 months later he was the one so it was she takes a lot of responsibility for putting us together um and uh it was a lot of fun when did you guys get married in June of 73 okay and then where did you settle down I wouldn't say settled but we lived in Houston for a couple of years Charles and I were both in school at the University of Houston um I did graduate work and taught and he did his work at
um u ofh in law school then we lived in New York for a year um while he got his Masters at tax in law okay and then we moved to Dallas did you enjoy the New York experience did I enjoy it uhuh uh it was different yeah it was very different we had a lot I had a lot of fun because it was easy I was working at the law school um Charles was studying and so it wasn't so much fun for him but I got to explore and do a lot of different things and life was a little bit slower then a little bit
easier here um but it was a lot of fun uh it was a great experience that was his first time living outside of the state obviously I had moved from Missouri to Texas so now you know you guys growing up when you were in college it was a turbulent time in the country you know the Vietnam war going on of course many people were hippies did any of that affect you guys I remembered during in um the Kent State the campus went viral I mean it just protests and everything else um of course they didn't use those terms in that in those days I did
not participate I was had a little bit of my father's don't get involved in any of this keep yourself safe um even though I couldn't talk with my mother on the cell phone like they do to like I do with my girls um by the time I did get back to the dorm from wherever I was Where Have You Been what have you been doing I've been seeing all of this on T on television um where were you and I wasn't at the protest um it's not that I didn't support it but I just chose not to be there now when you're in New York
was the plan always to come to Texas no we had no we had no idea um Charles started interviewing and he I he would probably tell you that yes we were coming to Texas but he did set up interviews in Missouri and in in Texas um but he was offered the job in Dallas and decided that was where he should be yeah yeah and it was halfway between the two so now did it take you any time at all to settle in and and get acclimated I can't remember that it was difficult um considering the fact that I'm just the type of person that I
am I just get in and I go and I started working I was teaching um I remember a little bit of frustration because I gradu graduated from UT and in education and special education got a job in uh Carlton Farmers Branch and they informed me that the the guidelines had changed enough that I needed some more certification which astounded me and I went to UTD thinking oh this will be a piece of cake I only needed one course well UTD wouldn't accept me or accept any of my cours work from U UT MH and so it was that was interesting I mean why would that
happen and it was resolved um but and I only had to take two courses but or three courses I don't remember but I just I was astound by that I didn't think that that made sense now we've seen so many advancements in your lifetime usually in the technology field but yet before we started you told me you were the first in your neighborhood to have a television set we were you know and radio everyone had but we were the first ones in the neighborhood with the TV um I think that was the only only thing that we were the first of in the neighborhood I
think now I take back we were the first to get hula hoops hul Hoops were you able to do those absolutely I was athletic in those days I was very athletic yeah we were the first to get a hula hoop my fathers you asked me about my grandparents I didn't tell you about my father's parents my father's parents were also from um Russia and although my grandmother said she was from alas Lorraine and my grandfather owned grocery store um and they compared to my parents parents U they were much more welltoo and so they would get us the goodies and they would buy us TVs
they would get us the hula hoops the first my grandfather always he was wonderful he was sweet he was loving he just wanted us to have what was out there yeah now did your mom did she work or did she home raising you and your sister my mother worked until we were born um and then she stay she was a stay-at-home mom but very active in the Jewish Community with um she was involved with Pioneer Women very involved with the temple Sisterhood um and on the temple board um but very very involved with us at school she was girl out involvement I don't remember if
she was a leader but she was always involved with us she was always driving us wherever we needed to be what was the happiest time in your life I'm not sure what the happiest time I think each each time had its own happiness in many different ways um I loved my elementary school years I thought high school was exciting College was even more exciting getting married was another level of Happiness um you know having kids then seeing them married and getting going on their own so I think each each decade has its own group of happiness I don't know that one was happier than the
other now in your lifetime there's been so many momentous occasions on the national scale um the moon landing in ' 69 of course something good uh the Kennedy assassination I can tell you where I was on both of okay well that that's what I want to ask I was lifeguarding when when they landed on the moon and I remember next to the pool was a bar and um lunch facility a restaurant and we all emptied the pool and just went in and dripping wet and just watched the whole Landing um and watched you know television up to it I was in seventh grade when Kennedy
was shot um you know those things I do remember now you and Charles um have two daughters both married now mhm waiting on grandkids yes what advice are you going to want to leave to the Next Generation Well I think what I told my children was always to have open communication um my parents told us never to go to bed angry and I shared that with them um and I think the thing that that not to be fearful of trying things MH just get out there and do it and not be afraid give back can't just live for yourself and um do what interests you
than thanks for doing this today