Marilyn Pailet
Marilyn Pailet was born in Dallas in 1941, the daughter of parents whose families had immigrated from Poland. Her father's parents came to Dallas around the turn of the century, settling in South Dallas where the Jewish community lived, and raised a large family. Her mother came to Dallas in 1939 from Kansas City to work for a relative, met Marilyn's father, and married him in 1940. When Marilyn was about six months old, the family moved to Brownwood, Texas, so her father could manage his brother's jewelry store. They returned to Dallas when she was almost seven so their children could have a Jewish education and community life, which Brownwood, with only a handful of Jewish families, could not provide.
Back in Dallas, Marilyn's parents built a jewelry business, Sterling Jewelers, which grew from a small downtown space into several stores after a fortunate newspaper advertisement drew crowds. She attended University Park Elementary and graduated from Highland Park High School, where she was involved in synagogue life and youth groups. From an early age she was active in Jewish youth organizations, serving as a treasurer in one group and taking part in BBG and United Hebrew Schools. She attended Newcomb College of Tulane University, where she chaired the UJA campaign, served as president of Hillel, and belonged to a sorority. There she met her husband, Harrell, and they married after she taught school for a year in Dallas.
Because Harrell practiced Louisiana law, the couple first lived in New Orleans, then spent two years in Germany during his Army service, where they adopted their first son and encountered lingering wartime tensions among their German neighbors. Harrell later decided to move the family to Dallas, where he passed the Texas bar and opened his own law practice. The Pailets raised four sons, two adopted through Jewish Family Service and two born to them, and welcomed grandchildren. Marilyn immersed herself in community leadership, serving with the Jewish Federation, the board of Jewish Family Service and its adoption committee, local, regional, and national Hillel boards, and as women's campaign chair in Dallas, traveling twice to Israel. Later in life she fulfilled a long-held wish and celebrated her own bat mitzvah.
She encourages the next generation to be honest, involved, and faithful to Jewish traditions.
Full Transcript
well tell me about your involvement with the Jewish community oh well that goes way back in high school I was in like young cydia and I was the treasurer and I had the money in a jar and I don't know what happened but we lost the money in the jar my mother said you can never be too sure of anything ever again I said promise I won't and I wasn't ever we don't we don't know just disappeared then that was active in BBG and keepers school and Sunday school when I was growing up in Dallas the community was pretty tight and you knew most everybody
back then the Jewish community and part of that was because we had it what was called the United keeper schools of Dallas and rather than different congregations having their own religious they had the religious schools on Sunday but the Hebrew school day after we went four afternoons a week my grandkids complain about one or two so anyway went for afternoons a week and we were with everybody from from the there was only three congregations than an orthodox are conservative in a reform at that time and what you got to know each other and then went because of bbyo ACM BBG we also mingled pretty well
and the only thing that was sort of really interesting was to me and I've always remembered was when I was 15 my family joined the Colombian club which was the Jewish country club they had always been in lakewood and really only for reform jews up to that point and they built a big new place in carrollton with a big Golf Course swimming pool tennis and all that they needed more members so they decided to relax who could get in so my father and his golfing buddies have been using public golf courses thought well this is nice well joint we'd have nobody had swimming pools either
will join the country club so we did and then they have a social group for the teenagers and so I had a cousin who also long we went and we met these people we'd never seen before we never come across this group of people and so we said why have we never met you you know what they weren't their parents would not let them be in bbyo because they thought it was too scientistic and to religious that were very very reform and so I met this whole nother not big another group of people that I never knew before because we joined the Colombian club so
then I think I knew pretty much everyone in the towns and then in college I was relying I was chair of the UJA campaign at Tulane and president of Hillel and in stt sorority so I was pretty busy there too all right now what about in the later life balance now well our later in life well then okay when I came back I immediately got involved in the Jewish Federation I was on the board of the Jewish Family Service and on the adoption committee at one time and I've been on a national board of Hillel local and regional national hilloa board at one time and
the National cjf which was the council of jewish federations which is now no longer called that for Federation for the women's division I was the women's campaign chair in Dallas for two years and got to go to Israel two summers with the national tour which was wonderful now out of all of these different organizations you work for which was the most fulfilling for you mmm that's really a hard question and I've been the synagogue board um we're silly guy sheriff is wrong where my father was president and where we got married and all four kids three kids got married and all my grandchildren so far
have gotten brought birnbaum it's good and we've had the bristles there for the new ones and I had my own been a mitzvah I got a year and two years ago for you yeah finally back what I wanted to do it when i was in hebrew school day he's way back but i would have been the third girl in dallas and my parents said you don't need to do it and i was really sort of upset because I knew as much as the boys so it took me all the years after that finally get to class and do it well working at the adoption committee
of the jewish family services did it give you a better appreciation it was so much harder by then then you know but by the time I was on the committee was after all I had all my kids and so it was really so much more difficult to find babies for people into in the cost and they finally ultimately don't have that program anymore it's just too difficult Marilyn 1941 born in Dallas yes let's go back what do you remember when you were a little girl I don't from Dallas I don't remember much because I was six months old we moved to Brownwood Texas for my
father to work for his brother in a jewelry store there and we stayed until I was almost seven so my earliest memories are not a Dallas although he did visit to my grandparents who lived here like when I got my tonsils out I had to come to dallas and stay a few days we came in occasionally but my grilled meant memories of dallas start when I was almost seven when we came back permanently to live here so you would move the Brownwood when you're six months six months older than he came back when you were seven in on my seven yeah and you came back
for dad's business we actually became back because by then we had I had two siblings two brothers and my parents wanted there was no Jewish family life in Brownwood Texas I think there were five families so they wanted us to have a Jewish education in life and so he gave up that job and came as started a new business in Dallas so that we could move and ultimately that became very successful it was struggle for a while but what business was that sterling chillers sterling jewelers okay so do you remember when you were a little kid do you remember you know you're dead working and
talking about starting a business oh yes and my mother also helped him start it about the time my sister was born in Dallas so she had a newborn at home and they both started this business a sort of at the same time and she always worked with inna the two of them talk to me about your grandparents you remember them at all my father's parents who were from Dallas that my grandfather came here about 1890 something she came in 1899 where they come from he came from Poland through Philadelphia and had the citizenship there in the 1880s and then I was married had a child
his wife died so he brought his child and came to Dallas ultimately and met my grandmother who was younger and she came through the gallop through Galveston but not the big migration you hear about it hurts was before that we've researched it as she came from Poland also and they married and had nine more children of which author was the end they raised all these children in south dallas where the Jewish community lived at that time so I very vague memories of them in fact when we moved back on my grandfather had died while we lived in brownwood and my grandmother died a few months
after we moved back to Dallas I only remember her like coming to see our house once right she was very kosher she would only have a glass of water in our house and so that's mildly memories my mother's parents were from Kansas City they also came from Poland and my mother came to Dallas to work for a relative in nineteen thirty nine nine and end of 39 I guess and I met my father and they got married in 1940 and I was born 1941 so then my mother's family's after the business took off started all moving to Dallas my mother's brother and sister who are
still living here and my grandparents have passed away so I need them much better because they've got a house a few blocks away from us in university park and we would go and spend the night and certain that they live much longer in fact my grandfather died the year I was married in 63 a few months later and she lived past my mother who's been gone 25 years so my grandmother died at 99 at golden acres so I bent my new much better yeah they live a lot longer now do you remember what your grandfather's did for a living my father's father was a fruit
peddler and ice have ice on a cart judgment that's what he did pretty nice I fit for my I'm told she first mothers were all stay at home back then she had 10 children 19 he had the other one who was actually so much older she was married my father was even born bass sister so the other grandfather had been in the dry-goods business and bought lots and had like you know sales and then that ultimately had a little store on deep ellum in dallas where they worked for a few years then he went to work for my father and mother's business and he would
meet people at the door and greet them and say hello when your dad's business started doing well did he ever talk about what it was that helped it go get to that point they were struggling and struggling the hell little like host cell type jewelry and silver ins business in a little room in the mercantile securities building in downtown Dallas and they were having a really hard time making a go of it and so they decided they would put a little ad in the dallas morning news and it was for ronson lighter which is big thing back then and those days nothing was discounted so
it was a you know retail 1095 for 795 something like that it was like a miracle that the copy / the person that puts the newspaper pages together that day there was a national ad for on some lighters and they thought well that's a good place to put this ad right below it this giant ad with the retail price and then this little price come to sterling it was that time is called sterling hotel jewelers and so they didn't know about this how to come out my mother says tells the stories they came to work that morning get off the elevator and they can't there's
all these people in the hallway they came and get to open up the place it was such nobody discounted in those days the people were all lined up to get in to get this lighter and ultimately heard about what else they had with the diamonds and the watches and everything else and after that they moved to a bigger space across the way and then they ultimately had several stores in the Dallas area I have an uncle in Houston who went to the same business and then they sort of combined forces it for a while where did you go to grammar school University Park Elementary okay
what do you remember there it was a very good school and I got a great education there weren't very many Jewish students and so there was one other girl in my class we got to bring the menorah for Hanukkah to explain the holiday all through the holland park schools where i graduated i was we were my friends and I were very involved either the synagogue's temple or you know in ACA and BBG and we really were oblivious of that we were sort of left out of their social life they were in the Dallas Country Club which we didn't even know existed and so I don't
know we were just innocent bystanders there I guess you'd say but I had great education I'm still somewhat active in the Alumni Association and you know it was really good there was high school in Holland Park High School however junior high on Park ice okay and tell me a little bit about high school life we had great sports teams who won the state championship in football baseball and basketball and I think tennis and swimming the year I graduated so that was exciting we were all involved and went to all the games were you or to submit the respective no I spectator and I did participate
in the intramural leagues they had for the girls you know when I paid played basketball and volleyball and but we would get in the bus to go to baseball games out of town schools and football now you were born the year of world war two mm-hmm did that were affect your family at all that you know well it did in that my father was it was drafted in brownwood but luckily his personal doctor was there at the board the day he went he had already had hemorrhaging ulcers oh boy the young in his 20s so the doctor knew he could not serve so he he
did not but there was an army camp in brat right at brown wood and so there was a lot of activity in the city because the camp was bigger than the community and that helped the business there where my father was working for his brother's jewelry store managing it so they were they were busy whenever payday came they told me in the army they would mother would have to go down and help to in those days and then I early one of my earliest memories is being they said they were having a party at the house and we had to stand in their bedroom and
I looked out the windows they had a big movie screen in the back yard and they had all these it was like a uso type of party they had all the soldiers and women and they were coming in the house just the bathroom and they had beer and watermelon and that's not one of my first memories and meadows you know obviously during the war a picture of me standing when they had a parade when the war was over downtown Brown would but I honestly don't remember it now in high school when you had come home there's a famous TV show that a lot of the
high school kids watched you remember that little American bands you guess I did you remember dick market I do I would also come home and listen to radio when I was even younger and they don't watch American Bandstand is I got to be a teenager now after high school was it to worker to college college okay where did you go to college I went to newcomb College of Tulane in New Orleans and my second year I met my husband we were both we both agree at high school at 17 so he met 18 we were both 18 we're 13 days of he's 13 days older
13 days every year remember and so we dated through college and then after another year he went to law school after his junior year and a combined program of college and I came home and taught school in Dallas for a year and then we got married and then I went back to New Orleans so he finished law school then he had neuro TC Commission so if he had gone the army and we went to Germany for two years now when you're in your 20s it was a very unsettling time in the United States you know the 60s and whatnot and there was the hippie movement
that everybody was a hippie back then how did this affect you not me at all okay because I was already in 62 through with college you're a little too old okay and watch from the sidelines yeah we knew about it but we had nothing to do with us Germany what was it like in Germany oh it was another interesting experience um first of all I when we got married we were sad we're gonna have a baby right away well we didn't so the doctor said well maybe you should adopt you're going to Germany there's probably babies there you should go get one there while you're
in the army so we went to the my husband had a translator from his unit come with him and we went to the Red Cross what took that we were told took care of this and they said well in Germany the law is the baby must be the same religion as the parents and we haven't seen a Jewish baby since before the war because the Jewish community would handle that if there were a baby available so he can't help you so that was the end of that one so then we went to see the army rabbi who is the head chaplain for Germany and who
was in Heidelberg not far from us we were in Mannheim and said you know if you ever come across a baby's just had a baby last month from a colonel in Frankfurt starter and of course that's God and I don't know ever find another baby well a few months later he called and there was a baby in Heidelberg with the parents willing to give up the baby in the Army Hospital and so that was our first son so German citizenship he has American system but he's born in America he could if he wanted but he never told him I think she was working from American
parents the metra an Army Hospital he had American citizenship no no I know it was you know after the war you know nearly 20 years after the war but how did the German people how are they to you guys hi we couldn't get army housing because he was only in for two years and there was a shortage so we lived in a first down town man hi man in the village well he lived in downtown Mannheim and we had the baby ultimately would who lived in my bedroom at night we put him in the living room it was a nice place in the office building
that was like a condo the owner when it was time to set to leave we found a bigger place in the village she said come to my house and have tea and we'll settle up because they count everything it was furnished right like every knife every scissors you know such an accounting where what happened to this you know but anyway so I took the course the baby with me I took them everywhere with me at that time and this was he was by then maybe six eight months old I can't remember exactly no it must been near a year because my parents were coming to
visit for his first birthday and they never been to Europe at that time and so I she spoke German to her best I could and so we're going everything's going fine and i said my parents are coming to visit and she said oh and she said I had no idea what the word was so she bought me a dictionary to show me christening well he never talked about being Jewish while we were in Germany so I thought oh well I'm moving out so I said no it's been hidden and she didn't know you'd written Ava know for sure the word and she's going nine yeah
and your husband she's asking me that yes my husband me she was like and she just SAT there like frozen and I thought usually my inclination is to relieve people have not been comfortable I'm going to wait and see what happens I didn't say anything I just SAT there and she SAT there and you can see her mind just spending with what to say and finally in German she said to me I had a Jewish friend before the war that's good you know and that was into her then the other really injured by a couple more things one is I had a maid to come
once a week and put sprout and I would stay there when she was there to talk to her so I could practice my German and we just talked about different things and one day the bells were ringing in the village for the church and she said I the English is your church and I just acted like I didn't understand her and Phi she said it so many times I had to acknowledge I knew what she was saying I said no what church in zone yeah he's been getting and she said oh she never came back then we had third thing that happened is within this
village we had American officer next door living in a family with the German family on different floor and they made friends with these people and they wouldn't bite him down to the basement night sometimes to watch TV and have a beer and so they were there late night American television if people are old enough remember it used to go off and there be this test pattern and they see the national anthem well they did that Germany in 1960 this is 1966 already i guess and she said that this is so this couple who were Protestant came to see us one day and said we were
very upset we're very concerned so what's wrong they said well you know they had us down to the basement like usual but we were there late and the tv went off and the national anthem started and there's words that are forbidden now in Germany from Hitler's day it was Deutschland uber alles that they can't sing that part Germany overall so they all stood up saying it and how hitler'd the Germans and my family that where they were living and they were just horrified you know so they came to tell us of course so we could be more comfortable living next door to this but it
was nothing ever happened it was just unpleasant to know about it Wow yeah certainly when I you come back to the States mm-hmm pretty good settle down here and and what do we get into I went to work my Herald hey had Louisiana law his family has no one ever left at that point Louisiana and it's different than all the other states and so I knew when I married him we would have to live in New Orleans even though it wasn't very nice compared to Dallas so but that's I knew that so once we had a child he started thinking about it all and he
found out from correspondence with his friends from law school that jobs were not there no one had a jobless it was a family offer we knew the housing was not good the schools were terrible the economy was thinking has never really been her there and so unbeknownst to me he was thinking about all this and one day he said to me I think when we leave here we're going to go live in Dallas and I was just amazing and I know as I used to say to her dying day I know my mother-in-law probably thought that but a gun to his head and I promise
it was his all his idea what I was thrilled of course my family was so thrilled my parents sent him all the law review books for Texas bar to Germany so he could start I been anyway so when we left then we came to Dallas so he had to go back and he audited classes of SMU for almost a year to get that kind of law under him and take the bar but she had to go to Austin those days to do which was during the Six Day War in Israel and he said he allowed himself like 10 minutes every hour to listen to the
radio or TV in the hotel where he was studying for the bar because he'll never forget that part in any event so then we were in dallas he had an apartment i worked at my family store at sterlings and he and we had a sitter for the baby and he was studying for the bar then he passed the bar and he opened his own law practice and then we've got a house and then we put inferred to adopt another one through Jewish Family Service we were at the second one in Dallas to get a baby and in those days you had to go to whatever
city if a Jewish baby was born under the first day I way I think had to go to Denver so we were just waiting to have to go somewhere and one day we get a call we have a baby it's so funny I was working on a federation campaign for younger set and we didn't have call waiting back then so the operator interrupts I have an emergency call well okay so well hung up to ever i was talking to and it was the Jewish Family Service because they've been trying to get me and I was on the phone so much we have a baby you
have to see are you interested I said oh yeah of course of course and she says well it's this is the way the hi Bob ivana's oh oh that's wonderful that's it and it's at the Gladney home and because it's a Jewish baby they call Jewish Family Service to have take come take the baby so I said oh great I got a good i call my husband she said wait a minute wait a minute and so I said well what's wrong she says don't you want to know what it is and so funny is because when we would go to these meetings to be interviewed
to adopt they would say do you have a preference for a boy or girl and every time I has really kicked me under the table because i thought well i want a girl obviously i really didn't care i forgot to even ask and so we laughed about that a lot then we went to got our second son right who's now married and has three kids and the first one that is not married he has he's the greatest uncle in the whole world and then after a few more years six more I think I got pregnant it was like such a shock and then he came
a month early I didn't have a name I hadn't packed the bag I don't think I ever really was ready for this and three months later I was pregnant again and so I had two more boys and wallets ended up that's the rounded out the family what was the happiest time in your life we recently had a really happy times we had our 50th anniversary in june 230 and our kids gave us a party and there's so many happy times in your lifetime there's been so many big occasions on the national level of course you were born during World War two your experiences overseas in
Germany Vietnam War when you were young lady they tried to send my husband from Germany there but he didn't have enough time left so you didn't go ok you know the Kennedy assassination the moon landing something good in 69 for the first time of course the tragedy of 911 was there something that really stood out that you took notice of hmm in Kennedy to like i said i was teaching school that day and they announced over the latin new orleans and the amount on the loudspeaker just that he had been shot you know may dismiss the school but i stayed up all night to watch
the moon landing my husband went to bed I thought that was a really exciting thing yeah the thing with with Cuba and Kennedy the Missile Crisis was scary there I remember that Vietnam but only because when we knew people who are going there to fight you and her I'll have four boys six grandkids one on the way at the time of the taping what advice does grandma have the next generation just to be honest to to not be afraid to show their feelings just do very best tend to and to be involved and to continue the Jewish traditions and be good people Marilyn thanks for
doing this you're welcome you did a great job thanks alright thank you