Max Tonkon

Full Transcript

Max, 1927, you were born in the Houston area, but at nine months old, your family moved up to Dallas. Yes, sir. How come they moved to Dallas? Well, in those days, my father's business, it was a millinery business, ladies' hats, they had departments in stores, in specialty stores and department stores. And they, of course, had to travel to them. And the railroad was more central in Dallas to where the stores were in Oklahoma and Louisiana than Houston was. So that's why they did it. Now, it's right around the Depression time. Did the Depression affect your family at all? It helped the millinery business because a woman would take off her plate to buy a hat.

and during the war, World War II in England, everything was rationed except ladies' hats. And the reason was in England, they were fighting all over the world then in 1939, in Asia and Africa and Europe. And it helped a woman to put a new hat on so they didn't ration them. Right. And it's amazing. But some of the best years were during the Depression. Tell me about life for you just when you were a little small child. I went to preschool. There was a little preschool and all. And Dallas Country Day, there was a lady named Trout from Tulsa. They came down here on the open Dallas Country Day about where the Park City's Y is now.

and I went there and they taught you more math and all than as my uncle said penmanship he said I needed a corset and I never did write well and in singing the teacher told me to just move my lips and as a result I never was much with music I'd listen as I got to be a teenager you know Glenn Miller and Tommy Dorsey and all that but I never knew much about music today my granddaughter is at NYU at the Tisch School of Music and she is just excelent and she can tell you what notes something in and all and it real interesting to be around her and hear all that because here somebody the granddaughter of somebody that really can even carry a tune and she doing music writing music and all And all this time, you told her she got it from you.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. She knows old grandpa. Yeah, yeah. Tell me about your grandparents. Do you remember them at all? My mother was born in Savannah, Chatham County, Georgia. And she was a true, true Southern lady. And her husband was 24 years older, and he had come from fight for Germany. He'd fought the Franco-Prussian War. but her grandfather had fought in the Civil War in the war between the states and he was an officer in the Confederate Army and Savannah, when I was 5, 6, 7 we used to go there usually once or twice a year to visit her and it was really, really the South there was statues, you know, of Civil War people really in savannah more revolutionary war than the war between the states and of course i was always you know didn't like yankees and all that until i got into the army and i realized that how bad slavery was when i got to the post in germany

the colonel said we've got some people down here that you know you're used to being with you're gonna like it well it was a whole ambulance company I was in the medical corps I was a medical service corps officer President Truman had integrated the army but he wasn't integrated it was still they were segregated they were in all this company had one white sergeant but being from here I knew and understood how they were and I was able to make them non officers I finally got a black lieutenant in there for it and it really did work But there was one little bitty soldier that

hadn gotten a haircut And I asked him one day, and he said, Lieutenant, we ain't been paid. Well, they hadn't been paid for a couple of times. They missed it, but they had been. That isn't what he meant. He meant we hadn't been paid for being slaves. and it hit me like a bomb. After that, I was able to lead them a little better, realizing what was in their minds. This was during the Korean War, Tom. Yes, sir. Did they get it that you understood their plight? Yes, and I'll tell you another interesting thing. The German girls would go out with them. They'd spend a lot of money on them and all.

and one of them came to me and he said you know Lieutenant I want to talk to you and I said fine he wanted to get married to one of them so we talked a while and then I says well that town in Alabama that you're from what are they going to think about it if you bring a white girl even though she's a German over there and he just couldn't answer me for a while and then he finally says, You know, Lieutenant, I think you're right. And didn't do it. By calmly talking to people, not saying, No, you can't do it. And that makes it much easier for them to understand and all.

Do you have any issues with the German people themselves? We lived pretty good over there. We had a villa that had belonged to a Jewish doctor But, of course, the Germans had taken it away from them, and then we took it away. And the colonel there then did not have any children. When I first got there on the 4th of July, they had a big party at the Austin's Club, and I was the first second lieutenant they'd seen in years. The colonel had a 15-year-old daughter, and they told me to take her to the party, but keep your hands behind your back. Well he liked me and we got along real well and all but they transferred him and this new colonel only had a wife so he didn need that big villa So we got it and lived there.

It had two big, it had a master bedroom, one for the wife at the head of the stairs and one for the husband. And the colonel, that colonel, again, I built him a, there were two colonels, and he was a little junior, so he ran the school, and he was up on the top floor, but there wasn't no facilities up there. So that was one of my things. I got a bathroom built for him up there, and we got to be very good friends. And so he told me, Max, this is your room. if a captain or a major comes in here, you don't have to move.

So it worked. Did you ever hear any stories from your grandparents about the Civil War? Yeah, yeah. My great aunt, my grandmother's sister, said she hid under a wagon, and I went to the cemetery. She was five years old, so she did remember it, when Sherbin marched to the sea. and they were frightened and afraid. And I just always remember her telling me that. 1865. Do you remember your grandparents on the other side? Yes. My father's family was from Odessa. Not extra county, Texas, but Odessa in Russia. and there were mother just had one sister daddy there were seven boys and two girls in the family and they came over here around 1904 or 5 and they went through Canada and daddy told me that his oldest brother had a little Russian uniform and when the train would stop people would make him do that little dance and all.

They got to Minneapolis. There was a cousin or something there like most families. I went to Minneapolis and I remember my aunt, they did an oral history in the later years. And she said that's the first indoor plumbing they ever witnessed, which is very difficult to believe. But I have to tell you, Don Zale, here in town, asked his mother what the greatest invention was. Telegraph, TV, all. She said, Don, indoor plumbing. And you just, people don't realize, we thought air conditioning, you know, was something, but it did make a difference. Where did you meet your first wife, Janice? She was from Shreveport, Caddo Parish, Louisiana.

She had an aunt and an uncle over here, and she used to come visit. And I guess she was about 15. I'd see her out at the club swimming and all that. and then there was a fraternity called Pai Taw Pai which was not a school fraternity it was more of a social fraternity and my father had been in it and we had a big vibrant chapter here and they would have a conclave every year in another city it was all over the country and they had one in New Orleans and I went there to it and she was there and I took her out.

It started Thursday. That Sunday is when Korea started. That was 1950. So later that year, we about to go to Galveston and she came and went with us. And when I got home, Mama showed me a letter from the President of the United States. Greetings. so I got drafted I said mama why don't you call me so you can well I didn't want to disturb you so I got drafted and went in and I went through basic training and I had asked to get off to go to a friend of mine to go on a VMI's wedding and I asked this West Point lieutenant if that ring was from VMI he said no the military academy and no, you can't go.

You know I learned not to talk too much After basic training I went to take the physical for OCS Ulster Canada School And we were standing there buck naked in line and somebody's trying to get out. One of us getting a medical discharge. What are you here for? I said OCS. He said, why don't you get a direct commission? I said, where do you get that? He said, next door. So I went over there, and there was a major and a sergeant, and they said, you had ROTC out yesterday. You got a college degree yesterday, signed here. But it took about six, eight weeks for it to process it all.

And then I got the commission and then went down to Fort Sam Houston in San Antonio. and that good, good, good friend of mine that I met from Alabama, he passed away, but I've kept up with his son and all. And he just sent me a picture last week of our graduating class. It's rolled up big, long day. And it's been on my mind, you know, the last few days of being down there. And every day they were taking, you know, people going to Korea. and one day this colonel, they had one needing one to go to Germany. And I said, can I think about it?

He's thinking about it all you want to, but you're going and you ought to be glad. But what was happening was they were sending people that had had arty like that over there because they were afraid Russia was coming into Germany. And that's why MacArthur suffered so many defeats in the very beginning there, because the North Koreans came down there and they didn't have their equipment was going to Germany. After the war and you come back home were you already married or did you get married when you came back? I didn't get married until I came back. Okay, so then you guys got married. Where did you settle down?

Dallas. Okay, what did you get into? Well, I went into my father's business because prior to that when I graduated college he had sent me to San Francisco where a good friend of his had the same kind of business. And you know it would be better to learn it away from where you were gonna be you know one of the principles of it and all But Daddy had been an attorney for the Southern Pacific Railroad in San Francisco They were from Portland. It's where they settled when they left Minneapolis. And my sister and I never, never could get over why he left San Francisco. Because we'd love to live there because all our family is out there.

And I still got a lot of cousins out there and all, and we go out to see them. But somebody talked him into going into the millinery business, which was a big business way back then. And so he came to Houston and then, as I told you, moved up to Dallas. And where did you go to college? University of Texas. Okay, University of Texas. So you get married, you settle down. You and Janice had two kids together. Right. The marriage ended. And then when did you meet Marilyn? Well, I knew Marilyn just from being around here and all. I always like to say that I met her in his house, in the Lord's house, because we were at this wedding.

I took my sister. She was always late, so we got there, and we were looking for a place to sit. And we went in there and I was sitting there and I asked my sister, Marion, who that was. She said, well, that's Marilyn Wallen. And then I remembered. I just didn't recognize it. So after the ceremony at the club, at the reception, I went up to her. And she had these two drinks in her hand. So you want to talk to me? Come over to the table. She was really happy to see me. And then I said, there was a party in a couple of days, and I said, do you know Rita and Bill Morgan?

She says I was in there waiting, which had happened while I was in the Army. And there I wasn't making much headway. But I asked her if she'd like to go to it. And she said, why don't you call me tomorrow? So that was three strikes right then. But we went and we just started going out after that and just really hit it all So it was good When did you get your first car While I was in college it was a Chevrolet We were home, and one of the guys from school was staying at the house, and he told me, he says, Mr. Tonkin, it sure would be nice if Max had a green Chevrolet down there at school.

And so he let me take it back down there. So that was your family car you took back? But they'd had two cars. What was the happiest time in your life? I've really been blessed. I've had a really wonderful life. Good family. My two boys, I think, that was very, very exciting when I had that. And a granddaughter. And then to meet Marilyn after the first marriage didn't work. and there was a man a good friend of my dad's and they were at a meeting one time and he called daddy in the hotel and asked his Irma my mother dressed because he wanted to come down and daddy said well I'll come up he said no he wanted to come down and tell him that his daughter was getting divorced and he told daddy the right people don't get divorced and I believe that for many, many years, you know.

But it's not true. Sometimes if things aren't working out, you need to change. What was it that you used to do when you were little that you never wanted your folks to know you were doing? Well, I'll tell you one that really happened. My father's office was on the seventh floor at Sager Brothers. That was the headquarters of the millinery company. Mr. E.P. Simmons, who was old, sorry, gave it to them rent-free because during the Depression, they'd owe them money for years and didn't do it. And I guess I was like six or seven years old. And we came down to pick up Daddy, and I went in the store, and he was signing his mail.

And he says, why don't you go, it was around Christmas, he said, why don't you go up to Toyland? You like to see the electric trains and all. so I said okay so I go up there it's one floor the door opens and there's Santa Claus taking off his coat and he says hello Mocs I still can't speak. It's troubled me so much. And he says, what do you want for Christmas? Well, I'm trying to list all these things. And he said, well, if you do to your sister what you did this morning, you're going to get a stocking full of switches. Well, I went back down.

I didn't tell Daddy. He didn't say anything because he had called him. You know, Max is coming up. He'd set it up. And until I had my first son and Christmas came with him, then I told Daddy, and he nearly died laughing because he'd remembered. So I guess that was it, you know. Did World War II affect your family at all? Two of my uncles were in the service and some cousins, but my father was too old. Most of the brothers were. And it really didn't affect us. Do you have an involvement with the Jewish community? At Temple Emanuel, there were very, very few people ever got bar mitzvahed back then.

That would be 1940 when I was bar mitzvahed, which coincidentally was the second anniversary of Christodach. and at the time I didn't understand it I didn't really know about it but I do now and he sent me to the Hebrew school we live in Holland Park and he sent me to South Dallas to learn Hebrew and do that and Dr. David Leftwood was our rabbi and that summer because my bar mitzvah was in November I go to his house every afternoon to study which was a big big big thing in my life And he used to call me Maxie and Marilyn granddaughter calls me Maxie I thought I couldn't get over that many, many years later.

But I was very close with Dr. Leftwoods, and Dean Marmichford meant a big thing. And there was only one other man in my confirmation class that was barmester. But Daddy wanted me to have that experience, and it really made a big impression on me. And I'm so happy that I did it. And then later on, I became chairman of the Temple Emanuel Cemetery Committee for 23 years. and that was a big, big thing because I told the rabbi I go to more funerals than you go to because sometimes they have another rabbi do it but I enjoyed it and learned a lot by doing it and I still, some people call me to do something at the cemetery for them Now in your lifetime you've lived through so many momentous occasions Of course, you were in the Korean War time, President Kennedy assassination, the moon landing for the first time in 69, something good, obviously, and, of course, the tragedy of 9-11.

Was there something on the national scene that happened, that came along, that really affected you, you knew exactly where you were when it happened, and you remember it? Each one of those things, I'll tell you, with the Kennedy assassination, My youngest little boy was three, and his mother took him out to Love Field to see the plane come in. And when the president got in the motorcade and it came by when it passed them she noticed his eyes fixed on a priest And where was the priest when that was he standing in the crowd Yeah, he was just standing on Cedar Springs, waiting for them to come by.

We found out that that priest was one of the three that went to Parkland Hospital and administered the last rites. well you know the president may have been dead and they're not supposed to do it if they're already gone but they didn't know at the time and I've got a my Cub Scout den in fact we still 1936 there's still three of the ten alive which is pretty good and one of them was a staunch Catholic he's a knight of Malta which is one of the high things and I talked with him and he gave me some connections with there and I found out all about that how the priest went over there and everything and that was kind of big because my office a block away we were on McKinney it was on Cedar Springs and it was supposed to rain you know they were going to put the top of the car so I went over there to watch the parade come down and I got to see the president and all.

And Mrs. Kennedy had on a pink hat. I got back to my office after we knew he was gone and I came back. And back in the back, we had that hat. And I took that hat and I put it on the credenza behind my desk and I kept it there for years. It was just something. Now you and Janice had two kids together Marilyn when you got married she had three of her own So you had a family of five children You have a total of six grandkids five on Marilyn biological side one on biological year's side. You have a great-grandbaby on the way.

What advice does great-granddad have for the next generation? That family, we're very, very close. One of Marilyn's, her son, was in the Navy, and his ship came to San Diego and my oldest son lived there at that time. And he called him and he spent the night with him. The next week, the ship came back. Eddie was gone, but he still came and spent the night. So our families, we get along, you know, which is wonderful because that doesn't happen a lot of times. but we do, we get along and it's our grandchildren you know, that's what we say it's not it is hers or mine but it's not it's both Marilyn told me she forgot to tell you something when her grandmother was coming over here her grandfather was already here with one of the sons in the business and he had a horse and buggy and they were at a railroad crossing and the horse got startled and went there and he was killed and her grandmother did not know that until she got over here and that was one of the hardships she faced coming here and not speaking much English at all to survive but she did because a couple of the sons were old enough to get them through that work.

Well, you did a great job today. Yeah. Thanks for doing this. Sure, thank you.