Nathan Donsky
Nathan Donsky was born in Dallas in 1906, the child of Jewish immigrants. His father arrived through New York in the late 1800s, bringing a daughter from a previous marriage, while his mother came through Galveston and settled in Dallas around 1897. The family name was originally Danoski, and his father lived with relatives on Alamo Street when he first arrived. His parents married around 1898 or 1899, and Nathan was one of nine children born over fifteen years, the eldest being his brother Lewis, born in 1901. The family rented on Caroline Street before moving to Sanger Avenue around 1920 or 1921.
Growing up in Dallas, Nathan attended Cumberland Hill School and received his Hebrew education from private teachers such as Mr. Weinstein, who taught in their homes. His family kept a religious, observant home and attended the Orthodox Tiferet Israel synagogue, where he was bar mitzvahed at a shul on Alamo Street. From the age of six he worked selling newspapers and concessions at sporting events, learning the salesmanship that would define his career. After graduating high school in 1925, he attended Buford Business College and worked as a secretary for a lawyer and later a cotton broker before deciding to strike out on his own.
In 1928 Nathan borrowed money and moved to San Angelo to buy a concession business, later entering a pawn shop partnership before opening his own jewelry store in 1938. He married in January 1938, survived several serious health crises, and built Nathan's Jewelers into a lasting West Texas institution known for creative promotions and generous credit. He supported the small San Angelo Jewish community and, marking his fiftieth year in business, gave back extensively through the Jewish Foundation of Greater Dallas, funding scoreboards, school awards, meals for the elderly, playground equipment, and livestock purchases across West Texas. In later years he and his wife divided their time between San Angelo and Dallas.
Full Transcript
And it is January the 5th, 1988. We are in his office at Sterling Jewelers. Okay, Mr. Donsky, who was the first member of your family to come to the United States? All of them were born in the United States. Your parents? Oh, my father came to the United States and actually came to New York first in the late 1800s and brought a daughter with him from a previous marriage who later married Louis Lynn, L-Y-N-N. And she had children named Celia, Irvin, Sal, Leah, Evelyn, Evelyn Gritch. And mother arrived in Dallas. My father came through New York. My mother came through Galveston. My mother arrived in Dallas around the late 1800s, 1897 or so.
So he had three sisters living in Dallas. One was Ruby Robinson and Mrs. Simonson, and Mrs. Jake Paltrey are deceased. I married my father in the late 1800s, probably 1898 or 99, because my brother Lewis was born on June the 8th, 1901. He was the oldest of the present nine children. In 15 years, they had nine children. How did your father come to Dallas and in about what year then would you say? He must have come to Dallas in 1897 or so Now when he came in his name was D He had a sister and several brothers living in New York and they went by the name of D none of which are living How did he pronounce it?
Danoski. Okay. Now, he was very, the only relatives he had was Jake Danoski, which was Roxy Sussman's father, and Meyer Danoski, and Jaime Danoski's father. They were very close, and he lived with them on Alamo Street when he first came to Dallas. Married, they lived at 2403 Caroline Street. About what year? evidently they must have married in 1899. Lived there, rented from the top Rosenthal grocery store and lived there until 1820 or 21, at which time we moved to 1501 Sanger Avenue. I graduated, I continued riding a bicycle from Sanger Avenue to Cumberland Hill School on Eckerd Street. And I even said we should go home for a 30-minute lunch period.
I only did that once because we were accustomed, all of us who went to Cumberland Hill, we all went home for lunch, all the Jewish kids. We had 30 minutes, but we managed to get home. We would go from the rest of the family all transferred to other schools. but people in Dallas at the time were very neighborly. It was like a get-to on Caroline Street. From one end of Caroline, which was a short street, I imagine the Lakeview Streetcar ran on that street in those days. I would say the street couldn't have been more than a mile long, and Ashland and Caroline. and part of the time we attended we had a Romenes Shishol on Alamo Street and that was where I was Bar Mitzvahing.
Highland Street we had the Teferi Thyssal Synagogue. Those days it was Orthodox. They had a Mikve on the Highland Street. The reason I know about that is one of my sisters got lost. mother coming from the MCV and they been found there In those days I think when we were all born I was born in 1906 and a lot of, like Mrs. Timmy Tablaski, which was mother of Max Tablaski and Lena Rosenthal and Esther Goleman and then Leventhal, a daughter by the name of Leventhal, married to Leventhal, and she was the doctor. In fact, I still have a part of an accident that happened to me.
I was coming in those days we didn't have sidewalks, concrete sidewalks, so we had rocks. Coming out of the yard I fell and cut a lip. So what they did, they took scissors and cut it off and you can see their mark on my lip today. All the Jewish boys in those days were all out working. At the time we were six years old we were out selling newspapers. In those days, news cost a half a penny apiece, and it was the Dallas Dispatch Times, Herald, and Journal. That was the daily paper. Every few weeks we had an extra, and that's when we made money because we paid a half a cent for a paper and it sold for a nickel during an extra.
And the Texas Street Post Office robbery was the biggest extra that I ever sold, and the worst paper I ever sold was Armistice Day. My brother Lewis and I, my father had a span of horses, took the horses and took the newspapers on Sunday and went out and mugged a dish in these boulevards. No one came out of the house to buy the papers. So that was... How is it that they didn't buy the papers? The people didn't get out of the houses. The boulevards had separated and the houses were far back. Couldn't hear you. Okay. So it was a, but like I said, we all sold newspapers and worked at the baseball games and football, all sporting events.
So there was about 15, 16 of us youngsters that worked together. In fact we used to go down to College Station or to Texas University and Thanksgiving they had a big football game and we go out and buy programs that were supposed to sell for a quarter and we would pay 15 cents with no returns we own them after we bought them and we would take it and turn it upside down where a picture of both team was in there and we'd sell them for 50 cents and the cadets were out selling them for a quarter then we'd go around and buy back from the cadets for a quarter and sell them again for 50 cents.
So we always made a lot of money. We made hundreds of dollars on that game. And in those days, that was a lot of money. And at baseball games, we used to make a lot of money. We would, like Dallas played Fort Worth, and the stands were very small. And so they used to let the people go out in the right field. And we would take, instead of taking soda water, you bought 12 bottles for a dollar, sold it for $1.20 and made $0.20. We would take a case, you couldn't do that in the stand, we'd take a case of soda water and pay $2 for it and sold it for $2.40.
Then we'd take a turnaround and sell the case for $0.50 for someone to sit on. So those are different tricks that we learned when we were kids. Like here was another trick that later on I went into the concession business and became very handy. you sold when you first started they started you out on cigars and cigarettes which you didn't make any money peanuts you sold and you made the same as on soda water only you could carry more peanuts than you could soda water so I would get down on the bottom there and I'd have somebody up the front holler for a sack of peanuts so I'd take my sack of peanuts and take my thumb and run it through it and throw it up the sack would fall all over everybody would grab it and they'd start eating those peanuts I'd unload the sack before I turned around see in other words then people would send their money down and throw it down you catch it those are things later on in when I went to San Angel in 1928 I bought the concessions I used this deal here on the concession how long did you do that I when you I belong to, here's something that's dangerous, but I'm going to put it in.
My sister will kill me. When I got out of high school in 1925, and we recently celebrated our 60th at the 50th anniversary graduation. Couldn't go to college because all the time that I worked selling stuff with a big family always brought my money home. And so I went to Buford Business College and took a secretarial course and Robin M. Asley who was at that time had just gotten out of being National Command of American Legion and he was with a lawyer with Burgess, Owsley, Story and Stewart. Owsley was the Robert Owsley that did the Nuremberg trials and he married Lucy Bald from Muncie, Indiana, Bald Food Jardes.
Later on he became Foreign Minister of India. Now I was his private secretary so every day he'd go to lunch and he'd be a He was a Silverton Lord from Texas. And he'd speak every day to the Edda Luncheon, and he'd be gone for two or three hours. And I'd be there. And in the summertime, he would go up to their summer home. And he lived out in Kessler Park. Several times I spent the night at his home to watch him. The streetcar, as far as it would go in Oak Cliff, and then had to walk blocks to get to his house. Beautiful edition in those days.
About what year? Kessler edition. About what year, though? That was in 1929. That was in 1928. Okay, before you went to San Angelo. No, wait a minute, wait a minute. That was in 1926. 26. So I could see I was not doing any good there and wasn't paying very well. So I ran, there was an ad in the paper for a secretary, and I applied for it, and he recommended me for it, and I got a job with a cotton broker by the name of Esau Cotton to Germany, to Liverpool, all over the world. Like for instance, we'd ride cables all over. We had two secondaries.
He was a drunkard, and he would live at the Dallas of the Leddy Club, and would call in and write letters and send off stuff. If we put the cuss word in he told us we got in trouble If we left it out we got in trouble So I was with him for quite a while and I made a month In those days that was a lot of money I belonged to the FHH and prior to that during the time I was working for Housley the first professional football game came here Red Grange brought a team here So I had Colonel Ozzie write Red Grange, and I had the program concession for this thing here.
So I couldn't sell advertising. I had this, Morris Goldman was a very good friend of mine, and he had the back cover at $12.50 for a back cover. And it rained, and it was cold, and poor weather, and we made very little money out of the thing. So, getting back to the other, going back to, while I was belonging to the FHH club, every Sunday we had a meeting and every Sunday we had a crap game. And this was getting to a point where I realized I owed a Pacific Finance company money, I owed foreclosed money, and if you have to win, you can't win, you lose.
And every Sunday, these Jewish kids made money. I had this game realized, and I had a cousin, my name was Sam Simonson, who later went into Hollywood and went into the movies. Married some shakes, he was going to go to San Angelo with me. And I was going to go to Abilene, but he talked me into going to San Angelo. He said, that's a good town. And so I went to San Angelo and bought the concession for $1,000. I didn't have any money. And coming home from Shul, my father was talking to a man, Jake Donosky, and he told me if I went to my...
I had an uncle, Ruby Robinson, who was very well fixed, and I had an uncle, Jake Winer, who was well fixed, and I wouldn't go ask you to eat a one. So he said something to Meyer. So, Marr Danoski called me to his office, and he said, I hear he needs money. I was too ashamed to tell him how much I needed, so he loaned me $250. He said, go get a note at the bank, and I'll sign for $250. And Morris Goldman signed for $250, so I had my $500. Then I took a partner by the name of A.B. Ray. He was living in Dallas, but he had lived in San Angelo.
So we went there and I went out And in those days Rabbi Brown would just come to tell us and the only house he would eat it was our house so he used to use our house I was formerly secretary for the good of Sankham for a short time so they Mrs. Friedman a neighbor across the road loaned me $75 the rabbi loaned me some money different people loaned me money without asking for it I had a little extra money so So I went to St. Angelo, and I went there in January, and at the time I went there, the Weinbergs were saying Kaddish for their father.
They lost their father, and I used to go to the minions over their house. and I also found out I had a cousin there by the name of Frida Ray. She was a Winer girl, and she was living there. We had a very good Jewish crowd. I guess the synagogue had been built, and the year I was there, they just finished it. They started building in 27 and 28, it was a synagogue, and played poker every Sunday in the winter days, and us youngsters used to go over to Gordon's house and have dances every night. In less than three months, I was back in Dallas and paid off all the money I owed.
I paid for things. It was wide open. There was enough goodbyes. There was gambling and all over the thing here. And imagine to go to a ball game in the daytime and have 500, 600 people. Now, I got out and sold cushions, and no one passed there without buying a cushion because when a man and a woman walked through there, I slept with a cushion under her hand, and when he came through, I said, 20 cents, please, a dime a piece. I know one time we bought the concession for a race meet at a fair in San Angelo, and we paid $225 for them. We sold out of cushions every day, morning and night, brought my brother honey down, and we made good at that.
And then I used to go to Brady for the Brady Jubilee. Well anyway, when the league grew up the next year, in 1929 it grew up. So I had to go, so I went to work in Forsan, Texas for a fellow by the name of Bernstein. I had a good story in a little town out of Akes Green called Forsan. Back of that store was a tin building and it used to get six degrees below zero. He was outside There was a restaurant next door And my folks another a week And we opened up at 5 o in the morning We had to drive to Big Springs to make the deposits How far was Big Springs?
Excuse me. About 18, 20 miles. A little bitty town out of Big Springs. So my folks drove down there. And when my mother-in-law saw the way I was living, she started crying. So I left, and there was two drag-ins. So I left and went to Hobbs, New Mexico. Hobbs, New Mexico, there was a, when we moved there, there was no paved streets. We lived in the back of the store before they had windows to protect the goods. And a fellow by the name of Schmeerman ran the store. Now, he went to the bank and borrowed money. Every month we sent baby bonds back to Denver, Colorado, the money that he made.
He couldn't read or write a word of English. He paid me fifty dollars a week, a yokel, us two, we ran the store. And he and his wife and kids, he had three daughters, lived in the back of the store. And we slept on a cotton bag this morning. Who was with you when you were in? In Hobbs. In Hobbs. Were you by your son? By myself. I slept in the back of the store. And we wrote seven days a week. And I got put the, and most of my money went home because they needed it there. And so I left there. I took his wife and three daughters to Dallas for Passover.
and went all over the Peronis and everything else and ate there a solid week. I got back from there I was back for the week I was gone. That's the type of a man. A pair of pajamas for Christmas I got. That is the type of man that was one of these marginalized and taught me a lesson. It taught me never to treat a person like he treats people. So I left and I was going back to Dallas to go into the is that me? I don't know. Hold it. I had my cushions, a thousand cushions that we paid $300 for, which the Coca-Cola Company paid us $150 for their ad on the back of it.
I had those in San Angelo, and I went and bought it, and I left them with me. and I went by to see what it was doing with it. So this cousin of mine, Freda Weiner-Ray, they had a little dragger store on Concho Street. In those days, there was a tremendous amount of little bitty stores. There weren't any chains. The town was full of little stores, and they all did very good. So I was propositioned, and I was going with a girl by the name of Gorin Girl. I took her out a number of times, and that's where most of the dancers were held. Leeds, her cousin, Hannah Greenspan, that's a whole bunch of those.
So I was propositioned to go in partners with Max Gorn in a pawn shop. Her uncle, her father was visiting there, so she talked him into lonely $500. dollars and I paid Max Boyd. The value of the business was $4,700 and some odd dollars. It was secondhand suits, guns, a little jewelry. So I paid 8% interest on the difference in his investment in knives and I drew $30 a week. We did both $30 a week and put back 10 of mine back in to pay it off. And on Sunday I would promote a back ball game and I'd make $150, $200 on the ball game.
Brady Jubilee and run the concessions there. And if I was away from the store, I had to give half of the profits to the business, which in reality, Max got 25% for doing nothing, playing Pinochle on the back of the store. Well, what is a back ball game? Huh? Back ball game. You said you promoted a back ball game. Baseball game. Oh, baseball. I'm sorry. Okay. No, a baseball game. In those days, the shuckers were separate. In other words, they didn't allow the shuckers to play with the whites. So did you? The black. Oh, a black ball game. Yeah. Okay, so you had the black community?
Well, there's a black community there, but we didn't have a white team, so we had a black team there. And they played. In those days there were some good black ball players, but they couldn't get into the white league. See, it was many years later that they were. Okay. promote that on different things and different sporting events I promote. Now did they play against a white team when you promoted No they played another black team No they were not allowed to play against what Okay So different towns had different things We get up a game and we have a fair crowd not a real big crowd Okay.
Wait, I'm sorry. He and I, the first year I think we made $1,300 and some odd dollars, and the next year I think we made $7 and some odd cents. It was ridiculous because I would go to lunch about 1 o'clock, and I'd have steak ready with some French fried potatoes, and he would be playing in the back with Leon Pinochle, and someone would come in. He wouldn't ask them what they wanted. He'd go running around with a bull. All they wanted to do was talk. You didn't want to buy nothing. So I'd go back to eating my steak here. That's why I got my ulcer.
and we weren't making any progress at all. Seven years, we had up a, in the seven years we built up about, Leon Fine, who taught me my masonry, and that's over 50 years ago. He took a liking to me, and one day he came to me and he said, you know, you don't belong here. So he went to Riverside Cafe. He remodeled it like a dry goods store. everybody was dragging his business. So he had low windows. And then I had to take blue mirror glass and raise it up for jewelry. And he also went to the bank and told the bank he was good for it, I was good for it.
So everything was done on credit. We signed trading savings and we bought. We went like a first year I was a dentist. I did more business than several times what Max and I did in seven years. And that's when we opened up a business with Max. The one was going with Gordon and Donsky. And one of the happiest moments of my life was I paid $6 for a billboard that had a big G and a big Y in front of the building. And it was something that, anyway, so this girl that I used to go with, a fellow came in on a visit. He knew one of the sisters, her sister went to school to Texas, and he thought he was calling her.
Anyway, he met Gladys and he ran off and got married. And I had a little financial difficulty and the old man had to cough up some money. That's how I got out of debt. With the business we started selling everybody on credit We started doing a lot of crazy things that no one in his right mind would even think of doing If every baby that born when I first started in business got a gold baby ring And everyone in the paper, in other words, the newspaper would put out something. The first baby born got this, Bill got that. We ran and had every baby that's born all year long got a baby ring.
Now, this was listed in the paper. When they listed from the hospitals, we got those records, and we mailed them so they didn't have to come in. and those out of town that send in an announcement, we mail them. And we, to this day, still do it. Now, when we first started, we did 14-carat gold. Now we use 10-carat gold. Those days, the ring used cost 30 cents. Today, it costs five, six bucks. But anyway, that, we started in no interest, no carrying charge. We carried our own account. We started stock shows, going to all the different towns around, buying, getting a list of all the poor kids and making their animal work, which is the best we ever did.
We started, ever graduated in West Texas, got a graduation gift, free gift wrap, free delivery, free everything is. And these kids, we're now buying lambs from the grandchild or the grandparent we bought. That's how old it is. This month they're out at the stock show. So we did it for several purposes. One is being Jewish and there's a lot of anti-Semitism as well. They would come in to me and they'd say that I want to drew you down. I would correct the charitable cause. I'd say we'll donate it. You don't have to chisel. Picked out a solid gold watch and they had a trash hauler.
They came in, they wanted to give their watch, their watch. So they picked out a $71.50 watch. I said the same thing. The trash brought in sixty seven dollars and fifty cents the big watch the several hundred dollar watch brought in thirty seven dollars and so so we we gave the churches silver and stuff like that this church we never gave a dime after that nothing we have ever done so that a one of the crazy things that we did now Yeah for our Stop it for a while I had a little bitty store in the times when I opened my store in 38 We paid a salesman We had a fellow named Herbie Eden by my cousin The credit clerk was $12, and they had a man, a black man, for $12.
Our payroll was $42 a week. Now, I didn't draw a salary because I was a sole owner. And on Saturday, I used to take in $700 at 50 cents a week. In those days, there was no taxes, and the margin of profit was tremendous. We bought a watch for $13.95, sold for $37.50. My favorite watch, one of it sold, cost $19.95, sold for $65. So we gambled. We sold them to every-there was a traveling group of girls that traveled around from one town to the other, ill repute. And they were customers. We gambled with a lot of people. We lost money on some. But over a period of time, it was very, very successful.
So I opened up the store on January. I dissolved my partner and showed Max Goren at the end of the 37th. In 1938 is when we dissolved. In other words, we took and we had the merchandise in the store, and we split it up. I let him have the pawn business. I let him have the guitar business. I took, in those days we had weary luggage. I took the weary luggage and the diamonds. And I even bought the fixtures in that store and let him use them. But there was some finagling going on. He had a younger son by the name of Mitchell who wasn't kosher.
And I could see finagling going on and that's one of the reasons why we got out. So we opened up underneath his shoulders, and we were very, what you'd call very successful in the operation. So in, This was in 1938. January the 1st, I was going to go to Dallas to the FHH Club. I had a Jewish kid working for me and he wanted to go to Dallas. So being a shmo, I said, alright, go. So I went to, I had gone to an affair over in Sweetwater in November, and I saw a girl there that looked good to me. And I said, well, I'll go to Abilene.
So I went to Abilene January 1st. As I'm walking up the stairs, my wife is walking down the stairs. Now, this is not the girl that was visiting her sister, Mary Ellis, who lived in Abilene. and her brothers had gone off to football games and she didn't have nothing to do, so she came to and broke up with her date and came to Abilene. So as she was walking up, I said to her, I said, what are you doing? She says, I ain't going to be here long. Well, anyway, to make a long story short, they had a breakfast that morning. So I invited her to go to breakfast with me over at this house.
She says, I'll go if you take my mama. I said, all right, I'll take your mama. So anyway, the next morning, real early in the morning, I get up and I borrowed a car from me on an old Jalopi. I didn't have a car in those days. Went over there and called on the door out of the Western Union. It so happened that her niece, who was older than her, ran off and got married to a Goldblatt. The Goldblatt's here, our brother. They live in it. From that Max Goldblatt? Yeah, his brother. And so the folks didn't approve of it, but anyway, they ran off and got married.
And I wanted to see what she looked like in the morning. And then I started out, I spent the day there, and I started out for San Anzo and ended up in Sweetwater. I failed to make my turn. And I called her, and she said three days later, I asked her to marry. But we got married 29 days later. In a few days, I sent my mother and my sisters went over to meet her in Fort Worth. She had an engagement ring. She said I had a set of weary luggage. And we got married January 29th. In Fort Worth? In Fort Worth And It not it is Okay go ahead I sorry So uh So we got married on January 29th Uh, on November...
November of that year, I had a hemorrhage and liked a bathroom. We rented from a little bitty apartment we had there from the Klemmens. And I was in the bathroom, and, uh... So she called the porter and they put me into the hospital and they gave me transfusions. We had a transfusion from a Greek, from an Italian, from a Jew, and it was nip and tuck. And then she bought, my brother Honey was working for Glazers in Longview, So my wife decided to bring him to Aslow with his wife and had one daughter. And two of his daughters were born while he was working there.
Then in 19, this was 1939, about 1940, after I got off this thing right here, I had a watchmaker that had an infection in his hand and had a very bad disposition. So I didn't want him in the store, and I was too big a softy to tell him. I said, well, I'll tell you what I'll do. You go out, and you go to Coleman, go to Boundary, go to Brownwood, and find a location, and I'll put a little jewelry in there and let you and your wife run. So he goes down to Brownwood and finds a location on the side of the son. they lease a building for $40 a month.
Two weeks later, Camp Boyd decided to settle in Brownville with $40,000. So the guy upstairs was looking after us. So then I go down, and I've sent Leon Fine, who had a better financial state than I did, and he leased the building on the main street. And I brought a brother-in-law of mine. And I also had this little store which we ran for a little while. And I had a brother of mine Bob Slayton who worked for sales come down He was married to my sister and run the store Well he started buying merchandise like it was going out of style In those days Zippo lighters cost 50 cents supposed to sell for a dollar He bought gross after gross.
We had them stacked. We built a vault there, and we had them stacked gross after gross. He bought watches by the gross lots. He bought braces by the gross. He bought merchandise that actually I didn't think I'd ever be able to pay for. In those days, we used to sign trading expenditures. In other words, we bought $15,000 of watches. We paid $1,500 every month with a bill that came due. And the next time we bought, we bought $20,000, we signed loans. When we bought $30,000, we signed loans. So at times, we'd have three and four of those damn things hit at one time. And all during that time, we would manage to pick up every payment on time.
and we'd go to another bank to borrow money if we had to pay off this. We never renewed a note in all my life in business. Never. Because we'd go somewhere else and borrow it. So anyway, we were in good financial shape doing that. In 1944, I had a hemorrhage again. The first time, I owed $100,000. The second time, I owed $300,000. They told me it was... So my wife framed up with me that I should go, and we had the cow, the son. So I should go. When I went to New York, every year I went to New York twice a year to buy a merchandise.
So in those days, we were buying diamonds direct from a cutter, and we were making our own mountings. We didn't buy it from a wholesaler. When I first started, we did. But we were doing our own mine. So I went to, in fact, one day my brother and I went in, we bought a quarter of a million dollars of the diamonds, and we worked with mounting houses. And that was when my father was sick, and I couldn't go back to New York to cancel. I sent my brother-in, they wouldn't cancel. We took a schlaken on them because small diamonds dropped half overnight. But anyway, so when I went in for this operation, so my wife had me go in the morning.
I went to Dr. Winkleman, the drip system, and had the checkup. In the evening after lunch I went on Park Avenue and I went to buy So when he got through he told me put your life in the hands of the psychiatrist or have an operation So my wife flew up and we had a sister Frida has a sister-in-law who has the largest nurses registry in New York, Curtis. Cherkasky was in harmony. Yale Nurses Registry. In fact her daughter still has to this day. so I had nurses around the clock on 12-hour shifts during the war. And so Dr. Garlack did the operation and it took me about a year to get over that operation.
I couldn't. Sister, she lived in Riverdale and walking, you could eat just about this much. That was in its infancy. Madam Shank, I checked, had it done at that time and the only hospital I could get in was Doctor's Hospital and that's where all the drunkards went. And that was in the lousy neighborhood of New York, too. Very bad neighborhood. And this was D-Day, my birthday, when they saw this operation. So, anyway, I was so elated that I came through. I said to one of the nurses on a 12-hour shift, I says, I need a transfusion, having had one. and incidentally my brother-in-law Bob Slayton flew to New York and he laid next to me and gave me their live blood for the operation.
So I says to her, if I pull through I'll pay you double. Well, I paid her double. That little stinker went around and told everybody in the building. The doctor that did the x-rays in New York either $200 or $300 only charge, $200 for a week. I went here and out. This is $40. And he gave me a bill for $500 for consultation and threatened to sue me. The doctor that they did the operation, they were doing it for $200, $300, $400. He said $1,500. My bill came out to $2,500. The doctor bill, the nurse's hospital, the hospital bill, which meant it, it cost me a living fortune, but I did it myself.
Then I had the prairie costume jewelry in those days sold for $60. And my whole quota sent to New York and gave them to all the nurses. I was so thrilled to be alive that I just went nuts. In fact, He had the first mess of this church in St. Angelo's Burnt at that time, and I had a very dear friend of mine that committed suicide. He wanted to do something in his memory, because he trusted me when I had the concessions. He got me the rodeo and got me all the things, and I would go to show him how much I should have taken in.
He says, I trust you. You don't need to show me anything. So I gave the front doors to the first mess of this church, where they built a new church. but they couldn't put my name on it. They could only put his name but they didn't do that. They just put it in the book. And so I did a lot of crazy charity deals in those days but that was a very unique incident and then during the time I had the Brownwood store we brought a lot of people in from overseas I mean, from different parts of the country for jobs. Urban came to, Urban was working for Harry Kaplan, the printing business for nothing.
They lived to the house where they get started. And he was running the, he was working for Triangle Posture Relatives. And they were living in Philadelphia. And my mother and father went down and they saw how they were living and they worked. So I was in the pawn shop in these days. I wasn't in the shoulder business. So I went to the bank and borrowed $500, loaned them $500 to pay down on the business, sent them two tickets for them to come back to Dallas, and they bought the printing place and started the business. $500 has been a very successful deal several times. So then we opened, when the war was over, we decided to open stores.
One fellow wanted to go to Big Springs, so I went and bought a building, at least a building over there, and spent about $30,000 in Milan doing it. He stayed there two weeks and didn't like it, and then went to work for sale. I opened up another store in Odessa for someone. They didn't like it, and he went and finished for himself. And then we had a store in Denison and one in Paris. The profits of that went to Irvin, Bob, and Honey, and Harry Kepler got part of the profits. When it was sold whatever was left I bought So Irvin came to San Angelo in a number of years Brownsville Huh Brownsville?
Brownwood, Brownwood. Came to Brownwood and he ran the store and then later on he decided he wanted to raise his kids in Georgia. I'm sure he went to Dallas. Now, was that Brownwood or Brownsville? Brownwood. Okay, where is that? That side of about 150 miles from here. It's near Coleman, this side of San Angelo, 100 miles closer to Dallas. Okay, I'm sure. So, in fact, they still have books there that they had services during the holidays when everyone was there. That they rented the hall. And we had a little fellow, well, with their name, Charlie Bunyan's brother-in-law, who used to read the Torah here, who lived in Brownwood at that time, Meredith, and he read the thing.
So, and they had a lot of Jewish soldiers. Oh. You see. So, the, then, after Ervin came here, he went on his own, and he went, he bought out Coon Jovers, and he traveled on the road, and they wouldn't go. Then he opened up a place in an office building, And he and his wife, and they worked on it. Then he, on his own, leased that building downstairs, which was a terrific gamble with a lot of money, and that was his. Nothing to do with me. And then, of course, when we built this building out here, then I became interested in the land and in the business.
He runs it, but I'm financially involved in it. And then after he was successful, then Honey left San Angelo and went to Houston and went and partnered for someone else and opened up Houston Jewelry. And then Urban and Bob had an interest in it, an eighth apiece. And when Urban, when Honey decided he wanted it all, they sold it to him and exactly what they put in it, didn't get a profit on it. That's the thing. now getting back to deal when my son was about them years old we bought a rabbi to San Angelo who was a Hebrew teacher not a rabbi shears and he taught the kids there after that what year was that was in Cal was born in 6 so it had to be 1946 That had to be about 57, 1957.
Oh, you started teaching him two years before his barman? About a year before the bomb. Okay, yeah, 58, 57, 58. Okay. And he taught the kids, and he had the first bar ministry on a Saturday. Well, we had, back up now, when he was born, you'd think Yuske was born, we had a brass, and this was the time that they had all the Jewish soldiers there. And I brought in corned beef. I was going out of style. We had a bris at the hotel that lasted from, it was at the hospital and went to the hotel, lasted from about 12.30 until about 6 or 7 o'clock at night.
They got filthy drunk and stuff. And Babe wasn't there to have control, but she's in the hospital. And then, of course, when he was bar mitzvahing, we had a different deal. Then after that, all the kids were bar mitzvahing on Saturday. so yes that's about now for my 50th year in business we decided to do something we had put in money in the foundation every year we put the 10% we were allowed to put in we had if stock appreciated value we'd give the stock to the foundation and we could take the build up so we built up a lot of money because we wanted to do something unusual for 50 years now when I go 50 years I go back to seven years with Gorin and Dotsky, and 43 years, because now this is my 57th year.
Nathan's is, this is my 57th Christmas, last Christmas. So we tried to figure out something, and there was two things I wanted to do. One, I wanted to do it through the Jewish Foundation. So one little school, it's a poor school, so we said, can we give you a banquet? Now, we put on the bank for the college, and we had been doing it for 20-some odd years. And we feed all the people about 350 and we give awards to all of them watches for every sports And we started giving athletes watches We have a Nathan Jewelers Sportsmanship Award It's on kind of sportsmanship, teamwork, most conscientious player and ability.
The first year we had it, we had four people on the board. They had a four-way tie. They wanted to give away plenty of watches, I guess. And then we had a man who made All-State, and we had to go back and get him a solid gold pocket watch. So then we decided to let the players hold. So every year, the players, we did this in the black school and the white schools and all the schools. And we let them, in those days, we could give watches. Now you came to high school, you can only give them a placard and have a picture hanging in a certain place.
But that has been going on for years. Then we decided on this 50th, we gave Lakeview the scoreboard. After they told us they won the football scoreboard, see, that's one of the scoreboards right there. Ethel Kleiman did this. I didn't have anything to do with this. She ran through some pictures of it. Now, that is a bigger scoreboard than most of them. That's where the ones, we have one at Lowest Stadium, and Sterling and Dr. Pepper, Sterling and Coca-Cola gave. But this is when we gave, and then we have a smaller school board. So after we gave Lakeview, I said to my manager, you know, you've got to offer it to every school in the town, in our area.
So we ended up with 28 school boards, football and basketball boards. Today we have 38 school boards out. Then we went ahead. We took, like, the Salvation Armor, they wanted playground equipment. The Mexican, they liked the playground equipment, so we had to give in. The boys' ranch, we gave a pickup truck. The girls' home, we gave some scholarships. The Boy Scouts, we paid off their car. The Salve, the Alliance for the Blind, they won an oven and a freezer. And every charitable organization in West Texas gave something. the and we and it all went through like these like a little school would get a check from the Jewish Foundation of Greater Dallas to pay for the board yeah this is throughout West Texas yeah throughout West Texas that's an Angelo Brown with big Springs, Odessa, not Big Springs, San Angelo, Brownwood, the Sonora, Ozone, Big Lake, Camey, Fort Stockton, Mertzen, Menard, Eden, Miles, around San Angelo and around Brownwood, those May Texas that have a six-man football so but they got a check from Nathan's from the foundation and they in turn was a charity and they in turn took the money and paid for the board
then Nathan's paid for the our school board on advertising the Nathan's see so the yeah for then we got involved with another thing we got involved with a meals for the elderly which is different meals on wheels and they feed about 215 people every day six to five days a week on meals I go over there and they got an old rum down building so one Christmas we give them meals then I go with babe but we still had some money left in this foundation and because those days it was good I was getting money from Sterling I was getting money from from us of
course I still had my Jewish charity to take care of see even back in in the 40s we were given big checks to the when it all went to the Jewish charity so the the charities that you're supporting both Jewish and non-Jewish there oh this is Federation you talk about in the 40s so they got these checks and they went on see so for our 45th wedding anniversary I says I want to do something for the meals for the LA so I went over there and I asked him what can we do for you they said well we need a commercial a commercial convection oven.
So we went over and we bought them a commercial convection oven, it's tremendous oven. And they had two little stoves they were working on it. So then I went over there and I looked and I saw where they had on the books $400. I says, what is this for? He says someday we hope to have enough money to buy a walk freezer Go back to Babe and I said you know and we had the money in the bank And you got to use it for charity See, we have our own foundation. We had this. And so we'd go back and we'd say tomorrow, we'll give you a walk-in freezer.
Eight foot by eight foot, all steel walk-in freezer. And we ordered. Come to find out. And it's by Nathan's George, a black corner of Nathan's George. So come to find out that the dam, they need a cooler in front of a freezer, an 8-foot base. So we end up with an 8-foot, a 16-foot walking freezer and cooler. Well, that tapped the bank. That took it. Then the next year, business was still good. So it comes time for the stock show and we go out and we buy kids from all the kids around San Diego. We buy their lambs. A lamb is only 100 pounds, so it doesn't cost a lot of money.
So if you pay $3.50, they have a pound as $3.50 or $5.00. But when you buy a steer, you're running $1,000. It's 1,000 pounds. So we get in together with some other people there. and you get in a joven mood and we end up buying enough livestock to last this thing one year. We bought lambs, we bought calves, we bought steers, we bought hogs. We spent $15,000 there selling. Now what did you do with the livestock that you borrowed? We gave it to them. We gave it to the Mills for the Heavenly. Okay. So that they had... So they have it and we charge it off.
And we give it to them, and they have it to feed. Next year, they call me up. They want me to come back. So we come back, and we buy it. We didn't spend as much money. We bought it again. The next year after that, I said, no, I can't afford it. So I said, but now they spent about $2,000 or $3,000. But it is a, it pyramided up so much that it's, so it's a, the town has been good now. Everybody moved away from downtown. We're downtown, we own the building, my kids do. It was really, our business was off. It was surprising the number of people we had there for Christmas shopping It was unbelievable really unbelievable the traffic that we had Now the unit sales were less Has the town grown generally No, it's about 80,000.
Yeah, it's grown. What about the Jewish population? Very poor, very poor. We have, as far as Jewish population is concerned, we don't have any givers there. They collect no money for the charity. it for charity what about population in terms of numbers has the Jewish population they have a minion on Friday night on the holidays I would say with the soldiers at the base we have good fella feel there we may have 10 12 15 they don't have money one guy reads the English the other guy knows a little bit of Hebrew I'll step along to the shul. The dues are $150 a year. They have nothing but lights, no telephone, and heat.
Do the people now go to other communities? No, no. Do they come in? No, we used to have a lot of people from the surrounding towns come in, like McKamey at Big Springs used to come in. and Sweetwater used to come in, and Anne Secora's folks used to come in. This Leon Fine is Carol Ann Hoppenstein's father. See, I often remark that there's two people that were raised in a country town, and that is Carol Ann Hoppenstein's been very active, and Anne Secora. And look at the work that they've done. But, yeah, here is, when you get through it, you give it back. Here's the story that you can have to look at.
When did you come back to Dallas? Well, we still have an apartment in San Angelo in the River Club of High Rise, and I go there, oh, I guess it's 10 or 12 years that we've been coming here more, but it's the last few years that we stay here mostly, not too many years. We've been contributing here all the time. Five years, ten years, would you say? I would say five years maybe. So since about 1980? But we still vote in San Angelo. That still our home In other words we still we have a condominium here and we have a condominium there Let talk about Dallas a little bit about your Jewish education and growing up in Dallas Well, my Jewish education was going to Hebrew school with a stick until I was 13 years of age, that's it.
What type of program did you get in your Jewish education? Was it Hebrew? Was it religious English? How was it at that time and where? No, no, it was just Hebrew. We were taught to read, not to understand what we were in. We were taught to read only. Now, where was the religious school that you went to? You got your religious training? In the house, in Mr. Weinstein's. Ah, okay. Tell us about that. Well, it was on Carolina Street, Mr. Weinstein, and we had different ones we went to their places for. We didn't have any Hebrew school in those days. Okay, give me a year.
About what year time frame was this? Well, in other words, I was born in six, so it had to be 16, 17, 18. Okay. Now, was he one of the teachers? You said you went to different places. Yeah, they were different. They taught at their home, the old-time old men. Okay. Okay. Did Teferit Israel have any type of religious education? No, the only thing I can remember is I did sing in a choir one year for the Fair of Usual. I had no voice. Oh, man, Bernstein was a rabbi at that time. In fact, what year did you remember? Oh, it had to be, let's see, six.
It had to be, no, we moved out of Dallas. Let's see, we moved to about 21 we moved from there. So it was? To Sanger. About the choir and about the Hebrew teachers, now you said you went to Mr. Weinstein. Was he, had he taught in his home? And you said there were several teachers. Well, there were several different I came offhand to remember who else I went to, but he was one of the ones. How long did you study? How was the setup? How come you went to different ones? Well, you'd stay there 30 minutes, 45 minutes, an hour. Okay. That's it. How many days a week?
Not a regular, irregular. Okay, how did you change? How is it that you changed? I'm still not as well versed as Honey or Urban. They've been in the city where they have their thing. Some of the stuff you remember, you're spitting it out and you're done reading it. See, in other words, it just comes. Some of it. There was a North Dallas Hebrew school that has been referred to in some of the records. Do you know anything about that? No, I didn't. That was after my time. About how long did you study as far as your Hebrew education was concerned Oh I would imagine two years three years What was it like Was it a private lesson Did you have a group of people No, it was private.
Of course, we went to in classes, too. Yeah, we did have classes with a bunch of kids, but I don't remember too much of that. See, my mother was very religious and we wore tinses she was she wrote the book and she was sincere what was life like so she was very religious what about your home with them well we went to show on Saturday we went to Friday night we went to show when I show on Saturday and we observed the dietary laws at home. How about outside? Outside? No, I like the rest of the kids. We never ate ham or pork knowingly. Okay.
Knowingly. Now, tamales or something like that we cheated. This is Ginger Jacobs and I've been talking to Nathan Donsky. Did you say I'm from Shul...