Full Transcript
Marilyn 1932 Dallas Texas what do you remember when you're a little girl well i guess i can remember back to i don't know if it's actual memory or pictures you know but maybe around four years old something like that what was going on well we lived in the oakland area that was about as far north as though as dallas that went with my parents and my dad was in the ladies millinery business at the time and i went to nursery school and home had a lot of children in the neighborhood too and he was transferred for six months to open a department in cincinnati so
we left and he had built a doll house in the backyard with his saying is good like an architect good with numbers and measurements and like to build things so we moved the gave up the duplex moved to Cincinnati moved the dollhouse over to an aunt's house for her in her backyard where we got back and I think I can remember a little bit about Cincinnati although I've never been back there since then what was the ride like the Cincinnati back then long very long and hot but then we came back to Dallas and we move a little bit further north on to know y
ou nd what brought you back to death when he opened the millinery Department there and they were ready to return to dallas okay where did where did you wind up in dallastown had no on normandy straight then earth-death normandy we were ready to move into a home and Dallas had progressed a little further north and he was as still traveling in out of town and she found a house she called him and he said sounds fun I'll trust your judgment go ahead and buy him it happened to be in the park cities and a very good school system and that's where I went to school
and graduate no this is the late 30s you came back her in the 40 in authorities okay still in the 30s now did the Depression affect your family at all I'm sure it did my dad was in these in the piece goods business at the time he was single and then before he went into the millinery business so I think he had a job the whole time and we were very lucky that way that was your dad in the surface to know don't Angus not he was that age group where he was born in 03 ok and he just missed miss via service although he
had gone to a military academy for high school Brian Academy and in the near college station ok what about your grandparents you remember them yes I do my mother was from Shreveport Louisiana and her parents lived entry port and had arrived there in the 1800s and opened a specialty store department store what did they come from my friend father came from a town in Russia kool Moe benicia i pronounced it that way but it could have been pronounced some other way and some of her family have traced the family back as far as they could from there and they came in through New Orleans and
moved up to Baton Rouge and then landed in Shreveport my dad grandfather Jacob pervin came from tilsit Germany which I think was destroyed during the war and got on a train in New York City he probably couldn't speak English but he got on the train he had no idea where he was going and he got off the train when it ended in farmersville texas which is up near mckinney and there he opened a driver's store a store there now this was your dad's grandfather and honey ok so what one was this he arrived in the 1870s she farmersville texas so he came from Germany one
to Ellis Island I would imagine him got on a train and just rode the train to attend no plan now so when he arrived in Texas and got off the train did he ever tell the family how he what he did for food or he is it was written in a little pamphlet we've been to farmersville and someone told us to go to the drugstore the little drug store there and that they knew that the town had printed a little pamphlet of the history of farmersville and he had one little paragraph in this little pamphlet and it said our first Jewish citizen came from Germany
and had a pushcart so goods from the pushkar did they ever did he ever tell the family how he was able to start that business I probably couldn't speak English you know then I know if I don't know but he did very well there and the building is still standing and for many years they left the name it was called Irvin brown it was his his name and his brother-in-law's night mm-hmm how do you remember your dad's father you're right now that's an interesting story my grandmother was born in Germany and came over later with her father Jacob bourbon to farmersville and met a man
from Waco who had originally been from Germany also and they got married in march of 1903 and she was 20 years old and he was 40 and that marriage did not last and we actually have their divorce decree whoa which is so unusual in those days so he left my grandmother became pregnant and he left and never met his son and we lost track of him i have read letters that he wrote to her from journey went back to Germany and in Waco his business was a display cabinet business for stores he sold just like evidence for strand mother had had been a pan of
course he can she taught many Dallas people here tell us about school life for you you remember where he went to school yes I do very well I was with within walking distance of our elementary school which was Brad feel good elementary on mockingbird lane here in Dallas I went all through the home heart school system now when you were a kid in high school what was the music you listen to Oh jitterbug and you know big band yeah right over some of your favorite big bands oh gosh Tommy Doris in already shawn and i graduated in nineteen forty nine from home park high school
when i went to SMU I went to Texas and graduate from SMU did my practice teaching at the same school I had taught I mean I attended well bradfield and was very fortunate to get a job in a private school that had just opened here in the US which was lamplighter school and still here left what do what you was that you remember mm-hmm they opened I was their first teacher it was opened by two women ms marie and miss Swain and they opened in the fall of 53 but they didn't have another teacher did you were the first time that I was hired in
January of 54 what was that like fabulous felt very lucky the school is actually in the country in those days it was north it was on churchill way which is part of north dallas now but I went on the country road out there and was the first Montessori School in Dallas wow did you have in your class well uh ha ha she only had first grade and nursery and kindergarten so miss Murray taught first grade the swing did the business by the school and so I had about probably 20 in in both classes know what did you meet your husband we met just naturally in
Dallas through our teenage years our families knew each other but we had similar friends we didn't we had never gone insane school but we had similar friends throughout the city so Joey's on the back of your mind you're gonna wind up with me uh-huh no Ian day chua laughter after he got back from the service I think it's because we went to different schools different sunday schools and we really didn't have an opportunity to you know really be together our families were all card players and and they would get together with their friends and the teenagers in new HS so you knew him a long
time we started dating yes who's the who finally made that decision we're going to date his his father oh that's probably good you tell my daughter's listen to me listen listen to be your father that's great so what did you think of that idea oh we had a good time we we had a very good time we we dated a long time you know but we have similar friends and memories and go away back and it's been great and then one of you guys finally given their we married on August sixteenth 1961 okay um was your happiest time in your life well oh I think
being with him now you got married in 61 and we had the tragedy of President Kennedy yes several years later here in Dallas how did that affect you oh it was terrible it was it took a long time to get over that and we were just glued to the TV which probably wasn't this thing to do you know it just no one could leave their television and Lissa now seeing a television that that came along when you weren't very old do you remember getting that first home yes I did where were we well my dad being a big football fan had bought his seeds through
a raffle type thing from the Cotton Bowl Association right they were having a big contest to get season tickets and believe it or not his ticket was picked out of the thousands and thousands and thousands of tickets oh my goodness and he received the first ticket and that gave us two seats on the 50-yard line at the football games so he continued doing raffles and things like that it must have been a lucky streak so where there was a club that he belonged to a dinner club and my husband's family belong there also and they had a raffle one time and his name was picked
and he won the very first little television set we still have it it's not working but it was in a case in a nice big wooden where was this he must have been around 49 well because when I would come home and it was a little nine inch I wrote about fabulous I mean just everything remember the shows you watched on that TV Milton Berle and player plays or something like that you know but I was at college and I was just really trying you know be able to watch it when I came home but he watched it every night and certain now what college
you go to I entered the university of texas and i was really happy to stay in in Texas he had gone there my dad had gone there and I felt like once you make some good friends it's easier to keep them if you're in state and I really was able to do that and still keep up with people today tell me about your mom mother was this precious southern belle from Shreveport Louisiana and she had a friend here in Dallas and the friend invited her to come to dallas to visit she had someone she want her to meet and we laugh about this too so
southern so cute so she did she came over and visited she met my dad and they went to a movie and and I think when they got out of the movie and went to get something to eat or something she said come over here lowboy she said come sit on me anyway they fell in love and got married and she moved to Dallas the Jewish community how do you think it's changed over the years since you were around just go around so much yeah in your lifetime you've lived through so many momentous occasions and we touched on President Kennedy assassination of course you know the
major Wars the moon landing in 69 the tragedy of 911 is there something that really affected you that you took notice of I think all of them I can't think right now they the one that particularly stands out I was the neatest thing like an invention or something that when you guys finally got it what was like oh wow this is the neatest thing neatest thing ever yeah I mean you may go back and even remember when the Ice Man came as air conditioning yourself that was pretty nice that's right that's right you remember when you got that hurt yes it was tremendous it was
huge it was this is shut the whole half a wall it was a great big metal piece of equipment and we kept it in the smallest room in the house and we could take our dinners in this room all the way from the kitchen just so we could have cool meals in that room and it's a ruler and it was it because the screens in our house never protected me from the mosquitoes it seemed like and it was hot it was hot you and I'll have one daughter one son in one grand yeah yes what advice does grandma want to leave to that grandchild in
the next generation who knows what she's going to see and me and and experience I mean I don't even think we can even realize what life will be like for her I just hope she is happy and content manages will and I think she will did a great job thank you really good thank you all this thank you for having us you