Joy Mankoff
Joy Mankoff was raised in West Hartford, Connecticut, in a close and active Jewish family. Her mother was a devoted volunteer, serving as president of the Brandeis women's group in Hartford and of the Mount Sinai Women's Auxiliary, and active in the Federation and the Connecticut Opera. Joy often cited her mother's spontaneous kindness, such as stopping her car to help a blind man cross a busy street, as a formative influence. Her father, whom she described as gentle and sweet, ran a truck distributorship selling Federal trucks and also served the Federation and the opera board. The family celebrated Jewish holidays traditionally, with memorable seders at her grandparents' home. Her grandfather was a well-known caterer. She attended public schools in Hartford and majored in sociology at Connecticut College.
After college, Joy learned speedwriting and moved to New York, where she worked as a secretary at CBS for two and a half years. She met Ron Mankoff in 1955 while on a trip with her family to St. Thomas. After a long, on-and-off courtship spanning about four years, during which Ron served in the Navy and later earned a master's in taxation, the two married. They moved directly to Dallas, drawn by Ron's aunt and uncle, Emma Sue and Jerry Frank, who welcomed them warmly and helped introduce the young couple to a wide circle of friends. The Mankoffs first lived in a furnished apartment and later settled on Colhurst near Preston Road, raising their two sons, Jeff and Doug, in a tight-knit cul-de-sac neighborhood.
Encouraged by her aunt, Joy joined the National Council of Jewish Women, which became her main lifelong activity and trained her for broad community leadership. She rose through many vice presidencies to serve as president, and led or chaired numerous committees and projects, including volunteering at the Fred Douglass school and a national study on daycare. She served as president of Planned Parenthood, the Women's Council of Dallas County, the Dallas Summit, and as founding president of the Women's Issues Network. She also chaired the Area Agency on Aging and served on the citizens police relations board, the opera board, Friends of WRR, and the board of the Women's Museum. The Mankoffs belonged to Temple Emanu-El, where Ron served as president. Joy took great pride in her sons and grandchildren, and considered her mother her greatest role model.
Joy Mankoff was interviewed by Rosalind Benjet on May 16, 2008, for the Dallas Jewish Historical Society. The videographer was Ruth Andres.
Full Transcript
today is May 16 2008 my name is Rosalyn Ben jet we're here for the Dallas Jewish Historical Society to record the oral history of Joy manga today and our videographer is Ruth Andrus joy yeah help me about your family well I'm from West Hartford Connecticut and I had a very wonderful family a very active mother and father my mother was kind of the quintessential volunteer and I learned from her about what one does in life or what one ought to do she was very active in her her Federation and the Opera and she was president of the Brandeis women's group in Hartford and president of
the Mount Sinai Women's Auxiliary so a very active volunteer but I learned from her about helping other people not just from her her volunteer activities but one of my favorite memories of her was driving down a busy street and she was driving and it was much too young at the time to drive and she saw a blind person trying to cross the street and nobody was helping this man and my mother stopped the car practically in the middle of the street didn't say a word to me just got out and helped him across the street excuse me got back into the car and and was
huffing and puffing because nobody was helping him and that was that you know we drove off and that was kind of my mother my father a very gentle sweet man kind of the the peacemaker of the family and he used to describe gentleman friends as a prince of a fellow and really that's what my father was he was a prince of a fellow he was very as I say sweet and gentle but firm when he needed to be he also served on the Federation and they were both active in the on the Opera Board the Connecticut Opera board somewhere your parents also born in Connecticut
um my mother was born in New York City but moved to Hartford when she was one or one and a half and my father was born in Hartford yes and what did your father do for a living when he when you were a child he had a truck distributorship he sold federal trucks which are no more and was busy with that mm-hmm what kind of activities did you have as a child oh gosh well I think normal you know kids stuff went to Sunday school and sneaked out of Sunday school we used to go on Saturday and honestly I feel terrible now but my father
would drive us and it was from West Hartford to Hartford in it 15 or 20 minutes to drive us and and I'd get there and my girlfriends and I would sneak out and go to movie and not exactly a good thing to do but but I still won candle sticks when I was in fourth grade for best improvement in Hebrew not the best Hebrew but just the best improvement but as I say I think it was a very normal childhood you know riding bikes I had I have an older brother he's two years older and I wanted to do everything he did of course so
you know I played baseball tried to play basketball and that wasn't very successful but just had every hat we we did a lot of day camping trips I mean not camping but we would go to national forests and cookout and that was really a big part of my summer memories and or spring or fall whenever the weather was right my father would get some great big stakes and when people ate all that stuff and and we would go drive whether it was half an hour away or an hour away and and he would set up he always had a portable barbecue and we didn't use
the big ones in the park that was too hard but you know they'd they'd have their steak and their chicken and whatever and we would have picnics and that was it was it was kind of a typical New England upbringing and every happy childhood tell us about your experiences in school where did you go to school and Melania interests at that time I went to grammar school in West Hartford of course and we went I went through public school which is a very good they have a very good school district in in Hartford or at least did when I went to school I was a
good student I was very good math student and went on to we had a separate junior high seventh through ninth grade and then high school was 10th through 12th grade and I don't remember studying very hard but I did study and they did well in school and went on to Connecticut College and that too was the whole thing was the whole education I think was pretty normal what did you major in at school I majored in sociology which shortly after was not particularly thrilled about having chosen because I really didn't want to be a social worker at the time and at the time I at
the time I felt that there were very limited possibilities for women I could be a teacher I could be a nurse or I could be a social worker or I could be a flight attendant and I really wasn't going to do any of those things so I do take sociology and at first I used to say I never did anything with it but I really have in my volunteer life I gosh I remember taking a course in crime in college and later I was much later I was on the citizens police Relations Board and after that I remember also doing a paper a research paper
for Annette Strauss when she was running for mayor on crime so I guess I did get to use some of my social social my sociology that I majored in in college and kind of Jewish activities did you mentioned that your parents were involved in some Jewish organizations how did your family celebrate Jewish holidays rather traditionally when my grandparents were alive I remember wonderful satyrs at their home my grandfather was a caterer and my mother liked to say that he was the state's leading caterer and he did do wonderful things he did catering for the for the Governor's Ball with 5,000 people and you know just
a wonderful wonderful recollection for the whole family but we would have dinners at at my grandparents house always with a kid's table which I just loved I have lots of cousins and my mother had six five sisters and one brother so there were lots of kids to celebrate with and a very close family until they passed away then we kind of all went our different ways which was rather sad when part of part of life I guess what interactions did you family have been with the Jewish community in Hartford well through their synagogue and and they were active in their synagogues activities whatever they were
mm-hmm as a matter of fact my parents met at High Holidays when my father was returning to Hartford from from his stint of running the family business for ten years in New Haven Connecticut and he saw my mother was attempting to look older she was 10 or 12 years younger than he and she had her lorne yet and as I say was attempting to look older but anyway they they married they met in the synagogue and were married by rabbi Mara Silverman whose son later served congregation sheriff Israel and whose book is still actively used his Silverman that Silverman he he married he confirmed my
mother he married my parents he certainly confirmed me and my brother and he married Ron and me and so there's a very strong silverman connection as a matter of fact I think his son has still has a congregation in California and I haven't contacted him but I did see him when we were out there once um I did see a picture of him in the Jewish paper out there what happened what did you do out into college oh I went first of all with my wonderful liberal arts education I wanted to get a job somewhere but I had no specialty really not wanting to do
the things I've mentioned before so I took speedriding and then went to New York and got a job at CBS as a secretary and did that for two and a half years and didn't didn't really consider moving in to to have a career in that field it was a fun thing to do and I read a lot of books when I should have been doing something more but I was there as I say for two-and-a-half years and Ron came to town and so our engagement was a good opportunity to leave and move on how did you meet well how long do we have for this
Ron and I met when I was a junior in college I somehow got it into my head that I wanted to go to Puerto Rico in st. Thomas I have no idea why and I couldn't get any of my girlfriends to go so I got my parents to go and when we got to st. Thomas a social hostess introduced me and my family to Ron and that was in 1955 so we were both spitting right away with each other and we had five days there with my parents and then we wrote when when I went back to school that was spring vacation of my junior year and we rode each other and then he came to pick me up to go home for the summer he he was stationed in I forgotten I don't know Georgia South Carolina some some place and he got himself transferred to Newport Rhode Island so that he could be nearer and anyway I remember him picking
me up at school and everyone was all a flutter because they had heard so much about him but we dated for a year not exclusively but we did date for a year and then he wanted to get married and it was I wasn't ready for that and so that was at the end of my senior year we broke up and he finished in the Navy and I went to secretarial school and moved to New York when he was finished in the Navy he he went back to Minneapolis but little did I know that he when when he was still in the Navy he had been
fixed up by a friend of mine in New York and I went when I was looking for a job I went to New York and stayed with that friend he called her to ask her for a date she was off at work and I answered the phone and so that's how he knew where to find me there wasn't any googling in those days and so he wrote me at the end of that summer wrote and sent the letter to the the Barbizon for women which is where I had stayed for several months and believe it or not the letter was forwarded to the correct sublet
that I was in for the summer only and I figured that was fate so we wrote that whole year and he decided to get his master's in taxation when I was as long as I was in New York so we wrote we went together for a year didn't see each other for two years but we wrote during that second year and then he came to New York and got his master's in taxation and we were married at the end of that year so it took four years before we were married and where did he live after you got married we came directly to Dallas he
had been he had an aunt an uncle here Emma sue and Jerry Frank Jerry Frank was his mother's brother and he had been here several times to see them and just always wanted to move to so that's what I'm doing in Dallas Texas where did you live when you first moved to Dallas we lived in an apartment on Frederick square a furnished apartment very little but it was it was as I say furnished and MSU and Jerry came to pick us up at the airport and brought us back to the apartment which they had put their touches in they had hung some of their pictures
put little at the time people smoked ashtrays and and cigarette holders and plants on tables and it was so lived in looking it was just a wonderful thing to come home to right after our honeymoon it was very wonderful she even had cooked dinner and what did you do when you got here well initially settled in Ron took his Texas bar and MSU and Jerry gave a party for us when we first moved here they invited a hundred and thirty-five people between the ages of 20 and 40 so they the people who had been included would call us and invite us to go to the
movies or play bridge or something it was a wonderful introduction and there were a couple of good friends who would call and say well Doris Buckner was one can you shut down so you met lots of people immediately yes yes and at some point my mother had said you know if you want to volunteer sometimes you just have to pick up the phone and call someone so I picked up the phone and I called the opera and I said Here I am I'd like to volunteer and they said oh my goodness this is most unusual thank you very much we'll get back to you and
they never did which was not a good thing I remember telling newbie Genevieve that Mary Jenna fee and she said oh honey don't you know you have to pay to be in the Opera or a member of their body didn't ask to be a member of their board I just thought I would volunteer in some way in any event I did not know at the time that that's what one did with the Opera so MSU decided that I absolutely had to join National Council of Jewish women and I did and the first thing I did with them I think was bake cookies for their meeting
and became very active in that and went on to do was active in Brandeis at the time and it just led to lots of other things NC JW has been my main activity throughout my adult life really because they trained their members to go out into the community and and participate and so I started representing them in certain particular organizations and then for instance they asked me to represent them at the Dallas area agency on aging in there well if that's what it was it was called the Area Agency on Aging and it was through the greater the Community Council of Greater Dallas so I
represented them but then I ended up chairing the Area Agency on Aging and when there were lots of things like that I remember representing them at a deer what was it it had to do with the jail's it was you know what that's my I can't I can't come up with it so let's can you cut that again okay thank you what were your impressions of Dallas when he first moved here oh my I thought it was hot if I my first trip here was at the end of August and Ron had a car that was a convertible and it didn't have a lot of
air-conditioning and I just remember getting off the plane and poor thing he he met me with some wilted roses and then we got into his car and it just was real really hot and well it cooled off I mean you know what what impressed me most about Dallas was that the people were so warm and that it wasn't superficial and it wasn't short-lived they meant it they were so hospitable and so welcoming and the people I met initially are my good friends now many of them and Dallas has been wonderful for us it has been a wonderful community to raise children in and and to
be a part of and that's that's so important mm-hmm let's talk about the children when were they born Jeff was born May 19 1961 and he lives here with my two perfect grandchildren Bradley and Michelle and their wonderful mom Stacy and they are my joy of course and Doug was born in June of 63 and he well fortunately for him unfortunately for us lives in Los Angeles with his three perfect might what with my three perfect grandchildren and Marsha their wonderful mother and fortunately we get to see them a lot in the summer and and they the brothers are quite close and quite determined that
their children grow up with close cousins so they make an effort to do that and it's it's really wonderful well what was the city like then when your children were growing up oh it was a lot simpler and a lot safer and a lot slower I'm still everywhere I go and I still think it's gonna take ten minutes to get wherever I'm going and it doesn't the traffic is is so great here now like it is all over the country it was it was a good place to raise children I must say that the school district was not good at the time compared to what
Ron and I were used to and so we made it a point even though both of us had grown up in public schools we sent our children to private schools they both went to Lamplighter which was a wonderful wonderful school where they still say they hug them in and they hug them out and the children really really grew and and prospered there they they had and they do part Montessori and part whatever is good they they they did a wonderful job at the time and I remember when at one point with Jeff when I they they assessed him and said that he was doing very
well and and I was trying to relate it to the other children it was I was trying to get a sense of how well he was doing and I I worded my questions every way I could to get that information I even said well how well is Jeff doing in comparison to how well the other children are doing but they wanted me to know that Jeff was doing very well for Jeff and that that was what was important and I think that's a wonderful philosophy and they both went on to st. Mark's after that and had a wonderful education there and did you belong to a oh sure we right from the beginning belong to temple Emmanuel and Ron was president became president of temple I wasn't particularly active there but oh I was on the social committee social action committee for a while and I was on the board for a turn and where were you living while children were growing up we lived on coal Hearst which is a block north of Walnut Hill off of Preston Road and it was a cul-de-sac so it was very very safe the kids could go out and and play and they
didn't have very far to go it was Preston Road on one end and they knew they couldn't go across that and then the cul-de-sac and and they couldn't go on to Walnut Hill so it was a very small very warm and tight neighborhood everyone we would have parties in the street and and block parties and and everyone looked out for everyone else's children and it was it was a very lovely lovely place to to raise our children now you served as president of NC JW I did you tell us about that I did well at the time we had a very long chain of command
I mean and and one worked up I was president I was vice president initially of oh I don't know whether it was public affairs first or I never did membership but I can't remember all the vice presidencies that I had but worked into administrative vice president which was executive or first vice president and and became president so but I had two or three vice presidencies before that and and cheered you know most of the committee's bylaws and and just most of the the committees that they had it was a a long long commitment and a joyous one it was it's a wonderful still a wonderful
organization I want you to know I had a meeting here yesterday for share for their endowment fund and and I found that that that that is an organization so beloved by people who are very active in it that when I was president I occasionally called a past president and said would you chair X or would you do why and the answer I always got was oh I'd love to I haven't done anything for Council in a while I'm so glad you called me and that's the kind of attitude that it engendered engenders is that the word yeah it's in any event still you know always
keep in touch and and like to know what they're going what what's going on my daughter not Stacy is on the is on the board and so it's a it's a wonderful organization that does wonderful things in the coming what was a favorite project that you worked on well you know this is a hard one for me I I guess a favorite one was the fred douglas volunteering at the fred douglas school we were the first organization to get into an ISD school to volunteer because for some odd reason there was a superintendent who was very unwelcoming of volunteers and finally the tides turned and
I think he perhaps moved on to other places and we were able to to go in and and oh read to the kids and and tutor and what whatever way we were needed other things I enjoyed we did a study on daycare in Dallas and that became a national very important book for the daycare community windows on daycare that was in 1972 or something like that and we did things like a war on poverty that was a national project which we all participated in locally lots of good programs and projects and what are you working on now right now well I still right now I'm
doing a fun thing that is I'm on the opera board finally gonna need more I've been on it for oh I don't know eight or so eight or nine years and I chair the the Orpheus Legacy Society which is their planned giving their their Planned Giving Program and but right now I'm serving on the search committee for the new general director and that's that's been very interesting and enlightening the opera community is a very small community so it's it's it's very very interesting but I'm also on the board of W and Friends of WRR and I belong to the Dallas summit which is a women's
organization that doesn't do a whole lot but we educate ourselves and about certain topics and it's a fun thing for about a hundred women to be to be in and I'm on the board of the women's museum and Institute for the future that's been a very exciting thing to do that meets in in Fair Park and a wonderful old building that donated that used to be an a cattle auction house by day and an opera house by night and it was renovated by Wendy I think her name is Wendy Joseph Evans or Wendy Evans Joseph she worked as she was a very responsible architect for
the Washington Holocaust Museum Wendy Evans Joseph is that did a fabulous job there so my my activities are I'm on the the Development Committee of Planned Parenthood and keep my finger kind of in the pie and in a lot of organizations through email really that keeps me keeps me advocating and doing all sorts of being informed and who are your role models my mother so so active in her community honestly I it's not a question I have thought about I'd like to give it some thought and maybe come back to it can we do that mm-hmm tell us about your family today what are they
doing my family today can excel we they're they're all active it's quite wonderful Jeff is I'll do it by age and Jeff is is in the he's very politically active and active in with investments his business is a computer program that he that he developed and has a and on and I hope that I don't have to explain it here because it's a little over my head he's coaching his sons baseball team right now and and Stacy always active she's been active in the summer musicals for years and [Music] represented she was she served on a citywide tennis women's tennis board and I believe was
the first Jewish woman to be on it and as I told her was such a wonderful representative stacy has a very sweet way a very engaging smile and she could tell them that it wasn't right to schedule tournaments on Rosh Hashanah in a way that many people can't and so she's she's done that she's on I don't know whether I said that council board and she's on the high board and very actively involved with her sister who lives at high and and very actively involved with my two perfect grandchildren here Doug is a movie producer in in Los Angeles and has had a string of
wonderful successes with a movie that called Tsotsi do you want advertisements in this I honestly don't know so she won an Oscar for Best Foreign Film and you can always you can always and the very next year had a film called water which was nominated for an Oscar and the very next year had a film called away from her and that for that Julie Christie received a Golden Globe Award and was nominated for an Oscar so he has a very exciting career and with new movies coming along all the time and his latest is called before the rains Marcia is very very oh excuse me
I do want to say that both I don't think I said that both of the boys are active but Jeff is active politically and also is on the AJC board and I know has served on the temple Finance Committee I'm not sure exactly which one but excuse me Doug excuse me serves on a National Jewish camping board and I believe chairs his Federation's industry the the men in the movie industry has a section that that he chairs they both were in a Leadership Program which is called what was that I know Rachel was in it also some man's name yes it's the owner of can
we stop this for a second yeah Doug and Marsha were in the Wexner scholarship program a two-year program for Jewish leaders and they both have really led in their communities Marsha just received the Young Women's Leadership Award from her Federation and which we went went to see and that was that was fun so they're they're all active Marsh is also active and planned Parenthood and I know Stacey belongs to that here and they both have their other interests not only mine how do you think the city has changed since you first came to live in Dallas well I think it's absolutely exploded it's of course
the population has changed and and the look of it has changed I mean we have we have an area at the Performing Arts Center where there will be in in 2009 buildings by for Pritzker Prize winning architects phenomenal the the victory area is like another city it's absolutely amazing what has happened to Dallas a Dallas is still filled with very welcoming people wonderful volunteers and I've been astonished at the explosion of giving in Dallas people have become so philanthropic in addition to the few philanthropists who could always be counted on here the numbers have have spread have grown and the the reach has spread and
I think it's still a wonderful place to live and and work it's a wonderful city there anything that you would like to add I didn't do my role models I don't I don't know Who am I who are my role models I don't know beside my mother I honestly don't know I mean I I never set out to somebody I'm glad you didn't say what are my goal what were my goals because I never sat down and said I want to reach such and such or I wouldn't I remember meeting I think her Liza Solander I think and she said in the Dysart she was
in featured in a Sunday section when we had those features remember and she said my goal was to become president of every organization and whatever and I so I didn't have those kind of goals I just you know was moved up and became you mentioned well I don't know if well I guess this is Jewish so you know but I was also president of Planned Parenthood and president of the Women's Council in Dallas County and president of the Dallas summit and I guess that's all oh and the founding president of the women's issues Network so I'm sorry I didn't say that my issues have Jett
have been mainly women's issues and Jewish and the environment and if this isn't rolling that was it oh you'll have to do some severe editing but I think maybe we'll stop now Oh would you please edit that I mean that was really you