Martin Tobey
Martin Tobey descends from immigrant grandparents on both sides. His maternal grandparents, Bernard Marcus and Nettie Fisher Marcus, came from Jassy, Romania, around 1921, aided by a half-brother already in Dallas; their dramatic escape through Europe involved bribes and hidden train compartments. His paternal grandfather, Abraham Benjamin Tobolowsky, arrived through the port of Galveston around 1892 as a boy of about thirteen and became a peddler working country routes, watering his horses at a downtown Dallas fountain now preserved at Dallas Heritage Village. His grandmother, Lena Skibel, came from Suwalki, Poland. The Tobolowskys raised ten children in a small shotgun house on Caroline Street, and the boys sold newspapers downtown to support the family.
Martin's father, Nathan, and uncle Dave became physicians, and the family produced attorneys, merchants, and educators, including aunt Sarah, a school librarian who worked at Benjamin Franklin. His mother, Rose Marcus, was a valedictorian, social worker, president of Temple Emanu-El Sisterhood, and later an accomplished artist known for her found-object work. The family belonged first to Tiferet Israel and later to Temple Emanu-El. Martin grew up on Lafayette Drive near Walnut Hill and Hillcrest, attended Benjamin Franklin, Hillcrest High School, and remembered an idyllic, freer childhood of bikes, downtown outings, Kip's hamburgers across from Temple, and Shanghai Jimmy's chili rice.
Martin attended a combined program at Penn State and earned his medical degree at Jefferson Medical College in Philadelphia. He served in the Army Medical Corps at Aberdeen Proving Ground, then returned to Southwestern for a cardiology fellowship before practicing in Fort Worth for 35 years. He and his wife Judy, a social worker and community volunteer, met through a mutual friend and married at Temple Emanu-El. They have two children, Danny and Rachel, and five grandchildren. Martin continues to teach at Southwestern and volunteers with arts organizations, cherishing the warmth and closeness that still bind the extended Tobolowsky family across generations.
Full Transcript
today is March 20th 2018 my name is Debra Polsky and I the interviewer for the Dallas Jewish Historical Society and today we're interviewing Martin Tobi about his life and his family welcome Martin let's start out by telling us a little bit about your family your family history and what you know about it okay well my grandparents on both sides were immigrants on my maternal grandparents were Bernard Marcus and Nettie Fisher Marcus they came from jassie Romania my they knew each other there and were engaged there and wanted to come to America it was no problem for my grandmother but my grandfather was of the age
to be inducted in the military and that was a problem getting here his half-brother was already in Dallas Eli smiling they had the same mother but different fathers of the different last names and I think uncle Eli was Mila [ __ ] when he came here and became smiley and I think my grandfather was muskovitz and became Marcus so uncle Eli helped him get here sent money and worked on papers some of which I doubt were strictly kosher because as I said it was hard for him to leave the country and I learned this when we went to see the movie the counterfeit trader which was probably
back in the 50s with William Holden and I had always thought of my grandparents as you know quiet old people who were very nice to me and they got very excited by this movie because the train stations they showed in Europe is William Holden as a spy travel through Europe they said oh we were there when we were leaving and you know I'd never thought of this and they told me the story apparently money changed hands to help grandpa get out and he said the conductor at one point put him in a compartment with a general and told the general this young man comes very
highly recommended I think it was probably recommended by by a bribe and he said it another time he got frightened because they act acted like they were throwing him off the train they throw him from car to car and what they were doing was they threw him back to the baggage car and back and hit him there while they went through some kind of checkpoint I think on their way I believe it was Hamburg where they they set sail from so for a young boy was taken to the movies by his grandparents that was quite a revelation that they had had those adventures I bet
were they able to leave together yes and do you know what year it was about 1921 they were in New York for a while before coming to dowse actually landed in Philadelphia because Ellis Island was closed for an epidemic so actually none of my grandparents came through Ellis Island grandpa had been an embroiderer apprenticed as an embroiderer in in Romania and they made the ecomap you-let's for the military uniforms but that kind of thing went out of style there wasn't that much call for embroidery and so he became a dress designer and pattern maker in Dallas and I think for a period of time he
and another gentleman had their own line of clothes mr. Brooks sailor my grandmother was was largely a housewife right my other grandparents were Abraham Benjamin Tobolowsky who's my paternal grandparents and Lemus Geibel Tobolowsky they're really I think we're all of us kind of date our family starting but interestingly my grandfather's father and grandmother were already here in Texas really yes and the grandmother is is buried I think in sheriff's cemetery some of my cousins found it and talks about her coming here because the pogroms in Europe so they translated the Hebrew on on the tombstone his father I when I became an age to be interested in these things I asked some of my father's
older brothers and nobody really knew anything about him he's buried here but nobody really knows anything about him his name was Jake my grandmother his grandmother may have been in Mineral Wells I believe or I think Mineral Wells for a while but he's buried in Dallas some of my other cousins may know for sure where she was in Texas why the first ones came to Texas I couldn't tell you that's typical that nobody knows why so you know we where we have first-hand knowledge sort of starts with my grandfather at a beer people called him Uncle Ben or Abraham Benjamin he came he told me
in 1892 he said 400 years after Columbus that's what he told me he was I think around 13 at the time and came alone he told me a story it's sounds perhaps a little far-fetched but my Aunt Sarah said he told her the same story so that's two sources that he landed at the port of galveston and took the train to Dallas to meet his dad and he said at the time Dallas had two train stations and he went to one and his father went to the other so he was here not speaking English and no dad and he said there was an Arab at
the train station and between the Hebrew Hebrew and the Arabic they could communicate enough that the Arab gentleman directed him to the other train station that's a great story I believe my grandmother probably came to the port of galveston Lena Skibo I don't know that for sure she had four sisters and then her mother died and her father remarried and so she had four they had four more barrels for half sisters and one of I'm not sure if it was a sister a half-sister Dora Goodman we spoke with she was the one remaining sibling and said that the father had a lumber business and so
they were from sawaki Poland my grandfather was from some place called toe Bulova then I think is a stop sign in in place but that's where the Tobolowsky games came from but she was from Scott from sawaki which apparently is a town of some size and he had a lumber business and mrs. Goodman told us how he had Jim tile workers and they were fond of him because he would help them with saving their pay and told us how they saw the logs and floated them down the river and I think the majority of the girls if not all of them came to Dallas and I've got a family tree someplace but a lot of the families in Dallas from that era buyers and rich have skis and Wiles and others were were the married names of the sisters and half sisters so there are a lot of cousins of some closeness floating around Dallas through through my grandmother sisters
and half sisters so your grandmother was a skybell yes and then so are you I know that there was a sky bill that that somebody's first wife was also a Topalov ski are you one of the cousins that's were lighted on but on more than one side or you I think think you're straight down the I think more than one side there there were a lot of branches on the family tree that didn't like Fork limited sources of social life and there was also a Judy and I lived in Fort Worth for 35 years there was a family the Nudelman there they were from one
of these sisters or half sisters my grandmother was a housewife I would imagine a housewife extraordinary with ten children who each of whom she catered to and put their favorite things and cakes on Shabbos I believe I think I also read that she was a midwife I don't believe so maybe that's a different so interestingly there is a sky ball in Atlanta one of my cousins has been communicating with that I made him aware of he wrote a piece in The New York Times Magazine and I can get it for you if you're interested about his trip back to Poland they lost a brother in
the Holocaust there were some brothers too besides the sisters I believe and he wrote a piece in The New York Times Magazine and it turned out he was a relative I saw the name and kept it but my cousin David tracked it down and we are indeed cousins my grandfather was a peddler he would they lived on Caroline Street which is very close to where American Airlines Arena is now in the El Phoenix there it was little Mexico at the time apropos that very nice exhibit that that's you all and the Hispanic Historical Society had there were ten children I remember one of them saying
that the parents spoke Yiddish initially the neighbors spoke Spanish the younger kids learned English from the older kids and nobody knows where the older kids learned the English my grandparents spoke good English by the time I was I was there but grandpa Tobolowsky was was a peddler and I think he would leave in on Thursday on Sunday and make the rounds of the country towns and get back on Thursday and time to get ready for Shabbos so this four or five day route was through places where we commute to work from every day Farmers Branch and Frisco in places that we would consider suburbs now
were part of a country route at the time and he brought peace goods it out there from Dallas and brought back chickens some of which were for the family and some of which he sold I think one of his virologist was in the poultry business he slept in the farm houses with the farmers he Uncle Dave Paul Tobolowsky Stan my Uncle Dave remembers going with him on the route and sleeping on the ground with him he had a horse and buggy when he started my dad's remembrance said the horses were robbed and Maude which somehow makes it personal but I was driving in the car
with my grandfather one time where Commerce Street meets Jackson I believe there's the ke LIF building it's kind of a flat iron type building mm-hmm and there was a fountain there and he pointed out that fountain and said it told me he used to water his horses there and I told that story to my brother and told him we should go by and look at it and it wasn't there and I called the Dallas Historical Society to see if this was a recovered memory told the story and said no you you were not making up that memory it's in heritage village now so that that
founded has been moved to Dallas heritage village and she sent me a bunch of papers about how the SPCA had bought the fountain and it had a plaque saying it was for watering the dogs there was a lower part for the dogs an upper part for the horses he warmed it watered his horses in downtown Dallas at the time and then later he got a Model T Ford Frank did his route with that you know when they moved from Caroline Street my I've got that someplace not on the top of my head don't Uncle Dave was mentioning it wasn't we visited the other day it
was a 36 Pontiac but I'm thinking it was in the early 40s early 40s they moved a little later they were were very very poor and so they moved a little after the the rest of the Jewish community and after the Jewish community moved to North Dallas they had a little flag and moving there on Caroline Street it was a shotgun house some people call it it had a front door in a back door with a hall in between so you could open it in the summer and get a breeze and then the rooms were to the side and there were ten children and the
two of them to parents or twelve people in this little house the parents and the two girls slept in one of the front bedrooms four boys in one bedroom two boys in the other and then my father Nathan and Uncle Dave slept in the dining room they had a Murphy bed time thing I asked Uncle Dave one time if it was true that they slept in the dining room he said no that was not true the family ate in his bedroom and they took bath on Saturday night heated the water on the stove before between each one order of age where the I think that
was kind of standard because the phrase don't throw out the baby with the bathwater came it came from that but so they the money was tight and I remember one time shooting my wife's cousins hearing stories about this from my dad and the cousin asked were you very poor and my dad said we didn't know we worked till somebody told us they played baseball in the street one of their neighbors made a little drawing of him playing baseball in the street a little cartoon of it than we have saying something I said it so many times and I didn't realize that's what it was yeah
that was playing baseball on the street on Caroline Street and they made their own baseballs we call them sock balls we still made him when I was a kid because they were good for urban ball not breaking windows but when one of the adult men's socks were worn out the big Catholic stocks Lynx socks they would stuff it with rags and then tie it fold it over tie it fold it over and keep doing that - you ran out of socks and then stitched it up and clapper we so that's what you did when you didn't have money for a baseball we played with those
when I was a kid too and I just threw one with that I had lying around with a couple of my grandsons last week the boys sold newspapers in my spring too far from you no absolutely not that's great they sold newspapers on the corner of I think it was Maine and Lamar either Maine and Lamar Lemar by the sanger brothers which is i think now the community college and they passed it down from brother to brother and including when they run college and medical school ever ever selling papers they initially I think bottom for a half cent apiece and sold them for a cent
and then inflation hit somewhere along the line I went up to opinion to pennies they would I think run him off from Sanger brothers because they didn't want the employees reading the paper or pestering the customers but I know they rap outside of Sanger brothers and I remember riding downtown with my dad and I was at that point a very dignified position all of a sudden he rolled down the window and I stuck his head out yelled at a disreputable-looking character who was somebody that was selling papers at the same time I think Uncle Dave said they they stuck together so that the competition wouldn't
try and run him off their corner it was a good corner they sold magazines to hopefully sir Becky's dead I remember one time showed us some ledgers they had with the dates and the papers they had no and how much they it's been how much they had taken in you know careful records every day that went into the family kitty so supporting the family was really a family affair oh yes oh yes it all went into the kitty and then the older brothers when they were adults and went off to work before they were married still supported the family do you want me to talk
about the brothers talk a little bit about the brothers okay well their ancestors there there were ten of them the eldest was Hyman round behind me he was high school valedictorian but was unable to go to college at that point and went to work for Sanger brothers and subsequently for him cans which was across the street from saying her brothers you can get some of his summer jobs at when we were in high school there oh it was a men's clothing store Sanger Brothers was the forerunners of Sanger Harris which was a forerunner of Dillard's all these were were Jewish families and I think the
cans and the Sanger's were related by marriage I remember there was a Eugene Canyon Sanger at the time I was working there that so the families were related uncle Myron Uncle Sam also worked at Sanger's Sam subsequently became an accountant for the Dallas Bar Association and the Chamber of Commerce for probably 40 years I'm sure he retired today from being the Chamber of Commerce and Bar Association's attorney Wow and Meyer worked for Sanger's for many years and then opened a peace goods store I guess you would call it materials on Oak Lawn around lovers was called the yardstick and a neon sign of a yardstick
Jaime's wife was was her main dalco it's Tobolowsky hunters well documented here because mother of women's equal rights Texas Jake was a merchant I think probably a manufacturer's representative I don't believe he ever worked at Sanger's so those I guess where the four that didn't go to college the four oldest Sara may have been next and she all of them that went to college went s in you and then I think she got her a graduate degree from from Columbia and she was a school librarian and in fact beauty of my school librarian at Benjamin Franklin when we came along I was sent right yes
and a very warm woman very extremely proficient she was I think president of the National International School Library as librarians Association and I sir was an attorney SMU and an SMU law school I may be getting my orders scrambled sylvan was also an attorney again SMU n SMU law school and then he went to to Washington and worked for the Internal Revenue Service for ten years and with the knowledge he gained he came back to Dallas and was one of the first tax attorneys in Dallas and a story I heard from IRA Tobolowsky who was also an attorney was that when they had a case
here uncle Sullivan would be on one side and the IRS on the other obviously and the attorneys from the IRS would come in and say mr. Tobolowsky what's the law on this and what's the right thing to do here he was so respected that the other side just said you tell us the law and what how it should work out and it's wonderful and then my dad and uncle Dave were physicians again both went to SMU and dad went to Baylor Medical College when it was in Dallas and then he had moved to Houston Uncle Dave started Baylor and ended in Southwestern's half the faculty went to Houston and continued Baylor and half stayed and started Southwestern it's interesting I never knew had that's how it started yes and and it still
was the Baylor College of Dentistry yeah here that was a remnant of that I don't think it's Baylor anymore it's Texas A&M or somebody else and then Miriam was the baby she was the only one who left Dallas moved to Los Angeles sadly just passed away in the past week very bright articulate independent woman was a joy to talk to she had had a career teaching school everything from kindergarten through high school and then after that she was a real Auntie Mame and her travels all over and she went into the wilds of every place by herself and she started running a Travel Magazine I
guess today would be a blog but it was a friend of Maggie's amen I guess other cousins will speak of their parents tell me about your parents so since we're talking about that side I haven't come to the homicide yet talk about my dad he was as I said a physician and a surgeon very interesting thoughtful individual he was always fixing always organizing there was nothing he couldn't fix or didn't try to in the same thing with people both medically and his dentist told me how he talked him about how he was working too hard he needed to get a hobby and take up golf
so he was there to advise and help everybody he was a medical in the medical division that fought aircraft for a lot of years was part of his practice and became medical director of it and I would encounter people who remembered him from bought and remembered him setting up ambulance systems and things if somebody was hurt on the job to to how they could get to medical attention quickly so he was always organizing and fixing he never forgot the upbringing all the brothers and sisters were very close and of course very frugal with that upbringing you know fix it yourself and he did interesting story
was his getting into Medical School the and subsequently there was a lot of anti-semitism and medicine back in the 40s and 50s when getting started and he told me he knew if he could get into medical school he would do just fine but it was gonna be problematic as a Jew getting him and it's angers sankar brothers the president of estado was president or CEO then but it was a gentleman named mr. Simmons who himself was Catholic not Jewish and I think he remembered him selling papers and he was very fond of [ __ ] and Meyer and Sam that worked there and he was on the board of directors of Baylor Medical College and while my dad said was he told him this is one Julie that you'll take so he remembered the family with fondness and went out of his way to make sure that that dad was fairly received in the application process now is this your dad served in the Army yes that right so did he which came first or met medical school if we're talking about anti-semitism
the Aaron I guess it's it's something we should my father was just one of the smartest people ever met and I had professors who were Nobel laureates I mean he was smart but he flunked his surgery boards twice and that's because they had oral examinations and he went down to New Orleans to take them and he said he was supposed to it was supposed to be anonymous you were just supposed to have a candidate number and he said he walked in and the examiner said your doctor Tobolowsky from Dallas and he knew he was in trouble and he went down there twice and didn't pass
twice and dr. Billy Aronoff who was a surgeon in Dallas that was older than he took my dad aside and said you'll never pass as long as you go to New Orleans go to Kansas City and Ferenc segment Kansas City and took his oral examination in past so there was some blatant anti-semitism in the medical profession back then he was in the Army Medical Corps during World War two he didn't go overseas he went with the troops I think they were bringing him from the east coast to the west coast or vice versa so he followed the troops across and till they were deployed overseas and then would
make the run he met and married my mother during that time how did they move in Dallas she and his sister Miriam were friends and they met through Maryam Mary I think said he she stole his her adored brother from her so I guess that's a good segue to talk about my mom's family I mentioned my grandma and grandpa my mom was rose Marcus she went to Forest High School lived on Driscoll Street which was South Dallas and was valedictorian went to SMU and then I think she had a graduate degree in social work do you remember where that was from to you you know
Judy and I think it's too lame Judy also has a Masters in Social Work from Tulane and she worked for a short time until she got married and I think went to the basis along the South though with my dad some of the time and some of the time just correspondent I have some letters that they sent back and forth and through the period of my growing up she was a housewife your Ozzie and Harriet 50s housewife did mother for Cub Scouts room mother I think a little after that she was president of temple Emmanuel sisterhood and her career kind of blossomed after my brother
and sister and I were grown she was developed as an artist and a very fine one some local reputation I think she had it shows that he used bakers galleries and a very interesting mind in her art she started kind of learning doing different people's styles that was impressionistic and so forth abstract but her ultimate style she called bag lady art she made art and constructions from found objects and they're they're very witty and my siblings and cousins and I still have her art and people come over to our house they really enjoy seeing it speak very favorably of it she had one sibling a
sister Beatrice and we all know as his Betty she said it possible Betty made even better grades than she did when testing you where she was all everything and married a medical student at Southwestern Larry Gladstone who a Holocaust survivor Biddy was 10 years younger than my mother but Larry was their age he lost 10 years and war in its aftermath I think was in displaced persons camp and and then found by relatives of his that we're in New Mexico and he invent eventually settled in El Paso Wow where she was very active in Jewish Jewish activities so how were your parents or your family
involved in the Jewish community you said your mother was president of Emmanuel sisterhood were there other organizations or congregations that they were involved in we initially were to farad Israel as was all of my father's family and about half the family stayed there and about half went to Temple Emmanuel and you know why yes my uncle Jaime was the first one that broke off and went to Temple Emanuel when he married and her mean they were not going to sit separately in the synagogue and so they were the first ones and then I think for several of the branches reform was more fitting the temperament
and lifestyle there was a I think at that time a great desire to assimilate also and changing our name from Tobolowsky to Toby so we started to ferret and then went to Temple and I remember when my grandparents still lived in South Dallas I can remember South Boulevard but walking from one Congress to another at the time temple wasn't in the mix but I believe the synagogue's here originally were more by country of origin than denomination so yeah to ferret was the Russian polish one which my family the table la skis were in and Grandpa Marcus many as read sound familiar many on Sara yes
I think that was the Romanian one oh I'll say smart okay I started the ROM on official yes so we would walk from one to the other on High Holidays deceive my my two sets of grandparents there and I remember the house on South Boulevard my grandmother would always be this was welcome sweet Allah never cook and there was always stewed chicken on the stove I can still smell it the Marcus has lived on after Driscoll South Region in Lakewood remember spending the night there when my brother was born so those were really the affiliations what do you remember about holidays celebrating holidays I mean
obviously you had these two different sets of grandparents and how did your family celebrate Passover and the High Holidays and things like that well initially with very long satyrs had some of the tabla skis and been free for satyrs with with more English as time went on and and temple was was more in the picture holidays we would always not go to school and I think we would go to temple in the morning and in the afternoon played touch football do you remember any special foods or dishes the that your pet your mother would make or your grandmother's we're sort of you know traditional family
recipe made the filter fish from scratch yes and judy has the recipe and once he rolls up her sleeves and makes me that because that's a treasure childhood memory and their matzo ball recipes as well the gefilte fish was Romanian style which had some grated carrot in it which I think mostly filter fish doesn't but that that sweetens it and it's it's really good both of my grandmother's made hamantaschen grandmother Tobolowsky had the tastier crust but she filled them with poppy seeds which was like eating sand just a wonderful crust but a sand filling grandmother Marcus the crust wasn't quite as as moist but the
filling was wonderful that's so you belong to both originally to farad and then to Amin will do you remember religious school oh yeah religious school and Confirmation car mitzvah any of that yes I was a rebellious student I will say and played hooky from Sunday school for a year but contrite I came back and then went through a confirmation class with Rabbi Olin and that really I enjoyed that I enjoyed him very much and one time he called me doctor after an answer which filled me with pride how he sharpies and rabbi Klein was there at the time and he was a very fine pastor
a rabbi he was the one that married us Judy and I were married in Temple okay so were there any other organizations that your parents belong to you know during that time period whether it had to do with Israel or just the community itself not that I remember so much not that I remember something so here you're growing up what did you did where did you went to Franklin yes her middle school obviously and what about after that uh Hillcrest High School and then I went to college at Penn State because they had a combined program where you combined your your undergraduate and medical medical
school went to school summers and got out a couple of years sooner and so medical school was at Jefferson Medical College in Philadelphia which sounded like a good idea at the time but the years I say managed to get me out in time that there was still a draft in the army instead of an extra couple of years of college yeah and and where did you serve I was in the Medical Corps I went in after my residency and I was at the Aberdeen Proving Ground in Maryland mm-hmm I was probably one of the few people that was in well Vietnam had really come to
an end there was still some Americans there but I think the war was officially over but I had a really nice army experience I was newly married it wasn't working day and night like residency had been so it we were on the east coast and we had two two cars on their second engines not a nickel to rub together but we drove all up and down the East Coast seeing the country when Atlee yeah the advantages of being in some place where other cities are only a few hours away instead of all the way across we were between Philadelphia and DC so yeah so after
the army then what I came back to southwestern and did a fellowship in cardiology and then I went into practice and cardiology in Fort Worth where I lived and worked for 35 years okay let me back up just for a minute how did you and GD me a mutual friend set us up we were in at Hillcrest High School she was a year behind me but we didn't know each other in high school and so after college after her graduate school after my medical school and I was doing a residency all these years later a friend I talked to a friend and said I'm not
going with him by now do you know anybody I could call up she said well JD Ross is in town so that's how we met oh great and tell me a little bit about your family well Judy and I Judy background is in social work she went to several colleges transferred but graduated from University of Texas and then went on to Tulane School of Social Work for her master's degree she went on a full scholarship from the National Institute of Mental Health and studies school social work and she was working as a social worker when I met her she was a mother for the years
that our children were growing up and has been very active in volunteerism she's who was president of the Fort Worth Friends of the library and currently is a vice president of the Dallas Symphony Orchestra guild so she's been brilliant active in community things in recent years she's been working as a college counselor helping students choose colleges apply to colleges select their areas and so forth we have two children our oldest is Danny Danny went to Pascal High School in Fort Worth and then Harvard undergraduate Yale Law School in southwestern medical school so he has a law and a medical degree he works as an attorney
though Karen down here in Dallas he has published a novel and is working on a second one it was wonderful I rather hope so he's done several thing he actually I think along the way while he was in law school started a software company for some legal software in Seoul as a company so he's done a number of things he's given me three great grand not great grandchildren three wonderful grandchildren I should mention his wife is is also a Judith Toby she's from Boston the Boston area she went to Harvard undergraduate and Yale Law School also and they met and married in law school and
they have three wonderful kids Nathan after my dad is seven currently and then they have two year-old twins Alexander Alex and Mira's my only granddaughter she's Mariam after Judy's mom and rose after my mom she's Mariam Rose Tobi my daughter Rachel is a physician she's an internist here in Dallas currently taking a little maternity leave she went to Country Day School in Fort Worth and then she went Harvard undergraduate taught school for a while and then went back to University of Pennsylvania Medical School and as I said she does internal medicine her husband is Steve Walsh he's from Toronto and they met when she was
doing a residency in San Francisco he was they were introduced by mutual friends he's from Toronto he has MBA from Stanford but he was currently living in El Salvador working in the administration of the taka Airlines which is El Salvador so she told us she was going out with a fellow from El Salvador and because he worked for the airlines he could fly on the weekends so she moved from San Francisco back to Dallas and so he would fly up every weekend and tell them and things excuse me took and he moved to Dallas and he works as a consultant in Dallas and they have
two wonderful little boys Eli is three and Aaron is two so with two of them a fifteen months apart something but 30 days I'm sure right now see if five burned children but only one girl only one girl I suspect she's a little spoiled oh she's adorable in those that's good talk to me a little bit about what was like things part of such a big family I mean did you did you realize that your family was big and sort of spread out and as opposed to maybe your friends who had smaller more intimate my father siblings were very very close which I think when
you grew up with 12 of you in a tiny house either you become very closer probably I have to get a one at the other but they were very close and so their children my cousins and I were very very close and I have extremely fond memories of both South Boulevard and orchid lane when they moved to North Dallas of the cousins getting together on weekends over at my grandparents house and for holidays like Passover - so the subsequent generations were very close and I'm happy to say that our children have remained very close and for instance Paul's son Andrew who's a professor of Jewish
Studies and religion that in women marry college whenever he comes to town he always gets all the cousins together and so forth so it's a it's a very tight-knit family very a lot of warmth that's great that's really wonderful what would you say was the impact your collective family on the community either the Jewish community or the general community just in general looking at you know so many different personalities and occupations well I think they they had a real mark on the professional life in the city as I mentioned on my dad's side there were doctors and lawyers and I think Easter Easter was probably
active in the Bar Association Silvan likewise I think was well known I'll still need attorneys who remember him the merchants you'll need people who remember him my dad I neglected to say was on the clinical faculty in southwestern and he taught Anatomy of Baylor Dental College and intelligent just recently almost every dentist would see our name and say Oh were you related to Nathan he taught me anatomy and they all had stories in Fort Worth I knew a dentist named doctor I believe this dr. O'Brien he was an all-american basketball player at TCU and he said there was something they were all struggling with in anatomy and my dad showed him how it all worked and what it all was and then somebody O'Neill O'Neill somebody came up to my dad and asked him the same question he said ask O'Neill he understands so they all had stories and all you know most of the dentists in town probably went to Baylor that remember so they really had an impact on their professional yes communities Sarah of course with the schools for the Dallas ISD mm-hmm are you following in their footsteps would you
say well I kind of be active in the community I'm doing some volunteer teaching at Southwestern and some volunteering and some of the arts groups you're like the Symphony Orchestra guild and the Puccini Society so medical and arts a little bit making your impact on the community who would you say was your role model where your role models oh I think my parents anything in particular about how they live that it's just the vigor with which they approached life they didn't do things halfway you know anything they tackled they studied it they learned it they did it full-on whether it was my dad in medicine
or my mom in art and I think the integrity with with which they approach things one last question [Music] what would you like your personal legacy to be you had to leave a message for your currently five grandchildren and maybe the generations that come after what would you like to say to them well I think I just want to be remembered with affection by him okay anything else you'd like to add anything we didn't cover do you want to talk about anything about growing up in Dallas yes absolutely absolutely what was that like we're and where exactly did you grow up well at age three
we moved I moved with the family to left and drive which is near the intersection of Walnut Hill and Hillcrest oh so you were in North Dallas yes yes or what became North Dallas eventually and what was what was your neighborhood like what do you remember about that time oh it was a I think a much simpler time with much more freedom for children wrote my bike every place played in the drainage ditches under Walnut Hill Lane I can't imagine my daughter my daughter-in-law letting their children go wild like that you could Dallas was a much smaller town much smaller city in that and at
that time much less urban and congested and children were given more latitude my cousin Paula and I would meet downtown we would take the bus or if we went to Fair Park on fair day from the schools we take the bus and transfer downtown and you know do all that ourselves probably when we were 10 years old and downtown Dallas was a smaller place you know we would go and listen to records on the headphones at the library we would go to Douglas magic land and watch the people demonstrate magic tricks we would eat the orange in where you'd get a hot dog in an
orange soda out of a fountain in downtown Dallas or as anybody in your interviews ever mentioned Shanghai Jimmy's chili rice no it's not we're not hurt before oh that was in downtown Dallas Shanghai Jimmy was some kind of local character who would run it for a couple of years and then disappear for a couple of years and he had he would mix chili and rice and he had all these kinds you know you could get cheese in it not kosher butter in it which was certainly good for the cholesterol or onions in it and his claim to fame was Elvis would eat chili rice Lee
come to town so I'm sure we googled it we could still find Shanghai chilies chili rice so downtown was more a center of things but everything was smaller and simpler somebody bit so by then most of the Jews had were moving away from South Dallas oh yeah north oh yeah like I said I think mine I can remember moving from South Dallas to to North Dallas but yeah but they they were always later and they're moving than everybody else so I think by the 50s most of these users will probably ignore that right what do you remember about high school you must you were right
in the neighborhood right you know we ride our bike or walk to high school I don't think anybody walks to school anymore maybe a few just the classes the football games if I'm heard correctly I understand that Hillcrest was also sort of known as Hebrew I yes at that point what was that why well you know it wasn't like the Northeast you know I what would you say 1020 percent of the school Jewish you know it wasn't one of these like the high schools I saw in Philadelphia when I went to school there were they being present Jewish it was probably twenty percent Jewish and
that was enough to earn it that that Accord in those days and then Thomas Jefferson was probably second in terms of my number of Jewish kids it was a small Jewish community then not like now and you know probably 25 same piece you know that kind of everybody knew everybody and then your guys probably related to quite a few yes that must have been something I've heard these apocryphal stories about Kipps oh yes tell me tell me what that was like Kipps was a big boy hamburger it was across the street from Temple Emmanuelle I won't tell you that anybody ever snuck out of temple
and went over to Kipps but it was home of the big boy which was two patties and special sauce right I've heard that was quite the meeting place for Jewish kids back then and then there was a place in Preston Royale called Sally bees which probably had a dozen kinds of sundaes ice cream and sauces piled high it was you know like your fifties movies about America you know of course part of the reason it was such an idyllic time was we lived in a very segregated world our high schools were segregated I don't think we had any clue of the disparity of income that
existed in Dallas or the poverty was here so you know when you lived in a bubble it was kind of easier for it to be an idyllic time when did you graduate from high school 65 so that was before or before they were in balance Dallas was pretty late to immigration anyway so I think the Dallas of those days was not as progressive as it is now I think they probably did everything they could to delay it do tricks with busing and things too to avoid it but it was probably integrated by the time by my brother and sister got there yeah yeah do you
remember just in general that segregation I grew up in the deeper south so I remember you know white water fountain yes that I very well remember white and colored they were labeled restrooms and water fountains when we were growing up at places like Fair Park and one of Judy's high school classmates that she reconnected with recently told her a wonderful story that she moved here from the north and when she saw this she ran over to the colored water found a drink as she told her friend she wanted to see the colored water she didn't realize what this was but oh yes I remember the
separate facilities do you remember your family ever talking about it or that an awareness of I don't I don't think it was on the radar you know it wasn't that people didn't have a social conscience but you know for years the the the Tutsis were were decimating each other in who knew it wasn't on the news you know you just didn't know about it it was I think people didn't even think about it it was really more by when I got to college age and that these things obviously in the sixties really started to come to the fore and we realized the disparity and the
unfairness of it well it sounds like you had a lovely childhood growing up in North Dallas and a lovely family as well I forgot I just alluded to my brother my brother and sister were nine and 11 years younger than I was talking yeah well Robert is an attorney here in Dallas my brother and he's actually I think vice president of the Dallas Bar Association it's practice law here for many years my sister Rena lives in New York in New York City and she's an art historian she's teaching a course at the 92nd Street Life is this semester any last thoughts you'd like to give
us about your family those are all the memories I have we got them before they're gone they're very good ones we really appreciated this this project is designed to capture just that the memories that people have of their own lives and the world around them and we really thank you so much for participating my pleasure