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Myra 1924 Reading Pennsylvania yes let's go back a little ways what what do you remember when you were just a little guy snow snow and snow we didn't see the grass for sometimes two full months in a row I went to a school in a Township in which there were children from first to 10th grade on one floor first through the 10th grade so I went to that school from the first through the 10th grade what was the name of that school school Pence High School what did your dad do for a living my dad turned a furniture store into a beer store in 1933
when Roosevelt engineered the uh the release from prohibition and he sold beer as a distributor uh for 15 years now you had a furniture store before that did the Depression affect your family at all well certainly sure it affected everyone I remember my mother sitting me down on the edge of the bed one day and said honey things have been tough this year uh for Hanukkah I had to get you pajamas and underwear and socks yeah and were you able to understand what was going on you guys knew yeah and do you remember your grandparents at all my grandmother only my mother's mother she was
born in Philadelphia in 1864 she hired a person we today we might call it a housekeeper a maer or whatever who came over from Germany at age 15 stayed with the family into her late 80s and she was Catholic and she was buried in the Jewish cemetery in Philadelphia in the area where the rest of our family were buried he what did you do uh for fun as a little kid but I played outside everything football baseball the works all of it all of it uh theater I was well known and reading in my Junior and senior high school days from work in theater did
you have aspirations uh to become professional no no clearly I knew that you don't raise a family as an actor yeah and I wanted to write you don't raise a family as a young writer so I didn't write I didn't act hardly uh in those days now was your dad in the service yes he was in France in World War I did he have any stories about what was going on he was a sergeant and when the war was over armorist declared he and others went to Paris and did what soldiers do and he was Court Marshal and exited the Army as a private when
you graduated high school yeah was it on the college to work or did you go in the service went I went uh to Podiatry school then directly from high school this remember it was 1941 mhm uh my son practices podiatry in Florida he is uh his background is four and and is required of him as a podiatrist four years of Premed or pre pediatry and two years of uh of a residency MH surgical residency but you went right into a patry school okay but the World War II broke out MH um and then you were called into the service yes my father called me he
said you didn't know this I'm on the I'm on the draft board I want you to go downtown Philadelphia and I want you to to to uh get in the Navy now tomorrow I did yeah did he have a reason for why he wanted you in the Navy well certainly he was he was in the Army in in France and that was a dangerous place yeah muddy dirty and dangerous yeah okay so now you're in the Navy yeah what are you thinking World War II is broken out and uh and you're in training let's say I'll use the word fortunate I don't know if that's
the word um all my life has been fortunate I was stationed in Stateside nearly the entire time for 3 years New York and Philadelphia and Indianapolis and so forth now that you EV wind up towards the end of the war though going into the Pacific we commissioned a ship after the war was over after after you left the Navy where did you go settle down where where did you go back home I completed my pediatry school right uh in Philadelphia for two years after I got out of the Navy pists were not commissioned in the Navy in those years and so I so I had
two years patry first and went in the Navy came out in three years and then completed my next two years after that okay then I came to Dallas so you came to Dallas to start your practice okay and what what was the decision to come from Pennsylvania down to Dallas I prayed on it yes I did and the next thing I did went to Washington or by by mail and asked for information about uh different states and different places and I learned that in in Texas uh there was a high a high level of both telephones toilets which is which here are commodes and uh
said there I think I'll go to Texas and then where well I came to Dallas to uh take my boards for two days in Fort Worth and then went down to San Antonio looked it over and uh and Austin and Dallas and uh John Rosie field he was the editor of in the Dallas Morning News for the symphony uh for theater uh for for uh for the for the for the State Fair of Texas etc etc he was he was the writer who who told us all about those things and when I was in the hotel downtown Dallas that night finishing my boards I saw
his article on the uh on the city the county I was impressed with what what was going on here and that's what made me decide to come to Dallas John Rosenfield became a patient sometime later and always when I saw him asked me to repeat that story because he's the reason I ended here what did your family think uh when you said I'm moving to Texas guys my dad had passed away uh they didn't interfere didn't question and they followed me here and about 3 months oh really so the the whole family came down then mother and sister yes all right now you moved to
Dallas it's got to be a little bit of a culture shock for you when you get down here especially the Summers uh yes and it's fine I handle things kind of quickly and then where did you meet your wife here in Dallas at a young ladies uh Club Jewish Club at the adus hotel at a dance we didn't we didn't like each other to the moment we met on the dance floor and we didn't uh date until for six months never saw her again but someone in the office told me about her and this is what they said they knew that it had just happened
my wife was coming home on the bus from work she she gets off the bus she saw a lady running waiting to get on the bus a black lady and wearing a white uniform which all uh blacks wore in those days if you were employed in the household waving waving want to get on the bus and the bus driver clearly didn't want to stop for her didn't want to let her in my wife said but she's coming she's coming she's running she's running and he took off the bus left my wife went home and rote immediately to the to the transit system here signed her
name told her what had happened the bus driver was taken off of the route for two weeks came back knew who it was who had written the letter and when I heard that I said I'm going to call the girl I got to call the girl so I did I call her to take her to a temple Emanuel for services on the night of my birthday which we didn't go we did something with her brothers instead that's how we that's how that's what decided me and on our third date we had what her mother described as KY cookies I decided that night he going to
marry girl yeah what year you guys get married 52 now in your practice over the many years was there something that came along an invention or something that you said wow how did we ever get along without this you know some of the advancements in the medical field that you've seen because uh you told me you practice 64 years when you started your practice it had to be a little bit different than when you ended it sure I remember uh when we did not have anti-inflammatories for example uh I used at the time let's call it an electric device or uh something of that size
uh from which came sine waves electric waves that we could uh attach to the body and didn't didn't hurt the patient at all and we could reduce some inflammation using that technique uh I did that for perhaps three years until long came uh D zadin and uh another before it as antiinflammatories and I took the the uh the machine and put it in the Attic never to be seen again that's interesting are you or have you guys ever been involved with the Jewish community in any way oh yes tell me about that I was in a play uh In This Very building oh 35 years
ago something like that uh I was in theater uh did play at Temple Emanuel I was on the Board of the Jewish Community Center in 1948 for a year I was useless I had no business being on the board but I was why oh my interest then hadn't been hadn't gelled I was um I just started my practice uh Margot Jones of uh of of well known in theater had invited me to be part of her her theatrical group um I couldn't do that because I was starting my practice I was writing then uh we D we Square danced for 12 years with the trails
and promenaders H there are so many faces and names diona D Balaban for example uh she and I on the on stage at uh at SMU in the SMU Auditorium doing um my fair lady I own a uh worked for Jewish F Federation for many many years you um have been writing a book what prompted you what what made you write the book and what's it about well I knew first that I I should write because I could write uh in my uh when I was I was in school let's say as a junior I mean as a I remember taking my typewriter to the
into the Navy when I was when I uh enlisted taking my typewriter who who who thinks I'm taking a typewriter with you you know you take extra Hanes you take socks you take who knows what you take I took a typewriter because I was writing then yeah we talk about age 19 uh [Music] I knew what I wanted to say and I've been writing all my life and all of my life I've been writing one subject who we are that we don't know about that we can learn about find and use yes What's the title of the book answers one page at a time now
have you written other books yes my first book was I am the secret and uh it was picked up by Warner books and um I was paid handsomely and that was 19 years ago yes you're just finishing this book now and you have plans for the next one afterwards no no I don't want to have next one afterwards I've written a play and all of the all that I write has been about about this all of it the play is about this and it's written it is done it needs tweaking uh some important tweaking to make it more use more more attractive to uh to
a producer and uh I'll do that after I'm yeah after I'm through with this now you're doing all this work now on the computer yes okay so the typewriter is gone oh my yes yes now in your lifetime you've lived through so many momentous occasions of course when you were very young it was the Great depression and you know how it affected your family you lived through World War II the Kennedy assassination um something good the moonlanding for the first time of course the tragedy of 911 was there something on the national scene that you really remember the day it happened and where you were
when the boys landed on the moon that evening in Dallas we watched on a television set where I was doing a play uh I filled in a professional theater they needed somebody the last minute I filled in for it I've done that several times fil filled in that's where I was that night watching the land on the moon then went then went on stage a few minutes after that yeah now your wife kitsey did she work with you we've done loads of things together although we have different talents different aspirations but we both work well with people and so she if she's if we've not
worked with each other directly we worked on the periphery of what each of us do now you and kitsy have three sons and six grandkids yes what advice does Granddad have for the next generation first read the first two pages of my book and they all will have it just the first two pages they'll get the book of course and what's the advice about create Joy or happiness or resolve determination peace within let me include the word happiness if I didn't before you do something don't hope for it after you've done something create happiness first not after don't and don't wait for it after and
you will discover the creativity the power in fact available when you do it my thanks for doing this today great job man good
