May 24, 2016

Mickey Warsaw

Mickey Warsaw was born in 1934 in Chicago and grew up in the South Shore neighborhood. Her father worked in ladies millinery, a business that thrived even during the Depression, allowing the family a comfortable life. She recalled her Hungarian grandmother, whom she loved, and a grandfather who worked as a furrier and was struck and killed by a car on Michigan Avenue. A brother who died at age five of spinal meningitis left a lasting grief in her family. A bright child, she skipped grades and attended the University of Chicago Laboratory School alongside children of notable figures before returning to Hyde Park High School. She attended camp in Montana, went to Cubs games at Wrigley Field, and saw Jackie Robinson play his first year.

She attended the University of Illinois in Champaign, where she joined a sorority, and met her future husband in front of a conservative synagogue on Rosh Hashanah. They married in 1953 when she was eighteen. She left school to raise their three daughters but kept a promise to her mother, returning to finish college and graduating at age 32, after which she taught school. Her husband, born with a hole in his heart, worked for his father's business, Warsaw glass, which he disliked, and later joined Metropolitan Life Insurance. In 1975, when she was about 40, the couple moved to Dallas for a management position offered to her husband.

In Dallas, Mickey worked as a substitute teacher and then at Metropolitan Savings and Loan, where she was the first Jewish person the company had ever hired. After her husband died when she was 59, she went to work for Jewish Family Service and became deeply engaged in Jewish community life. She joined the JCC seeking a Jewish home, along with the Jewish War Veterans auxiliary, an organization that resettled Jewish refugees, and a group supporting handicapped adults in duplex homes. Known as the bear lady for collecting stuffed animals for children's hospitals, she remained active in supporting veterans and children. She had three daughters, five grandchildren, and a great-grandchild, and lived by the family motto of honesty above all.

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