Maxine Waldman
Maxine was born in Chicago in 1922, the daughter of parents who kept a warm Jewish home. One of her earliest memories was falling into the Chicago canal in a fine fur-collared jacket her mother had bought her. Her maternal grandmother lived with the family, kept kosher with her own pots and pans, and taught Maxine a little Yiddish. When Maxine was five, her father lost his job in Chicago and moved the family to Houston, driving south with Maxine and her baby brother. There he opened a warehouse selling automobile parts shipped from Chicago.
Because of her father's severe asthma, the family left Houston abruptly for Dallas when Maxine was twelve. They stayed briefly with the Markowitz family and then at the Sanger Hotel before finding a home. The family lived in University Park and later South Dallas, and Maxine attended Highland Park Junior High and graduated from Forest Avenue High School in 1939. She started college at the University of Oklahoma but returned home to attend SMU so she could be near Erwin Waldman, whom she had met in South Dallas. They married in the middle of her college years at the old Shearith Israel, celebrating at the Melrose Hotel with a reception at her parents' home.
Maxine and Erwin began married life with her parents and lived on Stanford in University Park, where their three children were born. Erwin worked for her father before joining his brother Willie in what became Waldman Brothers insurance, a business that later grew and welcomed sons-in-law and their son Steve. Maxine worked as her father's secretary and gave generously to the community, serving as a devoted BBYO advisor for several years, helping arrange events at Shearith Israel, selling clothing for the National Council of Jewish Women, and teaching English to immigrant children through Jewish Family Service at the Jewish Community Center. She lived to age ninety-one, surrounded by children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren.
Full Transcript
tell us about your involvement with the Jewish community here in Dallas well besides Sherrod Israel at secretary and I used whenever Sherrod Israel had a party I seem to be the one who did the arrangement the table or whatever wouldn't like that I don't know what my I didn't have a title but I did have a lot whatever I did and and another was with the council of jewish woman they had a clothing shop and i remember they they took my picture while i was selling her a fur coat and it was much a lot of fun I just love that and then I also
for the Jewish Family Service I went to the Jewish Community Center at the time and they had children there from the people who are learning English and I'm trying to teach this little boy how to speak English I fact I even brought one of my daughter's tricycles okay so they can play with them talking and I would talk with them and I I try to speak a little Jewish I read even go in and he's asking me a question in Jewish and I'm trying to answer him in Jewish and pretty soon he doesn't I don't know what he's talking about and finally he says I
have to go to the bathroom and he said in plain English and I'm not gonna lie so fast was there a particular project you worked on that you thought like this was the greatest thing ever fair enough I was a bbyo advisor for for at least four or five years Jenny ships that was a the most wonderful time of my life I loved it I loved the girls I never miss going to any one of their meetings that they had and the worst time of it was for me was when my son became bows I didn't have to give it up but I decided for
his benefit he didn't have to have his mother there he was having a hard enough time being the boy and it's not very nice to have your mother sitting right next to you I Maxine 1922 vago going back away what do you remember when you were a little little child well the only thing I really remember is we did not live far from the Chicago canal and my mother well my mother let me go out you know I was not five years old because we moved to Texas when I was five so I was not maybe three she had just bought me a gorgeous and
spent more money than she could afford for a jacket with the fur collar for a little girl and I fell in the canal and got all around sunburn it and somebody brings you home I'm all full of mud with everything I thought she wanted to kill me looks at her eyes I screamed and cried I'll never forget that the Houston when you were five you say yes do you know why the family moved yes my father was not was out of a job in Chicago and had the opportunity to move to down to Texas and he chose Houston which was the hottest place in the
country at the time and I was I was five years old my brother was a year old and we drove down all the way in a car and Jason I think they called it a Hut mobile now do you remember all anything about that ride all I remember is coming there and moving it to a house after I was just five and it not too much of importance i remember i just remembered coming there my father opened up a warehouse to sell automobile parts had the automobile parts shipped to him from chicago and so and had people work for him who went on the road
selling filling stations or whatever they went to your grandparents she remember them at all hell yes tell me about no my mother my mother's mother lived with us her her father I was named after her father and he did I mean he'd already gone that's just naturally but she lived with us and she kept kosher and I remember she lived in her own semen in her room i slept with her when she came down she didn't come down with us but my mother had her come down and she stayed with us and I remember today I think she passed away when she was 60 years
old and I think about it she looked 60 years old to me and even older now 60 is the very younger a young age especially if i'm ninety i hope it's the young age of 91 but I just remembered specifically that with her and she became ill after a while and my mother moved moved me from her bed we had a side ports it was enclosing and there was a cop my stats on the car and I felt like that was my own room I had my private room and I guess I guess I was ten years before it was I guess I was ten
years old very sweet lady I learned a little bit of Yiddish from her very little and she spoke English to me and I spoke to her but she kept kosher and did her own cookie you know like many Jewish people in those days kept kosher with their own little pots and pans learn a certain corner my mother didn't shoot culture what about your grandparents on your dad's side when I left Chicago they were together but then they became they divorced and which was unusual but that happened and many years and each one of them remarried and they were in Chicago they were both in Chicago
and I hands at that time she worked on both of them and they left their bat second wife and husband and went back together they came to Dallas we had already moved to Dallas by that time when they came to Dallas no you know why did you guys move to dallas from houston my father traveled all of Texas he had very bad asthma and he'd come into use and it couldn't breathe and he came in one night and he told my mother did packed we're leaving Wow and I mean just like nothing we had no place to go in Dallas except I think my mother
knew one lady there one couple are one family rather and we moved to Dallas and it was great for me in fact she left me there for a week and not I'm 12 years old at that time and i can't imagine that those that she let me i came home on the bus there wasn't enough room for me in the car so she she sent me up to some friends or neighbors markowitz at the time they're neither they're not here now but i live with them just for about a week and smit when they found the place in their place that they found was that
the sanger hotel in dallas and I i went there i went there and i stayed there with them until they found the house and at the sanger hotel never forget I was caught they had an elevator and I would I was caught in the elevator with some other people well I was the youngest and smallest one there they know but you couldn't you couldn't holler to anybody that the elevator isn't working nobody so they pushed me out of the top of the elevator because I they could do me and not them so I can go tell the people to let 60 elevators but they could
come out this is oppression affect your family at all if they did I didn't know it I'm sure it did yeah but we moved first to Euston when we lived in houston we lived on waugh drive the first time then we lived on another three called west clay and the last one then no the last one next one was West poke and then we moved to i forgot right now but and i went to junior high school there before we it left there to go to Dallas now what is your in high school move to university park we lived on san carlos i went to
highland park junior high school there and then one day a non-jewish boy gentle boy came to my house and asked my mother me to the show well my mother was says no she's not allowed to go to the show yet with the boy the next thing I knew we moved to South Dallas where the Jewish boys were after high school did you go on to college you know the heist after that high school I went to forest avenue high school in south dallas and i graduated in 39 and saw from forest and i went to the University of Oklahoma I say I went to I
didn't say they're very long I left because I might I was going with my husband at the time we were dating where'd you meet him in South a little bit probably in a basketball game or wherever but there's a lot of things that kids had one in those days and i went to what from from junior high then I went to southdale support as I said forest high school then college and when I went to college my husband Irwin was was it going to SMU so I talked my mother into letting me go come home to school so wouldn't cost as much money and I
could go to SMU so or when I when I was with him for that semester and the in fact then then I just got married right in the middle of college sherwin did he have to go into the service at that time no he was called in but he was he had a I guess a stomach problem there's something I don't know what it I never really knew what it was so that took care of and the war affect your family and although my brother was in the end it better cepted us right but that was a long time there was a long time where
did you make home Oh in Dallas we got married we live with my mother and father okay and and I remember that by the way I had a beautiful wedding a charrid Israel in the Old share at this ville at that time and then from there we went from from the synagogue we went to the Melrose hotel and had a lovely dinner and then we had the reception at my folks home my father went out one day while we were still living in South Dallas we left and he went out one day and he bought a house in university park on Shannon's oh and then
we moved while I was in college he did that well and I came back in it or one and I moved when we were married he came and lived with my mutt with me my mother and father right right what business that probably go into well he was working for my father at that time first he worked that he he he put him in the office because there was very good in the office everyone kind of managed a warehouse of automobile parts were people picked up in the warehouse and took it in their cars to sell other places all of that or he or sometime
or when delivered them and then irwin traveled all over he first he went with my father my father want to try them out and see if he could do that never been be lindell on my himself and i remember our first car he had a buy a car we didn't have a car in those days fully got married and he had it was a Hudson and the Hudson was built with half wood and half metal that because it was during the war and he would drive that car all over Texas and Oliver eras of Arkansas and Oklahoma those of his tear that was his territory
when that when I worked for a glass company out of Chicago they would send him whatever he made you know and he pretty hard for daddy travel we went back to Chicago for a visit I had a big family still in Chicago and when we were in Chicago my husband gave the man he worked for the check that he sent him after or when left was leaving the company because I said that I didn't earn it and he gave him a check it was a check whether he worked or not yet what did I forgot what you would call that element he said you know
and and he said in my life I've never had anybody give me back money like that he's an honest man he wasn't gonna let me but it doesn't know anybody anything and he came back and that he went back into business with my father and that didn't work very well either and then with his brother Willie Waldron was in the insurance business I think this was in 39 right and his brother Charlie Waldman got the two boys together and talked him into going into business together Derwin would sell fire and casualty and Willie would fight de Silva life insurance well they were both doing so
well after a while together that they decided to be partners all together in whatever each one of them sold and that's how Waldron brothers became at that time did they have any idea how big that company was going to get well no my daughter Carol Jeanne married and they moved back to skoda Howard was in business with his father selling his fancy luggage and we had told Howard when they got married anytime he wanted to come to Dallas a desk was open for him he had a place and finally one day they called us that they wanted and by then they had their first daughter
caylynne and they called us that they wanted to come to Dallas because one thing Carol Jean said the family in Dallas was better than anything and she wanted to be there and he want to be there it was the job still open and Irwin said yesterday the dog was still open and today and tomorrow and the rest of the time and he came down and went to work immediately and i remember i have to tell you with this he's everyone told him you're not allowed to call on customers after ten o'clock nobody likes to be called after ten o'clock you have to call up to
ten o'clock then your finger through and if your conversation is intended is hitting ten o'clock telephone call you later and thick or thank them very much for talking and that's the end of that and there was it that's all our one told him to go to work and thank god he's done very well and then Steve my son came into the business and both of those boys became owners of the building business and it was great it was great for them it was great for her one and it was great for me I don't know what I would do it thank you because it takes
care of everything for me but he and Howard are partners in the business they have some other arrangement that I don't know how to work but they're there they are the one who is your third child very small okay she's married to Neil small he's a he's a doctor of Arthur pitas he has very small practice now in Oklahoma he had an operation on his eyes for some reason or other it didn't work very well but in practice it now he's in he's in real estate and things like that what was the happiest time in your life well the happiest time was with my husband
yeah that was a happy and the second I would say is my first child second the third is my second and the fourth of motors yeah what was there an invention that came along during your lifetime that you went wow that's really something neat our entertainment in those days were strictly movies we'd go out for dinner with every Sunday night we went out whether we had the money or not Erwin and I made fifty dollars a week together I work I I was my father's secretary and he do the office and traveled but together we made fifty dollars a week I had a maid once
a week and I worked in the office and I had my children 123 they were all born on stanford in university park 31-32 if you want the address I remember all the address remember when you got your first television set oh yes very much my brother was working he had an auto parts store right where the toll road is a large length at that corner city cafe is right there and that was his store and he had the motorola television he gave us the television set and we had it not better with just this one when the whole neighborhood came in to watch Saturday morning
and it watch said he can't Eddie Cantor's all those programs around the air it was we had we were the ones that had the television with the rabbit ears or says yeah now in your lifetime you've lived through so many momentous occasions obviously in any assassination I was having a dinner that night my daughter my younger the sherry was outgoing sweetheart and I was having dinner that night for all the boys in the chapter and I was busy in the kitchen cooking and my husband was on a chair in the kit in there watching television he had an infection on his toe and he was
told to soak his toe and he was doing that and all of a sudden he's standing up in the water and I said what's the matter he says they're just a minute that the kennedy was shot he had been listening to the radio it was horrible I remember what to do about friday night dinner here i'd already all cooked for fifty boys called the president of the chapter and i said to them you all have to eat anyway we're not going to have and we're not going to have anything talking about a za or BBG but i think it's a nice time for y'all to
get around and just talk to each other about what happened I mean that's a very caring time for me right and my eyes are watering it and he did and he they all came it was a wonderful wonderful evening they didn't sit there all night long how wonderful my daughter was already knew that that's what they do tell her how wonderful she is at the meetings but this was just talking with each other and it was just really was a great day great evening for them and for me to get together like that Norwin had three children 10 grand kids 18 great grandkids and 11
more on the way that's right this time what advice does great-grandma want to leave for the next generation just recently I was with Steve and Jackie in California and he's eating so fast I said see if you wouldn't eat so fast you probably enjoy it better he says mother I'm 61 years old now it's time you stop telling me how to eat but you know mothers or mothers the advice I always gave my children is I'd rather you'd be miserable across the street in me than happy a thousand miles away so stay with your mother and father as much as you can that's pretty that's
pretty good and they're all here except to two couples and that's pretty good another thing is I can't worry about anything I can't do anything about I walk away from an argument and if things are bad this too shall pass and they all know that I say that all the time especially that I don't worry about anything I can't do anything about that cat that got me to be 91 great job today thanks for doing this thank you very much