September 20, 2018

Julius Red Coleman

Red Coleman was born in 1923 in Ferris, Texas, one of only a few Jewish families in the small town where his father operated a grocery store. His mother came from the Goldman family, who emigrated from a village his cousins later could not find, arriving through Galveston, while his father was born in Odessa, Russia, the son of a prominent lawyer, and came over in 1906. Red remembered his poverty, owning little more than a red wagon, and cherished his grandfather Meyer Goldman, a deeply religious man whose devotion left a lasting mark on his life. When the Depression bankrupted the family grocery, they moved to Dallas.

In Dallas, Red attended John Henry Brown grammar school, entering the third grade around age ten, and later became president of his freshman class and an accomplished debater. He began working at twelve, delivering newspapers, working for cleaners, and selling Coca-Colas at the fairgrounds. His father died when Red was seventeen, leaving him to help run the family trucking business, Coleman Brothers Transfer. He attended North Texas Agricultural College, now the University of Texas at Arlington, for one semester and joined the Army reserves. He met his wife, Frances, at Shearith Israel, and they married in 1943 when he was nineteen and she was eighteen.

Red served nearly three years in the Army during World War II, stationed in Scotland, England, and France, working as a sergeant in a medical unit and receiving casualties from D-Day, though he never learned of the Holocaust until after the war. Returning home, he entered the liquor business in 1946 and, with a loan arranged through his cousin Julius Ships, bought a store that grew into a chain bearing his name, eventually numbering about forty stores across the Dallas area. He led state and national package store associations, was active in politics, and founded Crimestoppers in Dallas. He and Frances raised a family that grew to include nine grandchildren and six great-grandchildren, to whom he stressed hard work, faith, and celebrating the good things in life.

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