Linkie Seltzer
Linkie was born at St. Paul Hospital in Dallas on November 22, 1925, to Nathan Levine and her mother, who was born in Odessa, Russia, and came to the United States at age three. The families settled first in New York before branches came to Dallas. Her father served in the Army in France, worked as a traveling salesman across a five-state territory, and with her mother eventually owned a business called Michael Modes. The nickname "Linkie" was given to her at birth by a family friend, and she later adopted it legally. She grew up on Browder Street, in South Dallas, and on Park Row, attending Colonial (Cloney Hill) grammar school, John Henry Brown, and graduating from Forest Avenue High School in 1943.
A dancer since age five, Linkie auditioned for and joined the professional Dallas Starlight Operettas, and later studied at SMU and the University of Texas at Austin, where she performed and choreographed. She married Marcus Seltzer in 1946 at Temple Emanu-El, where she had grown up in the Junior Choir and been confirmed under Rabbi Lefkowitz. Because Marcus came from an Orthodox family, they compromised and joined Shearith Israel, raising their three children, Adrienne, Cathy Brenda, and Robert Michael. She worked and taught at Arthur Murray, and later modeled for and worked with Pageboy Maternity, a company connected to her extended family. Marcus was killed in January 1973 while saving his secretary's life.
Linkie devoted decades to volunteer and philanthropic work, serving with Save-A-Life, Hadassah, and the Jewish Welfare Federation, where she chaired the women's division campaign and served as division president in 1972 and 1973. She choreographed and produced many fundraising shows and produced a Jewish-content television program on WFAA. She traveled to Russia with the Fashion Group in the 1970s, carried her father-in-law's Hebrew Bible to give to an underground student in Moscow, and later spent months in India studying meditation. She founded businesses including Linkie the Fitness Pro and Speaker Source International, co-authored the book Winners for Life, and served the Callier Center and the Turtle Creek Chorale. She married Henry Cohn, and was recognized in numerous Who's Who volumes and as one of "1000 Great Americans."
She was recognized with numerous honors, including listings in various Who's Who volumes and selection as one of "1000 Great Americans" by the International Biographical Centre in Cambridge, England. Above all, she credited her family and her Jewish upbringing, embracing the values of tikkun olam and leaving the world a better place.
Full Transcript
we're talking with Lenore Levine Seltzer come this morning it is February the 1st 2009 now how do you like to be referred to well I've taken the name linky legally over 30 years ago so linky is my real name my husband Henry my second husband passed away over a year ago and I've decided to go back to my first husband's name it was Marcus Seltzer so from this point forward my name is going to be a Winky seltzer and what is your address 5200 Keller Springs room suite 7 to 4 Dallas 752 for a and where were you born Dallas at st. Paul hospital when oh my birth date okay November the 22nd 1925 I can't believe it but I'm 83 years old are you first-generation American I am where were your parents from my mother and was born in Russia and Odessa and I think my father was born in London only because they were on their way to the United States and so he was born in London England how did they come to Dallas well first they stayed in New York City like most Jews and there was part of the family that had come to Oklahoma and somehow or other another part of the family came to Dallas
and so that's why they came to down and thank goodness instead of Oklahoma no good do you know the circumstances they left the countries that they were born in well I think that the grubs were very very very busy van I think it's like Fiddler on the Roof I really do and they were lucky enough to get out now what did your daddy do when he came to the into Dallas on to the state's first and then to them my father he went into the Army when he was old enough and was in France I think he was in the engineer not engineer health you
know he took care of sick soldiers when he came back he moved to Dallas and he and my mother married they ran away to Fort Worth and eloped and got married and Fort Worth and then what he started out doing was not what he ended up doing he worked for someone in a car what I think possibly but then he became a traveling salesman here thus old ladies raids were and he traveled a five state area which was the way to do it then and he had one wonderful story I'd love to tell you it's real funny if it's okay he used to go to
New Orleans that was one of his territories he had this woman who always complained about everything he showed her and so he sent his driver downstairs and said you catch everything I send you because I'm gonna be throwing things for you so she comes up and she's ready to buy and she starts complaining and he says you don't like this one fine we'll get rid of and throats it after window and that's the way when and he finally stopped complaining and started buying so my father was very very successful in that field I mean he was traveling untrained to begin with then he traveled in
the car with dirt roads I mean I'm going way way back give me a time era and also we when they married and your mother how did your mother come to Dennis the families were related and so that's how they came as well she was three years old when they came to the United States so in New York and they stayed in New York while she got her education and they were so poor that she didn't have a pair of shoes to wear to her grammar school graduation and a friend of the family gave her a pair of shoes and they were also so poor
that she couldn't graduate from high school because she needed as the oldest child of five she needed to go to work to help support the family her father my grandfather max that adorable man I bet you remember him who was the cleaner max Rafkin sure of course you do anyway he was a cleaner and he couldn't make a living he really had it tough time so she went to work she didn't graduate from any educational system and yet I considered my mother one of the smartest women are no knew anyway and my father was the ultimate salesman and so they worked together eventually in a
business and they ended up buying the business called Michael modes and they were very successful not usually successful but moderately successful and enjoyed a lovely way of life I was born when my parents lived on Browder Street okay and I'd like to tell the story of how I got the nickname linkie my uncle duddy Rafkin was very good friends with Erwin Roman and they were sitting on the front porch this is the story I've been told for years they were sitting on the front porch waiting to hear the baby was born so the baby was born me and they told them that my name was
going to be a lunar enjoys well early woman did not like that name and he said I'm not going to call her that I'm calling her linkie so Erwin woman is the one who gave me my name and I'll always be grateful for that because it's been a name that's been you know most people say I've never heard of it oh what a cute name it really has helped me throughout my years I took it legally because I went into a I'm skipping I went into an industry that I needed my name to be remembered the speaking industry so let's go back to your questions
okay where was the family living when you were born and we taught routers fun browser how long when did they move or what was the next address oh I have no idea I was an infant we stayed on Browder Street for quite a while now because my father was traveling my mother lived with her parents ah got it okay and the wilds lived on Corinth and mother's sister lil and Max while lived down the street and the Einhorn's and the Box shabak you know his family the ones who sold chickens and eggs so but you know did you not live on Park Row yes but
that was later we moved the first time I remember is when we had moved to Unwin del Caen in South Dallas I mean real South Dallas what was the dress oh I don't remember do you remember about the year how old were you when you were two eleven probably about four five because we lived at two different addresses on wind Elko further south and then we came up north when Darren and we lived in them in a duplex and our next-door neighbors were the caspere's who now I'm sure you have Louis and Howard will fun day and if you don't they would be wonderful ones
to have anyway we've lived on 37:1 whatever God why does that why does that come into mine anyway I started school at Colonial Avenue grammar school and I went there for five years well he'll maybe Chloe you'll hear oh yeah what I say Avenue no Cloney Oh Hill and then my parents had done well enough that they bought a home their very first stone and it was on Park Row and I do remember that address that's 2410 Park Road directly across from the Hebrew school that was fun now what is the extent of your Jewish education interesting I ran across my confirmation class thing which
I can show you I grew up at temple Emmanuel my mother worked at temple Emmanuel as Secretary to Allen Rutland I don't know if you remember that man and what was her role she was secretary to rabbi Lefkowitz so I grew up at the temple Emmanuel rabbi Lefkowitz was the rabbi I was in the Junior Choir I was confirmed there mark and I were married there and because Mark's family was Orthodox and they belonged to the little Romania show Romania Romanian Romanian can you stay up anyway and also on Park Row and I we couldn't join there because the men sat on one side and
the women sat upstairs and I said I can't I don't think I can do that Marcus so we decided we would compromise I grew up in Temple he didn't like the organ and I didn't like his so we compromised who went to sheriff Israel and so we belong to church Israel for all the years that our children grew up there our three children Adrian was our oldest cathy brenda was our next and robert michael was our third child so do you want to go or shall I go yes I've got the stories good okay so when Mark and I married we were very fortunate because
that was right after the war and it was difficult to find a place to live what year we married in 1946 but before that I went I need to go back because from colonial ill when my parents moved to Park Row I started going to John Henry Brown and graduated from Grammar School from John Henry Brown which remind you know a neat story Luis Ruben and I were chosen by the mrs. Boone I think was her name she was the the head of the school - at those days we used to save money and we would pick up we were chosen to pick up the money each week and put it into the take it to the bank wherever and we had our pictures in the paper I wish I had that anyway then we all graduated from John Henry Brown and the big contingency of Jewish kids went to farce Avenue high school where we graduated in 1943 and I married mark in 1946 but in between that time I became I was always a dancer my mother had
given me dancing lessons when I was five years old and I'll always be so grateful to her for that in 1946 I auditioned for a professional company called the Dallas starlight operettas and amongst a few other Dallas dancers I was chosen which was wonderful and I did that for 43 44 and then again 44 45 45 and then I went away to my first year I spent at SMU and because mother wouldn't let me go away to college like everybody else so I was in second year she let me leave us and you and go to Austin you want to talk up a little bit
about being in the style of musicals I'd love to hold on would you like to see some pictures I've got pictures in fact this is something that someone put together I don't know why but here I am dancing can you standing at least it huh Here I am young young young dancing always dancing you see me yeah big enough and here here's starlight opera in 1941 they started those operettas and stopped them during the war in 1942 resumed again in 1943 and I danced for two years here's one picture but I have others if you'd like to see it here's the line of dancers interestingly
enough I was chosen out of the chorus to dance with a young man who is coming to Dallas as a featured dancer with his partner his partner got sick so they chose someone to dance with him and my peers chose me to dance with him and I even got mentioned in John Rosen's feels godly he was a tough cookie John Rosenfield even mentioned me by name in his in his column his review of that particular Show which was Anchors Away that was a highlight with whom who was the male dancer bill acorn from New York City and we did I was good it was really
fun anyway here's some more pictures of here and now in 1945 when I went to Austin and school there these are from Austin Hill well produced a show called steppin high and I was the featured dancer but also I helped with the choreography then after that time staggers on which was in that annual event at University of Texas at Austin called and asked me to choreograph the show that year and so this is the article about me choreographing that show let's see what else we have oh well here's the wedding picture and I've got a picture of my bridesmaids but this is when Mark and
I were married at temple Emmanuel and his parents were Lina and Mara Seltzer my parents and and Nathan Levine one of the things that has been the most wonderful part of my growing up is the wrapkin family decided to form a group shall we answer that I let it go just let it ring anyway we formed a group of our family called family corporated and family incorporated was part of my growing up years and so here's a picture family incorporated we did crazy things our family was known for our crazy things we gave party so a lot of parties and one of them we said
collect collect Western Union Grahams to people to invite them to the party so if they didn't pay for the Western Union they didn't get invited to the party these are my three children mark and I lived in South Dallas on Peabody we did get an apartment there we lived there for five years and my ro vez daughter Adrienne was born there and then we moved to brookhurst drive because frances and julius coleman are very different said you've got to come out and buy this have you know what were they they were have h h they were they were for people who were in the army
men who were in the army so we bought four doors away from them and our kids grew up together etc etc etc and all those years that the kids got their Jewish education we had to carpool to go to sheriff Israel which was then on Walnut Hill and so a Jewish upbringing was very important to me being Jewish has always been very important to me and so here's some more a family incorporated that's Robert at his Bar Mitzvah mark and I went on a cruise and so they told us to bring a costume which I did that's the costume I brought and guess what I
the contest it was a jitterbug contest i think and this was a gentleman on the boats I don't know it won a mother and dad's parties these men were on the boat Italian boat cute real cute do you remember who this is place is very familiar well anyway I think I have some other pictures further back after we stayed in broker's we moved to him and he drive we built a home and our home was featured in the newspaper this is part of it and this is part of what I did I worked very hard for Federation I had a lot I did a lot
of volunteer work as I grew up I started with save a life when we were first married because my mother-in-law you know my grandmother my father's mother Sonia Levine volunteered for a save a life so I went in to save a life and so did all of my friends and from save a life I can name the neighbor of Hadassah just named a Jewish organization and I helped and most of the time what I did was shows for them to raise money and so that was wonderful but this is when I was present chairman chairman of the women's Division Federation Drive because then we the
men's division had theirs and we had ours which is different from the way they're doing it these days so here I am with Hubert Humphreys do you recognize anybody else yes Jack Kravitz who is in the violin election uh-huh you want to tell who Jack Kravitz was well he was the director of the Jewish Federation back then when I was growing up and that year oh here what happened here 67 November 67 oh that was the year that I what I don't know it's upside down so I can't see it let's see what is women's division opens year with barn theater party and this is
on the same page huh so uh okay we have 67 okay in 70 I became I worked with the Arlene leaves one year because she was chairman of the Federation drive and I was her assistant associate whatever you want to call it and then they put me in the interesting thing that I'd like to mention here is because mark and I were not well I think we he worked for a company and but we did we look very nicely but most of the women during those times who were chairman were very wealthy and then they came to me and as me and I was flabbergasted
because I didn't think I'd ever reach that because that was a cornerstone for me to be able to do that work you mentioned save a life Lea you want to talk about it a little bit what there goes well that Jana life is still very very active in California and we raised money for the hospital in dwarika California which concentrates on what type of illness primarily on what is it come on you know lung yeah woman and very similar to the one the Jewish Hospital in Denver which I also there were a big fundraiser for them anyway here are some of the things here we
are the farm ball I was chairman of the farm ball I choreographed the fur balls here's Arlene and I and let's see this was in The Times Herald in 1969 that's when she was chairman I move was sure the corn balls is known in this 1963 yeah when he started waist a tree and the prune balls were huge because we held them at Fair Park in the biggest auditorium there and every Jewish organization was represented they sent a perm ball Queen okay and there was it so it was a big thing it was everybody was presented and I choreographed my middle name I was anyway
and when year I actually was a queen so these are people who were always very active in the community Don Safran do you remember Don he was a writer a reporter for Dallas Times Herald and there's procaster and Bess cone who love that's that's a blow of silver gold anyway here's read is that really and that really Stanley yes Here I am over here anyway so here are more pictures all right what's this one ginger what's this women's division campaign cabinet July the Jews are mrs. olivine mrs. Barton Bernard Shannon take my tight urinary come on Karl Baron Norman Shapiro and Julian Lerner that's the front row and the back left to right our Minnesota misses that that was Eggman Balaban Mike Jacobs Arwen Schwartz Morris Cohen Elton Reuben mr.
Jack Kravitz and Jerome Lise I think I mean epic mrs. Jerome leads campaign chairman minute the market Seltzer and Gerald Road business market circles Yeah right he is Jerry mm-hmm yeah damn yes yes so it says I said so here's some things that we did save a life luncheon and this is the music made Ola that was for sherek Israel this is I was wonderful his I was always the most beautiful voice terrific and here's I and I and on Safran we also did a fundraiser for the Jewish Community Center that was at the hotel because we couldn't do it at the center because we had too many people who wanted to come to the show
and thus I and I produced that show we have a ten-piece Orchestra with the Tom Merriman who did all of the musical arrangements Harold kallenberg roots in the show Epstein was in shows you know all of the names that you knew and our shows were so successful and we raised a lot of money I've got some things over there I'd love to show you now here is the dancing chorus dancing course are you cutting off the housing huh so as I was saying here is the chorus line excuse me these gorgeous women with these gorgeous legs that I choreographed and directed through the shelves for
the center and here's a newspaper article about Broadway melodies so that was when we worked very hard for this kind of stuff let's see this is brought back by popular demand my fair lady something some fair lady excuse me and of course I own I had the lead in that and Sonny Swift and here's Broadway melodies a copy of that do you want to read this please in grateful appreciation for dedicated leadership to lead no results or precedent women's division Jewish welfare Federation of Dallas distance in a year doesn't give the year but then they won next to it it says 1965 I wasn't it
was 72 73 is when that was okay and then we did south opposite face out the bat with it and that was for beep B'nai B'rith we did a number of shows up in a trip and these are family pictures but my precious grandchildren would you like to see my grandchild there's Rachel and here's mark there are adorable it's marked okay that's it I got a foot oh yeah okay so ginger wants me to talk about holidays right now and the best I can tell you is that in my own home with my mother dad began because my father traveled I don't remember too many
holidays I remember being with like my mother's mother all of us young as you'd like to say Sarah Rafkin and Max Rafkin I used to spend nights there and they'd have their poker games there it was wonderful those were made young younger days once I married mark and came into his family that's when we really started celebrating Jewish holidays and they lived on when dehl come as well in a big two-story home and so it was okay when we had family there for holidays but then they sold that home and moved to East Dallas and this was their home was no larger than this living
room and dining room with two bedrooms one bath and a kitchen okay so the most wonderful holiday was always Passover and it was we celebrated Passover traditionally around the second bedroom was turned into a dining room and everybody we sat around the dining room table and as the kids came into the family because we had mark sister Katie and her husband Joe Sammy and his wife Clarice and there are three children and Katie's three children and by three children that dining room didn't hold all of us however during the Passover service the kids would all come in and they'd have to participate especially the four
questions and the for Christmas you know but stupid one we always had a fight over who was gonna read that anyway afterwards the food my mother kept kosher we used to go over to her home before the holiday - Kashi Kashi everything she used to bury her silverware into the ground - Kashi Avadh and then we'd have to change all of the dishes and we'd go over there to make the filter fish for you know by hand everything with I mean we didn't have a someone who could grind fish I mean it was so that was just part of growing up with the Seltzer's and
it was a wonderful tradition always a wonderful tradition and we celebrate Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur of course and we would do that at their home as well and we would always have once we washed our hands and came into the house we would have she would have egg salad for us tonight Shaun and let me think what else she was her matzah of course so very traditional and my kids grew up that way the most fun they always had was drinking the kosher wine Manischewitz and let me tell you they got drunk more than once it was fun it was a lot of fun
and when they think about their growing up dates they always talk about getting drunk at Grandma Leila's house you would begun to talk a little bit about your work with Arthur word oh well after I danced in the musicals for two years I was in Austin came back to audition for the third year at the chuckles and Billy wouldn't let me he was the courier he was the big rig Billy would not let me even try out audition said I've been at it for two years I don't need to audition he said you missed auditions you may not dance so that was a really heart
breaking experience and one of the limits that I did one of the women that I met while I was dancing him in the operettas was had left and she was teaching at Arthur Murray's and suggested that I come to Arthur Murray's so I did I went to Arthur Murray's and I became a teacher at Arthur Murray's and the way to make money at Arthur Murray's was not to teach it was to sell courses okay so they wanted to promote me and let me sell courses well I had never really done that before however when I was how you remember things I used to work for
when I was 16 for mr. blight now do you know who mr. Blatt was I'll tell you who he was he was the manager of a big store down town and his daughter married a resent scheme gentleman was our city councilman Mitchell sarita rozanski I used to work for her father what started here it wasn't learners I can't remember which one but it was similar to learners anyway that was quite an experience and he was quite he was really something else he made you toe the line so I did anyway so where was I what did you do what was your role working for mr.
black well I was on the floor and I sold but when I fit Murray says me just so I really didn't want to I felt uncomfortable so what they did instead they promoted me and I used to train the teachers for Arthur Murray's and when I made less money training the teachers than I did teaching I asked for a raise and I didn't get it so guess what I quit it's how I worked there for about three years and then Mark and I started our family and so it was really lovely what else what about holidays like straw door Konica did you celebrate a fine
job I don't know everybody used to have a good time for Hanukkah when Mark's family would get together for Hanukkah we used to exchange gifts and then the family got very large because Katie's family included her three sons Ross Stephen oh and my favorite he had he died of he had diabetes anyway we used to have Hanukkah parties and the latkes and and I'd have it over in our home - I didn't expect everybody to do their thing and me not do my thing so yes we did do you want to mention go on do you want to mention the business that Katie and Joe
are you bet Katie and Joe originally were in downtown in the in the district that's now recognized as but is it recognized said West End no they're in the East End the Deep Ellum that's where a lot of the Jews worked and had their own businesses Goldstein had his pawn shop there the Siegel's had a dry goods store of sorts there and gosh I can I need to diverse my father's family there were two three three brothers two sisters five children and all of them went into the dry goods business except my father everyone who sold on the road so my uncle Julius had a
steward ragged store on Ross and all my and B and her husband had a store on shoot I wish I could remember anyway they had a dry goods store and eventually moved to walks a hacci and opened up a dry goods store there in the square there was always one Jewish merchant and asked where I've been Debbie your family could relate to that and Marshall right anyway then the other sister Senate what a lovely woman anyway she and her family opened up a dry goods store in the square in Sulphur Springs now the two sisters ended up moving to California and they had their stores
in California and I don't remember I remember that they had one of them had a storm where all of the blank I don't know how to say this properly the black people had moved into and it became a very rough neighborhood so they ended up closing their stewar there my other aunt is that in Dallas you talk no I'm dying in Valley in Los Angeles you I'm sorry oh yeah Los Angeles the other aunt also had a store there and her husband died before her and so did Frances and Maurice Emmett was one of the couple's be and a binder and was the other okay
and Dave Levine was the third brother so was Dave and I just mentioned this thing anyway he had this drawing Ross and my dad so those were the three brothers and the two sisters and why were they in dry goods and why were they in small sales because no one would hire them to work in any other business they couldn't go to college they couldn't graduate they could graduate from high school but they couldn't own a biz they couldn't work for someone and the our become a doctor a lawyer or a merchant a merchant think doctor lawyer Indian chief and want to explain why I'm
getting ready to say they wouldn't hire Jews they wouldn't let them come to work or have their own businesses and that's why they all had their own businesses because that's the only way they can make money they couldn't farm they couldn't buy land does that make sense am i telling the story right ginger well the yes basically is and so all of the merchants who opened up in Dallas downtown you don't think about all of the businesses that were down there in Lynn's brothers Neiman Marcus am can a Harris Dreyfus and son of Jewish were attached Ettinger all Jewish merchants because they couldn't go to
school to become a doctor lawyer and Indian chief anyway we started to talk about Kate and Joe so you all think oh yeah they had a dragon store in Deep Ellum along with his brother Sam see who's the father of Jerry Siegel who is well-known and his son what's his son's name he was he's the voice in he's done movies a lot of different movies anyway so you want to tell where they are now I think they're in at least huh they were in Hollywood they were what Lily yeah but now they're in the East so but their business after the Elm they finished that
business because became it became impossible to make a living there they bought New York bakery on Forest Avenue ice cars damn News's First Avenue and they owned New York bakery for years and they and my sister like 80 she tasted the bread every day and if it didn't taste right she'd make them go back and bake bread again and I'd like to mention my brother-in-law Sammy who worked he did get a job with an insurance company and then he ended up going to work for the Rosenfield who had a scrap Liberty Liberty yeah very similar to what Mike does are dead so they ended up
in Jewish Jewish places so next question okay how has you mentioned that you became members of Sherrod Israel were you members of other shows at the same time no only sheriff Israel okay how has it have you changed over the years has the show changed over the years well lucky me explain I was very active as sheriff Israel also did a lot of fundraising did shows for them as I've shown you wherever my kids were that's where I was so I'll come back to that but a cherith Israel the we participated and we were good members there after my head first husband Marcus Seltzer was
killed saving his Secretary's life so he died a hero and his secretary ended up with a broken leg and that was a shock for the entire community it was on January 9th 36 years ago what business did he work for you want to talk he worked for a yes scrap no work in paper and that's how I don't want to go into that if I don't okay rather not okay so mark died I was widowed for 21 years and I married Henry come 14 years ago and Henry was a member of Temple Shalom so on them and I happen to be at that time and
still am very close friends with rabbi Nathan Jordan ah sire and he was in a very ugly mess at Cherith Israel that I prefer not talking about but I told Henry I wanted to stay a member that until everything was settled with Jordan and we did he they were members of both insurance Israel and a Temple Shalom because Henry had left temple Emmanuel that's where his kids grew up and the reason he left is because his oldest daughter married a non-jew I wanted to and they wouldn't let him let them be married to temple a man well so he joined sheriff Temple Shalom and became
very active there it's interesting and while I was a chair at of course I choreographed and directed a show called hats off it was for sisterhood we raised a lot of money it was a terrific show it was fun and everybody and they gave us a standing ovation at the end I've got pictures you guys need to see my pictures anyway next question what are the organist Jewish organizations have you been a member of through the years and do you want to talk about kind of owning a little bit I wrote it down I had forgotten about camp remember my parents who lived on Park
Row again and we were right across from the Hebrew school and that used to be the home of wise fellow rabbi wise fella who was the rabbi a chair of Israel this is going way back Debbie you wouldn't remember that anyway do you want to talk about Levine was in charge Jacob Levine was in charge of the Hebrew school after the wise folks moved out it became a Hebrew school and part of what jacob levine did was to start a summer camp for jewish kids and so we went my brother went and I went it was called can't believe and it was part of a
very important part of my Jewish upbringing and we had lots of fun there I wish I could find I didn't get to find all of my pictures whereas I have a picture of Jerome Eli but our levy assessment David David Sessler there were four of nYSCI maishy yeah and they were dressed up in swimmin Missy Smith may she smell right they were dressed up as women that was the cutest picture if you ever want to see it I'll try to find anyone telling where it was located yeah it was it like doubts thank you like Dallas and the women who cooked for us we're Laurel
I'm well commence mother and aunt and and Francis actually did the cooking but they did the meal planning there was the opposite she was black lady she was an elegant American like oh okay I didn't realize there was an original thankss who worked for mrs. Esmeralda show oh it was also cooking for you so those are really important parts of my life growing up and there's a hot one in camp can't properly yeah that really and we've had we had a real thank you reunion about ten years ago and it was fabulous one of my good friends was a Gentile woman Gentile woman who lived house away from us Betty Jo Moore and Betty Jo Moore grew up with all of us as Jewish kids and ended up going to camp on them as well and came in for the reunion and she was best friends with Lorelai Wellman best friends and
lots of stories that I won't go into it but it was a fact son and my brother went oh I will tell you at the Reunion they passed around Pape newspapers that we used to print and so on the front page of one of them there was this headline Lavigne duh strikes him out or something like that and so I didn't have on my contacts so I couldn't read them so I thought oh this is about Gerald my brother this y'all everybody called him sis so when I got home it was all about I I decided I wanted to read it and guess what it
was all about me I was the star player on our baseball team now is such a shock that was fun ok keep asking ok the family structure over the years you've talked about your homes and where you moved and the structure as far as did people how many children were in your family immediate family we're new arrows I that your grandparents live with you at any time or yes what was the yes a rank grandfather which let me explain that when I was 12 my grandmother died because her mother lived with her her name was Annie Moskowitz and her mother lived with her and one
night my grandmother Sarah Rafkin and max Raskin went to a movie and when they came home they saw that their home was on fire and they thought my mother my grandmother thought her mother was my house she had a heart attack and died and thank God my great grandmother was fine she lived so my grandfather was all alone and we couldn't take in both of them so my great-grandmother went to live and one of the Jewish homes I'm sure and Papa max Rafkin and the youngest son of the family who was not married they moved in with us and so that was on Park Road
so daddy and I were very close because we grew up together oh and I have to tell you I'm digressing with her on the front porch we had a front porch and all the boys used to come over so that I could teach them how to dance but let me tell you so I taught the guard lady how to dance her Jessel that's what else Oh remember that I taught a bunch of guys holiday Oh Edwin Ornish Todd Edwin yep Todd him off but let me tell you that we had a maid who is a terrific jitterbug dancer so she taught me how to jitterbug
and we would dance on the front porch and everybody would watch us and my mother was a great dancer but Abraham was terrific he was he was the star of our of our African family dance in fact he Aneta his wife who owned pageboy Maternity which was the premier company in a country not just in Dallas and she had heard two sisters own pageboy and one of the sisters still lives in Dallas and her name is Louise Gardner somebody very recognizable and Louise and I used to call her Tootsie because that was the name I knew her by never knew her real name until years
later anyway hoods he was the designer very talented beautiful woman and it was only and in recent years has she become so philanthropic oh my gosh I could not fill in through being a family night Frankfort Edna Frankfort LC Frankfort and Tutsi Frankfort and the Frankfurt's excuse me lived in Oak Cliff which is unusual very few Jews lived in Oak Cliff and why they lived there I'll never know but they did anyway so that's David Frankfurt's mother Victor Frankfort was also part of the family and he was married to an pursue that be right anyone he was married to a woman named Mars bark I
am and she was gorgeous and so david frank for to is also well known was part of that family but Paige boy was very success story that was before women really were in business for themselves and they were not only really a leader in business but they they were ahead of their time in so many different ways my Aunt Edna was one at the latest and best in the way of food and what had what you should be eating she and to California to a ranch there and they would grow their food there and so M them also was into yoga and she brought in
the the top yoga teacher in the country into her factory listen to this it's amazing and she would have her people take a yoga break every day because they knew that by taking doing something like that away from the manufacturing end of it they would be able to produce me now vacuum is really unique think again what factory was that now Paige Paige boy I'm the corner of Cedar Springs we said triangle Caesar spring and I went to work for him by the way yeah because while I was working it I got pregnant while I was know after I had finished working at Arthur Murray's
a banana were taking lessons from you then so when I stopped teaching there and I was pregnant she said I tell you what we'll take lessons from and I'll pay you by giving you your wardrobe well how could I refuse that it's the best dressed pregnant woman in the city of Dallas okay what new was it Adria was born in 49 so that was in 49 Kathy was born in 52 and Robert and 55 okay yeah do you want to describe the Jewish community through the years and how it's changed well I really oh my gosh Pocahontas Jewish community center that's where it was and
so we Sharon's Israel sure this rail was their temple Emmanuel is always in my memory was always on South Boulevard sheriff Israel I was not a member of but we used to go there during the High Holy Days it was like a fashion parade and we had always have to have new clothes for Rosh Hashanah so that we would look the prettiest and best that we possibly could it's the time over if I get it you're at she's through would meet al let me talk about myself and the businesses that I've started the first one was linking the Fritton blinky the fitness Pro I've gone
to Russia with the Fashion Group and while I was there I found out what they were doing there they were exercising in the mornings every morning before they went to work or at work so when I came home I decided I'd go into the business putting exercise into companies and I found a particular company that allowed me to come in and do a a what year probably 1990s 96-97 not 90 then no okay oh you know what you may be right now that says 96% 91 this one says 76 it's just lucky 76 in Russia you went to Russia that early in 75 in 76
yeah okay oh yeah and that's a story if you ever want a story I got lots to tell you about that one because I contacted a lot of people here in he still had relatives in Russia and they and so I did but I had a great aunt who lived in Dallas who had there was still family in Odessa and she would not give me their names or their addresses or how to contact them because she was afraid and I can understand that having been there and back I can really understand why she didn't but the other people did let me and while I was
in Russia became friends with a couple of women how did you decide to go to Russia I love travel and the idea of going with people of that I'm interested in I was a member of fashion group for years and when the opportunity came I decided I'd go so the fashion group was the one that made a trip to Russia yes there were about 46 people of us from the United States and Mexico and Canada we took I took this is a fascinating story I took my father-in-law's Hebrew Bible with me on that trip and hid it so that they wouldn't confiscate it on a
Saturday morning we were told I was told to go into the where the synagogue is in a in this capital Moscow Moscow and so I did with my friends and we walked up and down this the street the synagogue was on one side and the Jews roam one side but there were also Jews on the other side and in between were the Russian soldiers it turns out that the reason that there were Jews on either side is because they were looking for mates for their children the children wouldn't go but the parents did and they tried to make arrangements for their children to be married
to other Jews because that was very important to them even then so but I still had this my father in law's Bible in Hebrew and I wanted to be sure that I got it to someone who would really appreciate it from the synagogue if possible and it turns out that one of the men spoke very quietly and said where are you staying and we told him the name of the hotel he said I will meet you back there in an hour so we went back to the hotel he came into the hotel and he we went into the room and he pointed to each corner
set as though to say we're being watched or being taped so be cautious so that happened but he was a student at the synagogue they were he was in the underground in Russia I'm trying to still retain his Jewishness so I gave him the Bible and I made me feel so good because I knew it would be put to the proper use that's right right people so that was very important part of my trip because I some of the others had stuff confiscated whatever was I don't know because there are only two of us that were Jewish and one was married to a Jew the
interesting part of that was this beautiful woman she's from Minneapolis I said you know anybody in Dallas and she said yeah I know one person I said who is it she says you gotta be kidding you wouldn't know them I said come on tell me who it is I really would like to know if you know someone in Dallas especially if they're Jewish and she finally agrees they asked and she said well their name is landing Paul and nezzie Landing so I see I said well nithya knocks like bridge together together every week we live a block away our daughters are best friends what else
would you like to know they were both in the same industry and that's how they knew each other so anyway it was quite a coincidence I love telling that story so you never know where you gotta meet another Jew so anyway when I came back I decided with my background I had I decided to go to bonny Putin bonny Putin was a physical fitness expert the number one person who had started the physical health industry in the US government under Eisenhower he had appointed her and she had heard her business in Cambridge class and so I went there for over a week and learned her
things came back home and decided to start my own exercise business but for corporations not just for anybody so I finally found someone who would allow me to come in because I knew it had to be from the top if the top people didn't participate in my program forget it because no one else would make a long story short it started out with a bang the big shots were there they exercised what company was this when you reached suanne manufacturing another jewish company anyway I loved doing that it was a family night Sue Ann who owns yeah one thing of the family Lambert's the Lambert's
owned it and Sue Ann was one of the children sue Lambert who now owns the catering company but Sue was that's how it was named after suit Marie's daughter oh that's another story oh well let me pass through this one then you'll tell ok linky I started my company linked either Fitness pro and I don't let me see if I can bring this up here it is here's my brochure and I had pictures of the company and the people who were exercising and this was on the back of the thing and here's my business card and so here's another perfect an article about me in
the company and and I was ready to go with this this was way before anybody else had come on about what year 1970 but did I say this we went to Russia in 1976 or you know let's say 77 way before anybody else had thought about doing this and the reason I didn't continue is because just like Arthur Murray I was afraid to go out and sell I was afraid to go out and sell this because I had a Sam you ready to take me and to videotape me so that all I'd have to do is deliver the day I didn't have to be anywhere
anytime oh I was so smart and I was so dumb oh I was done anyway I really that was a wonderful experience then I went into the speaking industry and I became a professional speaker and I spoke well I need to go back I forgot to tell you I talked for seven years in the Dallas County Community College System I taught how to love and be loved and communicating with confidence so I did that for seven years and that kind of got me into my next business which was speaker source international and I joined the National Speakers Association and I started looking celebrities professional speakers
and entertainers so here is love and business makes dollars and cents what I was speaking then we back up a minute you were at University of Texas now what were you majoring in nothing getting married did you get your degree did you have background in speaking at all well because I was a leader wherever I went I always had to speak okay so that's my experience okay and yeah that's my experience anyway so for four years I spoke and talked about love and business and I got tired of that because I really wasn't good at marketing myself so I became I decided to go to
the other end of the business because I knew everybody all the top people and the speaking industry I don't I always go to the top because I can always go to the bottom you if you start at the bottom you can't always get to the top so that's a my end and bless her so she taught me something that I'll never forget talk about family she said linky yes for whatever you want all you can do is get a no and you might even get a yes so anyway here's some of the professionals I work with that's Catherine crier dick Fatah the bass basketball guy
awesome baby awesome dick mic vitka Ditka from Chicago God he was sick the day he was here Famous Amos the guy who actually started the Famous Amos cookies Polly Bergen I brought Polly here for the very first time the National Council of Jewish women paid to have a professional come in and I actually started them they wanted someone like that and they let me work with them I was blessed believe me and I got Polly Bergen the woman who was supposed to speak I had to back out at the last minute she was Oh going she was terrific I wish she had been there Polly
would had what's not prepared you have to be prepared when you're a speaker and she spoke off-the-cuff you never speak off the cuff that's don't ever speak off the cuff anybody no it's who's that Roger Staubach yeah I worked with Roger oh this is a fun guy his name is herb Cohen Cohen he's from Washington and guess who his best friend is and who he grew up with the guy with suspenders who does television every night oh come on come on Debbie I bet you know who I'm talking about huh Jay Leno no he said I'm a Carson no no no he said none of
you were he's an interviewer oh well we'll come back to that if y'all can't think of it but he tells historian when they were in high school together about he and his buddy that is hilarious I've got his book anyway let's see here's John Connolly do you recognize who that is John Connolly I also worked with him these are all people I've worked with through the years and I don't know that this gentleman is but here's John Connolly again as a governor Joe Conlon yeah I booked him and that worked with you here's okay I'm insane India also I traveled I spent almost three months
in India while I was single why because I was divided how well I started meditating it's called for possum and I did it for 15 years and I met some of the people from India who were teachers and one a couple who were in Dallas for a meditation retreat invited me to come to India I said please do not invite me because I was outcome and so idea about what your I can tell you exactly my father died in December of 88 and I was going to go to India because I was scheduled I had my tickets and my dad had been sick for so
long and I had already made up my mind if he didn't die before I left I was gonna go anyway but bless his heart I was the only one with him when he died and he was such a cute guy you know some people have I lied in their eyes they have a sparkle in their presence and I think that's who I learned the joy of giv however you say it from him because he was always in high spirits he was always selling himself he was terrific so I went to India and here's I and I stayed with the family who invited me and then
I went to the center about two hours out of the center out of New Delhi no no further SAFF tombé Bombay and stayed at the meditation centre for quite a while and then I was invited back to their home and he took me there was only one teacher in the posada his name is SN Goenka and everybody else does with exactly what he teaches so I went to go incas home and then I was invited to go to visit one of the women I admit while I was meditating who lived in the center part of south of India and I spent two weeks with her
and her family and she did the unthinkable she divorced her husband after I left which was absolutely unthinkable in India at that time this is 1989 oh it's good I'm glad you've got that yes I'm I left the end of 88 spent New Year's Eve and Bombay with my friends stayed a couple of days and then got on the train to go to meditate and if it got poori is the name of the city or the town where the meditation centre is and now we have one outside of Dallas 45 minutes to an hour away that's growing immensely it's just incredible but we opened that
Center in 1517 years ago I made drapes for it I also missed it so anyway it was and I'll go back I told Henry before I married him my second husband I said I meditate and when I do meditate I go to its out of Dallas maybe an hour and it's 12 days and if I that's not okay with you then let's forget this because I wanted to meditate and he said okay so I did I used to meditate maybe for three or four years and then I gave it up but of all the things that helped me especially after Marcus's death that meditation helped
me more than anything and so for anybody who really wants to get solid there's the passion of meditation however I've just joined a class at temple Emmanuel called mousse R which is the spiritual part of Judaism which I've ever known about that's been missing for me you know Judaism is hard hard hard hard but there was never anything that I could relate to spiritually and now this class 13 weeks at temple Emmanuel I'll be doing that class I went to my first one last week can you describe it briefly very briefly the name of the gentleman who is promoting this is Alan Alan Moore up
Marisa's mor I sis and he wrote two books one is climbing Jacob's Ladder and I've forgotten the name of the other one because I gave it to my son Dury but it's all about spiritualism and Judaism and how they joined together and how like we will be working on six different topics the first topic is humility and we have discussions were paired up with one another it's going to be very interesting and of all the people in the large congregation that we have there were 25 people who signed up but that's too big for a class so there are two classes now so that's another
thing I'm doing because I after Henry died I was not comfortable at Temple Shalom so I resigned and I moved to temple Emmanuel I've made full circle and I'm background along and I met with David Stern rabbi Stern and he said well what do you want from us like it what are you what would you like to get from temple Emmanuel and I to stop and think because I wasn't sure and then I said I want education and right after that this gentleman came into doubt into Dallas and so that's why I'm signed up it for Moosa do you want to briefly talk about some
of the other areas of your meditation and the spirituality well the basis of the meditation that I did for so many years is very simple we want what we don't have and we don't want what we have very simple and so we learn how to be happy with those restrictions knowing that that's the way we look at life primarily and to be happy that's the reason we're here by the way is to be happy that's really what God wants us to do and to be happy we have to be satisfied to be satisfied it means to be satisfied with everything in your life not just
a part here apart here aren't there I've got great children but I've got a wonderful husband but I've got plenty of money but those buts get in the way and so it isn't easy and it's been very difficult for me and I have to stop and remind myself a lot and another part of spiritualism which I've gone into there are seven laws in the universe and one of them is the law of attraction a book came out and the movie has come out it's called the secret and it's all about if you think about what you really want and stay on that course God is
going to help you find what it is you want now it doesn't happen overnight unfortunately however if you're really dedicated to it and keep it in your thoughts of what it is you want then eventually it will happen and I bet either of you both of you could think about something that's coming to your life that you really didn't pray about that you didn't think about particularly outwardly but somewhere in your brain there was this little nugget going yes that's what I really want yeah that's what I really want and it's come true if that happened to you ginger two-degree yeah how about you dead
to us yeah I'm telling you so so when I taught at three of the college's love it - love it be love the most important lesson that I could teach was that to love yourself is the most important lesson you can learn and I've tried to explain that by saying look if I wanted to give you a hundred dollars and I've and if I just said hey here's a hundred dollars but you don't have it right then you don't have that hundred dollars but if I said here's a hundred dollars take it so you have to own it to give it away so my point
is you have to love yourself first before you can give love away real love and we've been taught so many things opposite of that that if you love yourself and you're conceded and if you love yourself you're you're not a good and you should love others like yourself we'll see that's ten commandments but we don't take it like that we take it entirely differently so to love yourself first it's the only way you can give away to love in my opinion so that's my lecture on love and you've had some national recognition you want to tell us a little about that oh go ahead finish
this thing no I think we've done that national recognition you bet probably in the early 80s I was contacted by a company who wanted to put me in Who's Who in the southwest and so our resumes who's who in the southwest then I was contacted by another comfort for the same company they have all different divisions it's the marquee company and it's the who's who of who's who then they contacted me to be in Who's Who in women so I was in land and then they started contacting me to be in Who's Who in the world and I have a couple of the books and
they keep every time you're in one of their books they want to sell you one and ice so I bought a couple but then I said you know what I've just downsized and I don't have any room anymore but I'll take something else instead so that's in fact I have a I have a letter from who's who for the next year that I haven't said to him that I I guess I should do do they talk about the criteria that they use when they say like no I did well they want people who have done things who've accomplished things because the very best recognition of
received personally happened in nineteen six years ago what's this so about 1990 I mean 2003 or four I received a letter and I have it here I could show it to you and they started a new division and it's called 1,000 great Americans and this was the first year was going to be published and they asked me to be in it can you imagine how how you would feel if you were called or written and said we would like for you to accept this honor and I wrote back and said I think you've got the wrong person I'm really with them I mean I was
totally overwhelmed and even though I didn't buy the book I can show you the metal that I did buy that says this is from England this is from Cambridge England because this particular company is out of its the International biographical society in Cambridge England that's published this okay it's different from who's who that's published in the United States so I've got the medal right there it's just it's one of my proudest possessions do you have other scrapbooks pictures that you would share with us how many would you like it's what I'd like to do is to be able to go over you're off this is
ginger Jacobs it is now February 2nd yeah we were back with linky sounds or salsa and at her home and you were talking about your career really well what I'd like to start with if I may well is the work that I did with Jewish federación good because even though I worked with all of the Jewish organizations through the years which I've already mentioned I've worked industriously with Federation and I worked myself up and I'd like to show you some of the wonderful things that I've been given through the years this is Leonora Seltzer co-chairman women's division 1969 Dallas Jewish it doesn't say Dallas it
says Jewish welfare Federation of Dallas then the next one that 6d here's 67 to Jewish we're welfare Federation of Dallas 1960 67 presented to me for outstanding leadership you know what ginger why don't you read this one I love this when this is one of my favorites presented to Nora Seltzer campaign chairman women's division Jewish Welfare Federation 1970 campaign isn't that beautiful my menorah 11 Jewish Welfare Federation of Dallas 1968 campaign presents the best Nathan Memorial Award - Leonora Seltzer campaigner of the year women's division this is just one of the very many articles that was written in the Federation news and this announces my
presidency of not of the women's division for 1972 and 73 the women's division had a separate division apart from the fundraising and this was rather different and they asked me to take the presidency which I did and anyway I was asked to take a second year and I refused because that's the year my husband was killed I have some other things that also recognizes some of my work and I think I'd like to do that now this is a beautiful bowl that I just received and it says linkie linkie cone foundation of the cow yours center I've just I spent six years on the cow
your board and that has been one of the most gratifying things I've done in a long time the best thing that I was able to accomplish was to put some of the children who have cochlear implants together with two men from the Turtle Creek Corral who taught them how to sing and they appeared on a holiday show the children and they signed silent night and there wasn't a dry eye so I'll give you that would you like to talk about the Cal your Center all those how your Center is something exciting because Lina Cal you're left money for this to be done and it's an
audio it's for hearing primarily so it's and they've expanded it because with so wonderful is we are now part Cal your is part of the University of Texas at Dallas and also Southwestern University and we are striving to become one of the leaders in not in Dallas and not in this country but in the world to be recognized for the work and in March March sixth and seventh weekend is being devoted to a gentleman from Australia who is one the very first which will be an annual award from this point forward the annual award of the cow your communication award and chose a gentleman from
Australia who's done a tremendous amount of research for audio and the cochlear implant program is absolutely incredible it saves lives like you don't you just can't understand and I won't go into any further things because I could speak about that for hours so that's one of my things and now I'd like to talk about the Turtle Creek Corral up here I worked with the Turtle Creek Corral if you'll hand me right over there yeah all of that including the book thank you that's great I'm not sure how I got together with the Turtle Creek Corral oh I do know fo Frankfort it was Ethel's AO
mail its me to work with her on the fund raiser for a turtle Creek Corral and we did a luncheon and the performer at the luncheon was this gentleman who is also Jewish his name is Michael Feinstein and we had a lovely lunch and raising funds for the Turtle Creek Corral at the mansion so this was a very exciting time for me then there were three couples who were asked to raise funds for the Dallas in Denver Jewish Hospital and that also like save a life is very much involved in breathing and life and works with kids and the three couples were fo and David
Frankford at the time and a lovely couple named Roger Roger Meyers and his wife Joyce and the three of us did a fundraiser at the Adolphus Hotel raised lots of money and presented a beautiful program it was black-tie and I'll never forget that one of the people who attended said you know I go to Washington DC for the big event there every year and this tops anything I've seen in Washington so that was wonderful because about what you we had what year about six or seven years ago and I had the Turtle Creek Corral on as we open the let me start from the beginning
because the off Adolphus Hotel was where this event happened and there's an area for the reception and then you open the doors for the dinner where the tables are well when we had opened the doors for the dinner a hundred black hundred men in black tie were standing surrounding the room and after everyone was seated they sang three songs and one of them was we shall overcome because they have lost the Turtle Creek Corral is made up primarily but not exclusively to men who are gay and they have lost hundreds of men to AIDS in fact this coming Saturday they're having a memorial for one
of the men who has just died last week so I was invited to work with the Corral on one of their priests and one of their programs but see if I have anything Oh here's here's something that is interesting because Tim ceiling dr. Tim ceiling was the director of the Turtle Creek Corral for 20 years he's since been replaced by a doc his name is Jonathan its Jung talent who happens to be Jewish and when he was he was in ER you'd and he had to try out Jonathan asked Tim Sealy if it mattered that he was Jewish and Tim replied well if they can have a director like me who's Baptist and gay I mean come on so Tim has a wonderful sense of humor anyway this is they started a bridge builder award in the first they have four awards they have the individual or the corporate award
the organization award and then special awards and the first people who were awarded the individual awards was our mayor there's now going to be with Obama in Washington it was Ron and Latrice Kirk and the second year I was asked to be to accept the award I always feel uncomfortable doing things like that and I refused and they said it's by unanimous decision and you must do it so I did it and I love doing it and this is the book here's to the Turtle Creek Corral with Tim can you gather Debbie and here's Ann I'm going to turn it over so that you can
see the expanse now I'm not through talking about the Turtle Creek Corral because I have a story to tell you about Tim Selig the Turtle Creek Corral always advertise their Christmas program as the Christmas program and once I got to know Tim I said Tim you need to rethink this if you keep calling it and advertising it the Christmas program you've left out a lot of people I said why don't you consider calling it the holiday program done like that the holiday program and that's where the Cal your kids sang was the holiday program and there's an article here somewhere I don't know where it
is let's see if that's it that's how this is for later oh here it is this was in the Texas Jewish Post and you want to read it it's really interesting me okay Turtle Creek Corral to feature Star of David I don't know how many people know that a song has been written about the Star of David because after doing quite a bit of research I couldn't find any song about the Star of David and we have lots of other songs so let me quickly say we'd like to share a note we received from dr. Tim Selig artistic director of the Turtle Creek Corral he writes this holiday season oh and that was another thing they never had anything Jewish on their program and so I invited Don Crowell to come and meet with Tim and Don did his stick which he's famous for so he was invited for a couple of years to do that then when I suggested that we do something in a song or something for the Star of David if I showed you this oh this is the bridge builder award that's what I was given and I had this picture here because this was the night of the award
and I was surrounded by the Turtle Creek Corral hierarchy but this is the award that they gave because I had worked with them and I actually choreographed one of their shows part of one of their shows and I had an article I had a letter from Tim praising me about how wonderful I had worked with the boys okay you can put that away the year is 2002 on them oh thank you 2002 thank you anyway you said this holiday season is going to be unique and very exciting for the corral and the 10,000 people who will hear it because this was presented at the Morton
Meyerson symphony hall which is where the chorale always performs and they usually have three to five performances so it's the combination of those those performances and why he could say 10,000 people will hear it so 10,000 people who were here the reason the Star of David over a year ago and looking for a piece about the Star of David I approached my friends linky Seltzer cone and Cantor Don Crowe of Temple Shalom we all came up in the empty-handed later that year linky and Don began discussing about this request and took the lead so what I did was I did the research and wrote the
words that gave the history of the Death Star of David then I contacted that I recommended that we use call Aaron Kaplan to do the music and Aaron and I collaborated on this project called the Star of David and it was performed five times at the Music Hall and was quite well-received unfortunately it's like it's bent the dust and I'd sure like for somebody to come along and bring it out of the doldrums and presented again because I would be bragging if I said it really is important because it gives the history and so I will record as I worked hard on it and so
did Aaron he worked extremely hard the music is so gorgeous some you might want to get that tape and put it into the into the Historical Society so anyway that's part of that then this is the Tim wanted to have a young coffee a coffee book and so this is it it's called breathe and it tells this history and I'm listed here it's one of the recipients the Turtle Creek Corral individual award and working with the corral has been so rewarding and so exciting and I was asked to be on the board this year but I just couldn't have got too many other things now
this is something also that just happened in [Applause] this was 19 1 2001 Chicago had started this Chicago's Illinois had started a project for their city and they did replicas of pigs witnesses huh Pegasus pigs in Chicago and then Houston picked it up and they did the same thing same sort of thing with whatever they used but Dallas then came along and Delores person a very large contributed to our Jewish community as well as the community at large was chairman of what was called Dallas sores and what we did was to locate the Pegasus the red flying horse because only if you were in Dallas
and lived in Dallas did you remember that the tallest building in Dallas had a flying red horse on top of it that revolved and so the horse was the signature item for Dallas sores they had they combined the artists let's see it's right here they combined artists and businesses and community groups and schools to create all of these all of these horses and we Henry and I were very fortunate we raised the photograph to be included on one of the horses and this is the horse that we were on and the artist was Sean Northcutt is an exceptional artist and photographer and this our horse
was shown downtown close to the Kennedy Center and there's still a horse do you see it it's on this side oh there's the article about the Turtle Creek Corral and here you look for talks about Knight choreographic tell me when you're through Debbie okay so but this book is full of all of the forces you can see them and they chose very special artists to do these in fact the horse is still on display in preston royal on the north east corner so if you want to see that's the leavings of it excuse me this is an hour of music review of the show that
I worked with the chorale and it mentions that I were it was choreographed by Los Angeles choreographer Marc Cheung and Dallas slinky come I had a good time working with them and since then they have become dancers as well as singers and if you ever want to have fun and an evening of entertainment plus hearing the most gorgeous music go see the Turtle Creek Corral I would say that 95% of the members are none none gay okay at one point you had mentioned that you had produced a television show oh yes I did while I was working at Federation I went to Mike Shapiro who
is the station manager at that time which chantix channel 8 WFAA at that time and he had a show called speak to the manager and he was he was very open to me to let me come in and talk to him about doing a Jewish content show and so I produced a television show 30 minutes for almost a year with the help of my darling friends Iona Balaban I always had to give her credit because she is so inventive and innovative and together we make a good team and so the show was well-received and it's never been done since and it's that's another area that
the Jewish community to go could go into and go back to WFA and Mike Shapiro bring up Mike Shapiro slain and see if you couldn't get especially with a Mondale's now that kind of thing would be fabulous for the Jewish community to get on television of course we've got rabbi off sire on television every week he's been doing a program of with the rabbit he's the only Jewish representative but there baptistry all religions five religions and that no no Hamas no Muslims they may have added Muslim by now but he is the Jewish point of view to whatever project our subjects they're talking about in
discussing and he's very well received and very very well respected so that's very important we're know about where is he and what was your time here at channel 8 and then rabbi off Saturday well he Jordan was an rabbi ah sire wasn't in Dallas at that time I'm going way back in the 70s because that's when I was chairman of the Federation Drive and then the women's division and so it was then I would imagine that they might have something in their archives that you could go back and check and said that might be very it was called covenant CoV e na NT covenant and
that was the name of the show now with Rabbi off sire where is he broadcasting from today he brought with her sin Dallas he lives in LA I mean and I take that back he live in Mission Hills now California but ER and so he flies into Dallas they I think they take four shows at a time so it's a month show and he is the only rabbi I'd like to say that has received tenure from sheriff Israel first one in all of those hundred years never gave tenure to anyone and what else is lovely about rabbi off sire is that one of his parishioners
Jewish prisoners when he had his synagogue in Palm Springs ask him to come up to campus to Canada to his synagogue to see if he they wouldn't hire him for an inner and Rabbinate there and he was hired and he was supposed to have completed his term last year and now they've asked him to stay on another here Bobby have they're interviewing someone that they think will become their permanent rabbi but they love them so but they want him to stay on for another year anyway let's talk about intermarriage is there an emerge in your family and what generations oh I want to show you
this picture before we go too far because this is a better picture of the horse and Henry and me and I'm pointing to where we are on the horse and in the picture in the magazine the book breathe we happen to be in that picture of course you can't see it but it's good that I had on a red shirt because you could see the red shirt so this was an evening of philanthropy and that was is that a good picture good let me talk about my family the Raskin family this is family incorporated which I've told you about already but here's our hierarchy family
owned since 1947 and we had a big blowout in 1997 which was 11 years ago and everybody from all over the world came because we had some of the family lived in California some in New York some in Florida and we even had one who came from Bosnia I'm telling you it's amazing so the oldest even though it's not in in that order my mother was the oldest of the five children and Levine and she was married to Nathan Levine which I've already mentioned and two children me Lincoln Levine and my brother Gerald Zeus Levine my brother I only married to Jewish men my brother
has been married numerous times and always to a Gentile woman even with his Jewish upbringing he married only Gentile women women he's married to a nice lady now then there's a brunette Nebraskan and billy and leecy Billy was his son Bret and Ellen were their children and Bret recently passed away incidentally Joan was married to re Sussman so there was Jewish Ellen by the way was not Jewish Bret Mary Brett was the doctor and he married a non-jewish woman Joan and re he had three children have three children Gavin Darrell and Jordan Gavin lives in Bosnia I think that's where he is now and marry
living with a lovely woman who is not Jewish Darrell is recently married a couple of years ago to another lovely young woman who is not Jewish and Jordan is the only one who married a Jewish woman and lives in California Los Angeles now and Nell and Lew Rafkin my uncle Lew was killed many years ago he was shot and killed in South Dallas and I think that ginger is going to follow up on that story because it would be a good story to have and now Rafkin just celebrated her 99th birthday on Christmas Day and she promises she's going to be around for her hundredth
and I believe her anyways they had two children Barbara Friedman she married a beautiful man will Friedman they had two children lewis paul and Morty Morty married a Jewish woman named Ruthie and they had two children Leslie and Lou Leslie married a Jewish boy first and then since marry non-jews blue is not married but it's not married any lager and I'd think he married a non-jew the two children the other children Luis and Lorraine children of Barbara and Will's Barbara Maire I mean Lorraine married of a Jewish boy did you a very fine firm loving family and they had two boys that are adorable and
they are going to be raised to --is-- Lewis Paul married a non-jew and they have two children and I'm not sure how those children will be raised because she a lovely lady just beautiful I don't know how she'll raise those children because she is I think she's dedicated to her religion and there's mud and lil rats get a mutt and low wild nut with a while off part of the wild family and will was Raskin so there was a lot of that going on they had three children I'm Judy Stanley and she'll be all three children married Jewish Jewish partners Cherie married twice and both
times I think they were Jewish Mike and Scott were there other two children and Mike married out of the religion and Scott married out of the religion they have children and I know that Mike's children will not be raised Jewish and I doubt that Scott's children will be Stanley and Janice had two children have two Gregg and Wendy Greg's not been married and Wendy has been married and she's married out of the religion also Shelby and Karen had have two children Allison and Adam and they both Alice they both married Jewish too as people daddy and Cheerilee this is where everybody in the married out
of the religion amazing but they married fabulous people oh my god I didn't know you were allayed all of them so I know you know I never did know any of him until my brother got involved with Leslie okay but except for Barbara freedom she was like my height which was my teacher at Kramer she taught us the Kramer she was the I just feel like he should talk market crimen Barbara wasn't there you know in her son she was my teacher forever that's off all right we're gonna start now and it's a I've turned this one I got a half an hour left why
don't um this just popped off I need a new table is that the end yeah 23 minutes well she's bait you're basically almost fit well we've got to go with it come on we got time go ahead look at other tape and Mark that one please I'm so sorry that I'm so you're doing great you're doing good is this good this is great I mean the family incorporated that's amazing man jeez but you see what happens to American Jewish community and this is one of the threats as far as Jews in America is concerned unless we think in terms of prioritizing right and that's what
the day schools are about and that's what all of these other Jewish instances it's great but what I want to ask you is when the wrath of my family came to bounce thank you so Barbara and Judy are your first cousins yeah oh my god me and my mother and Jude you're like that's wrong well they had been since they were little right so okay why isn't this 20 I want me to stop oh no we got time we've got time for you to finish that and then we can talk about so tight-knit and we still meet by the way we meet four times a
year in fact we just had we meet on Christmas Day because that's when everybody can get together but we meet on Thanksgiving we break fast together and we celebrate Mother's Day together the other thing that we used to do we went to the Mineral Wells on vacation together every summer for years and years and years I don't think you can tell this but there's a picture of a cinnamon or a Wells also we rented a bus and the family went to Las Vegas together on the bus and my mother was always the one who got fussed at the most because she took an hour to
get her face fixed before she went to sleep every night and guess what when she died at 90 her face was beautiful so they could make fun of her all they wanted but she had gorgeous skin so now here's a small picture of a family tree but as I told ginger Sidney raskins daughter is married to a gentleman named Morris and I forgotten his last name that's how much I know he's done an extensive family tree for the Rafkin family and it takes in the Levine's as well because of the relationship between the two of them and you're going to call and get the tape
because he's done it on tape well there were always newspaper articles that were in the paper this is fun because when I was growing up as a teenager the boys had used to have a group called DSD and we're not sure what that meant but we all and this is a picture one of the parties and it this is a wonderful party because everybody in here is Jewish where was that taken this was taken and I think was at White Rock at one of the places there this is the picture of my sorority when I was in Texas University I was a member of D
Phi e Delta Phi Epsilon and there are a lot of Jewish girls this was a Jewish sorority not like today where they're intermingled and so there are Jews and non-jews in these and I think D Phi E is a non Jewish as well as Jewish sorority now at University of Texas there were three Jewish sororities did Jackie talk about that no she talked a little bit but not well it's not all I'm saying there were three for the girls and three for the boys Sammy's and Todd dealt and a Navy PI then in for the women there was Sigma Delta Tau Delta Phi Epsilon and
the other one I just had it I'm going to be 85 thank you while I was at SMU by the way there wasn't Jewish sorority called Delta Rho and Selma Kirchner was one of the members along with whoever else was Jewish was probably a member there too so that was some of what I happened now what else did you want me to talk about the earliest group are members of the families when they came to down I think that my family Papa and the rest the wrapkin 12 I was 12 when I when she died so that 71 years ago how many years is 71
from today so they were in Dallas already entrenched and I would say the families came in the light 19 19 s and then possibly in the 20s because I was born in Dallas and the family lived on Browder street and I could mention Aaron Spelling here because his family lived on Browder Street and his mother and Mark's mother were sisters so they were first cousins and I could tell you lots of stories about going to California and staying with Aaron Spelling and his wife kandi but also I could tell you about Carolyn Jones and when he was married to Carolyn Jones and so kandi is
Jewish and they have two children that you know about you know Tori in fact I thought I was in California this is another thing that happened to me that I forgot about after my husband died I got a call from Leo fields of sales jewelry company and I was we were next-door neighbors and I had just finished working for Federation and Leo called and said would you be interested in going to New York to be interviewed for a job here in Dallas for American friends of jewett of Hebrew University excuse me so I did go and I sat for three days watching all of the
various cities and their executive directors go through the reports that they had to give and being brought up and after the three days the top guy in New York asked me to work go to work for them in Dallas and I've got pictures of that too because Leo and Barbara had a reception for me when the head of Hebrew University came to Dallas for my induction and I've got pictures of those somewhere anyway I the reason that came to mind is because I was in California in Los Angeles they had sent me to Washington and I admit some two senators who are in the Senate
now were very active with Americans Hebrew University you know them if I mention them because they're very prominent anyway I was sent to California Los Angeles to see how she ran her office and candy had just had Victoria the first her first child and because I had Henry I mean excuse me Marcus and I had always been invited to be their house guests and that happened for three years in a row and this was after Mark had died I went over Oh after Mark died they invited me to come and be their houseguest because Mark and I were supposed to have gone to California to
be with them in December and in there and asked us to come into instead because that's when he'd be through with his pilots and selling his TV shows is this interesting so mark was killed on january 9th and we had a new rabbi a chair of israel who didn't know Mark and I asked Aaron to write his a his not obituary his his obituary I guess at for the eulogy his eulogy thank you which Aaron did and we were friends with the pastor at the Presbyterian Church on Walnut and Preston and we went there one night and the pastor read Aaron's eulogy of market time
- so this was in June of 1973 that I was in Los Angeles and so I called a cab I called first to see if candy was there and she was and so I just took a cab and went over to the house cuz I knew where it was we'd stayed there for three years and they let me in because they knew me and I went up and I got to see the baby the infant but turns and so that was wonderful just the help was there I found out afterwards did candy was terribly upset so anyway that I could tell you story after story
about being with them and all the movie stars that we met and all the parties we went to spending an evening with Sammy Davis jr. going to his home and I did a pillow for Sammy Davis because I did a petty point for it first without the bees that's who he was very to them anyway wonderful memories there and now I need to get back on track well I want to go back one minute you had mentioned you'd been photographed with one of the interviewers was that perhaps Larry King photograph had been with him then if you were the wears suspenders yeah well he came to Dallas this Center invited him I think it was okay are the Federation and he was a speaker here and so because I knew Cohen
his best friend I went up to him and talked to him and told him the story that I knew about the two of them and they are they were always doing something that was incredibly terrible at school and they almost got thrown out for this one and I won't go in to know which Cohen was how Herbert her okay in Washington DC who is a professional speaker who I booked when I had my company I had speakers source international for ten years by the way and I have a new company called linkie linkie i have a new company what does it do well I will
be doing the work for the Big Brothers Big Sisters under that banner and I will be I've currently worked for two two companies one is called neuro wellness and that particular company is foremost in the country and we're with amino acids and other things that most other health people do not work with but we are injured we were just named the primary the best company in the country neuro well neurotransmitters and the one I want to go back to the Jewish manufacturers clothing manifest oh yeah would you kind of well I can tell you that the manufacturers the primary ones in Dallas were always Jewish
the goals nerdist Marie month asan sunny South now Jade lizard Jackie's father I'm sure she spoke about her father in his business there's a gentleman who was in the fabric business oh I tell you who else Harry Harold Hume was in the business he's so fabrics and so did anyway there was another gentleman who was Jewish who also sold fabrics and that was a very big part of of the industry here in Dallas with oh and the other Harry more tower the more towers owned what was the name of their company they they had hotel bags and accessories and very successful and my father and
mother had Michael modes and that was that was that company was the one who helped little companies in these small towns get clothing for their businesses in the squares because they couldn't afford to go to New York and buy a lot of different merchandise from a lot of manufacturers and also in New York the majority of the a lot of the manufacturers in New York were Jewish as well I worked going back I work for a gentleman who had a showroom in the apparel Mart and I worked for him for many years and most of the people who he represented were Jewish and he was
very successful so when you talk about the industry relating to do rady relating to clothing and or accessories I promise you it was all Jewish related this is the philanthropy incorporated this is a magazine that started a number of years ago and because we were friends with the dealings who are the part of the dealy family of the Dallas Morning News they recommended that we be featured in one of the magazines and so we were here we are and it's a story about Henry and his years of philanthropy Jewish philanthropy and me and my story about philanthropy relating to Jewish causes I just remembered I
was a I was on the Greater Dallas Human Relations his commission I forgot about that I worked with that commission for over three years and I helped integrate schools during the integration time I worked with the Greater Dallas Community Relations Commission and we integrated we went into Franklin Hillcrest white and North Dallas High North Dallas High was the first high school that we went into because it was the most integrated it had blacks and whites okay and ginger wanted me to talk about what happened in South Dallas how things changed well my uncle Lew sold real estate and he sold primarily to black people who
wanted to move in and that's why the whites or the Jewish people at least moved out of South Dallas into North Dallas anyway being part of this has been another part of my history that makes me very proud of being Jewish because there weren't that many Jews featured and there have been since so that's very important now I'd like to talk about I became a writer and I co-authored a book with a gentleman who was a football player and yeah look and it came out on it took me three years to write the book Donnie Anderson was a Green Bay Packers star and I used
some of his information excuse me thank you so we co-authored a book and this is the book it's called winners for life and on the back there are people who are very successful who commented on the validity of the book including Burtynsky who was then chairman and CEO of Neiman Marcus while my name is the cookie King Lee Trevino of the professionals offer Augmon Dino who at that time was the best-selling author of how-to books and Polly Bergen and inside the book so it came out in 1996 on January the second because the first people we sold it to with Henry's help was with Ursuline
Academy they bought 207 books to use and it was tremendously successful and I can go on and on about that the book was them I had the book done in Spanish because and I'm talking about in the 1990s because I knew where it was going and so I hired someone who did the translation and triumphant Doris Day Pryor Vida etc etc the same book only instead of the American heroes them I use in this book I use Spanish and Chicano heroes like a Lee Trevino and like whatever van Neiman Marcus came along I went to Neiman's and I said this is a book that you
might want to carry and guess what they did they bought it and they wanted it in hardback so this is one of the books that name instead and Burtynsky had these glorious ideas of doing the book with gilt edges so I had to go out and he'd find the someone who would do it and once I did guess what I brought the prices back to Burton he says I guess we'll just do it the way it is it was outlandish the other thing that I did that I'm very proud of is I worked with the Mavericks they had a foundation and I became friends with
the woman who was in charge of the foundation and she invited me to be part of their three years program with five schools all in desperate situations with kids at risk and so we also I wrote with two PhDs Joanne Kratz and Michael Garza EDD guides for parents and teachers so that they would have a way of going through the book and using it to the best of their ability here's a picture of me with two very famous man winners for life we did we had a foundation money to give books away you wanna say these men work Oh the two men let's see Roger
Staubach with one and the other was Troy Aikman good picture in them now let me tell you about this is at the schools they decided to do a contest and each in each school the children were asked to write an essay about winners for life and how it had impacted them so the winners were selected and they were invited to games for three years new people invited to the Maverick games for dinner and the game and then afterwards we took them downstairs to meet a maverick player and this is a picture of some of the children and I don't know if you can capture the
Maverick player who came down to talk to them to explain how important it was for them to read the book winners for life and even more important to set goals and work toward those goals which is what I'm doing now with Big Brothers Big Sisters and the reason I want to go and talk about Big Brothers Big Sisters is because I wanted an empirical study done about the book and how it had impacted children and I found three professors one too from Dallas and one from Ohio who conducted it took over a year for them to do this study and the study turned out magnificent
and after that study was done the three professors were very excited about the results because they didn't expect the results to be so good and they proposed a an article for their professional jury which you know is very difficult to get into and be published however this past June my three professors were featured in this professional journal called journal of clinical sport psychology and in this issue depression and physical activity measurement of social socially desirable responding hypnosis and soccer and the last one winners for life and at risk out adolescence and there's a 12 page article about their research and how wonderful it was if
you would hand me that over there please I think we're gonna wind up very quickly in 2001 I think that's the year I received a letter from the International biographical center in Cambridge England and this was dated the second of November 2001 and it says 1000 great Americans and it says if there's one group of words that is known in whatever language by every person in this planet it is the United States of America and it goes on to talk about how important the United States is to the world and after 35 years of continuous publications they have decided to publish a something called 1,000
great Americans and this was the first year that they had published it and they were inviting me to be one of them what can I say I really felt that it shouldn't have been me because there were so many other people who were far more qualified than me but for whatever reason they did they did choose me and this is part of what they talked about and so I couldn't buy another book as I told you but here is the metal that I have from that and the metal can turn around this way and it has my name on it and the inscription of 1001
great American's 2001 and they've since continued publishing and selecting one thousand great Americans every year what was your what year 2001 anyway these other medallions are were given to us by philanthropy incorporated one for me and one for Henry so I thought that made a nice showing now I think I haven't talked about my grandchildren enough I want to show you a picture of my grandchildren from they're much older now but that's Rachel and that's mark and these are Adrian's children and me and I love them dearly mark just graduated from University of North Carolina five years with a double major a magnum Sakuma whichever
and Rachel I think I mentioned this Boston from the universe North knew wrong Northeastern University she graduated also with a magnum or whatever and she and she is now living in Paris she went to Exxon for funds for two years to learn the French language so she is now teaching French people how to speak English and she started and ex-im provides teaching and then she has recently moved to paris and she's teaching there for the company that she wanted to work with this is a beautiful picture of my family my daughter my son my two daughters and my son I love this picture this was
a mother and dad's 50th wedding anniversary I think it's so pretty and this is the more of what I volunteered for I directed and choreographed a chauffeur Temple Shalom it was called hats off and these are the women who were in the show and also the kids down here and these are the kids who were also in the show and it received a standing ovation and it was really quite well received here pictures of Henry and I with two leaders in the Jewish community Howard were chomsky and his wife Cindy Howard had a beautiful reception for Henry regarding lift because Henry was very involved with
live so this happened at Howard and Sidney's home lift lift is literacy in Texas for people who don't know how to speak English they are teaching kids how to speak English this is also something that we were photographed in the paper for the humanitarian of the Year award that Henry known for and this that year dr. Gerald Turner who was the as a new prep president received the award that year recently there are 30 years of Awards 30 years in this I thought this was a spectacular picture that was captured and printed in the Dallas Green News okay let me see if there's anything else I did a lot of writing oh I was wherever my kids were this is a letter from Jimmy Krause who is with in Adrian or Kathy's I think it was Adrian's and she write he writes thank you very much mrs.
Seltzer first chaperoning the graduation party and Kramer we are all so grateful for the boat decorations were simply beautiful yada-yada-yada I enjoyed the party and what you have done for us we will never forget so wherever my kids were I was so I was at Kramer with them I was the founding thought founding person of fan ISA Blonsky BBG I was with my kids when they were in Girl Scouts Robert was in Boy Scouts so I and I was also very active as Cherith Israel all those years in the education department while dr. song cats Anthony Thinnes 90s thats right anyone worked at sheriff Israel oh one of the things that I worked on and Peggy Lerner and sunny Lerner her to you who were dear friends wrote this she reminded me of we used we raised funds for the Dallas school of the blind and I'll defy II did that and so Dallas services for blind children and our sorority alumni did that I don't know there's so much still and I think I did mention that ice I taught for seven years at the Dallas junior college level what schools I taught at Hillcrest across the one across from where I
lived on the Abrams Richland Richland so those are the three schools and Eastfield on today's field so that's it I can't think of I'm sure I'll remember something else that you want to talk a little bit about the jobbers you talk just mentioned the job Jewish choppers with the Jewish jobless they were all Jewish and they're the ones who have these little stores stay in business by said buying merchandise from people like my father and my mother because they worked together did I show you a picture of my mother and dad on their 50th wedding anniversary oh it in some you and I went back
to SMU after Mark was gone and I took ballet and broadcast journalism and I made an A in broadcast journalism and me the dancer made a B in ballet and I went to my teacher and I said how could you give me a B when I'm such a good dancer and he said her she said well you were never here I traveled to walk them look at this gorgeous picture isn't that beautiful and they gave the most beautiful parties always at the fair money whatever terrific and the one thing I haven't shown you is I also went to hungry and Tony Curtis donated something in
Hungary and the synagogue was being redone there but I went to the synagogue there where the Jews were buried there so here's a plaque from Marquis who is those who and this was in 1997 recognizing me as a biographical record in this is who in America 51st Edition and here is one of their books this is from 1990 oh it's heavy here's one of the books 1996 edition so it's really gratifying it's so gratifying to know that tikkun olam that's what Jews are all about I don't know why you're teary-eyed when I talk about it but we Jews have made such important contributions to this
country into the world and to Coombe um means leave the world a better place than when you came and I hope you still doing