Patricia Peiser
Patricia Peiser was born in Kansas City, Missouri, in 1922, into a family with deep American roots. Her father was born in New York City to German-Jewish immigrants, and the family name, originally Placzek, became Levy at immigration. Her mother, Mignon, was born in St. Louis, and her maternal ancestors came through Galveston, with branches settling in the South, Corpus Christi, and San Francisco. Her parents married when her mother was nineteen and settled in Kansas City, where her father worked as a traveling factory representative for women's ready-to-wear. Her grandmother, a devoted lover of opera and tradition, lived with the family and greatly influenced Pat's upbringing.
Raised in the early Reform tradition at Temple B'nai Jehudah, Pat attended public schools and went on to Washington University in St. Louis before transferring to the University of Missouri, where she blossomed socially and academically and discovered the field of social work, graduating in 1943. She held early positions with a children's agency, the Jewish Social Service Bureau, and Jewish medical social services in St. Louis. She married Maurice (Bondi) Peiser, a mechanical engineer whose family came from Bavaria and Posen and had settled in Independence, Missouri. After living in St. Louis and eight years in Houston, the couple moved to Dallas in 1955 with their children, Rick and Nancy.
In Dallas, Pat became deeply involved with the National Council of Jewish Women, focusing on public affairs and social action. As president she helped launch Operation Lift, a literacy program begun in 1962 that earned the first Times Herald Club of the Year Award and continued for decades. She also worked on the Schools for Community Action and the Dallas County youth studies that helped establish Dallas County Child Welfare. Professionally, she served briefly at the Jewish Welfare Federation before beginning a 20-year career as the first social worker at Scottish Rite Hospital. A member of Temple Emanu-El, she continued volunteering in retirement and received honors including the Hannah G. Solomon Award and a Social Worker of the Year award.
Full Transcript
This is Bernice Waldman on July 31st, 1989. I'm interviewing Pat Levy-Pizer at her home at 4207 Hockaday, Dallas, Texas. This interview is part of the Oral History Project of the Greater Dallas Section, National Council of Jewish Women. Pat, thank you for letting me come today for this interview. It's a pleasure having you here, Bernice, as always. Thank you. So let's start at the beginning. Where you came from? Where were you born? I was born in Kansas City, Missouri. In... What year? 1922. Okay. And were your parents born there, too? No. Our family comes from various places. mother was born in St. Louis and my dad was born in New York City.
And how about their parents before them? Well dad's parents were both born in Germany. his father was born in a city named schralda i believe this was in northern germany his name at that time was albert or abram platzik p-l-a-c-z-e-k and he was born in 1839 came to the United States in 1845. His mother, Fanny Jarlien, J-A-R-L-I-E-N, was born in Gnessen, G-N-E-I-S-E-N, I believe it is, in 1846 and came to the United States in 1860. The name Plotzik apparently got lost at immigration and the family was assigned the name of Levy. Well, Albert and Fanny met in New York and were married there and they owned a shoe store, although my grandfather family were silver merchants in Germany This accounts for my dad interest and appreciation in fine old silver and china which is a special interest to me also.
Now, about the time your grandparents came here, and you say that was 1840? According to the records, my grandfather, My paternal grandfather came here in 1845. Okay, so that was before the Civil War, right? Yes, and we have no history with that. None with that. And what was going on in Germany during that time? Do you have any idea? I have no idea. Now, this information was given to me by an uncle who passed away several years ago. And so I presume it was accurate. Dad was the youngest of seven children. And all of his siblings attended college. But my father did not. He wanted to see the world.
Listen to what's on here. We don't have any serious. And when did westward? Why don't you keep going? where he worked for Henry Ford for about three years, I believe, and then he went to St. Louis, where he met my mother. My mother was very young at the time, and he came to that city with a letter of introduction from his rabbi in New York. And this was given to the rabbi in St. Louis. my grandmother at the time was a widow and she had room in her home so my father my father-to-be became a boarder in their home mother was still in high school at that time and they were married when mother was 19 years old You were asking about my mother's family, and this is one of great interest because they came here also very early.
My grandmother my mother mother whose name was Carrie Marks M was born in San Francisco I believe the year 1876 Her mother before was part of the Weill family, W-E-I-L, from Strasbourg, Alsace-Lorraine. They came to this country, a large group of this family came to this country through Galveston, One part of the family went on to Montgomery and became the well-known cotton merchants of the South. Another part of the family went to Corpus Christi, and we know them. It's Fanny Alexander is part of that family. And my great-grandmother, she and her parents went to San Francisco. and it was there that she met my great-grandfather whose name was Ed Marks.
And they married in San Francisco. Their three children were born there. They later moved to St. Louis. I don't know what took them to St. Louis or what their occupation was, but they must have been rather affluent because my grandmother attended Mary Institute. and then she later went to the American Academy for Dramatic Arts in New York and she had the potential of becoming a very wonderful actress but no fine young Jewish girl goes on the stage so I was told in those days in those days yes, in those days so of course that did not occur so she came back to st phyllis and she married a gentleman that she had met before she went to new york and his name was sam grabinski now i would give anything to know more about this history he was born in montana and his mother so i'm told was the daughter of a very aristocratic english family in London, likened to the Rothschild family.
Was he Jewish? Do you know? This, this Montana fellow. Oh, yes. Oh, he was. Yes, but this is his mother that I'm referring to. But she was disowned by this very fine family because she married the gardener from Russia And so that is as much as I know about them But he came he went to St Louis and he was in the Muslim garment manufacturing business, and he sold to Ely Walker Company, where he became a vice president very shortly thereafter and died at a very young age as a result of appendicitis that apparently could not be treated properly there was some mention about leeches which were a mode of treatment in those days and he died when my mother was 11 years old.
Oh, let's see. Well that was before the time of penicillin. Oh, of course, many years before then. Now, he had been married previously to a woman from the Prince family in St. Louis. They were shoe manufacturers. And she had died very young, leaving him with two children, Ben and Esther. And Ben was older when he married my grandmother. and Esther did live with them for a short while but then went to live with other members of the family. So essentially my mother was raised as an only child and her name was Mignon. My grandmother adored opera so and the opera Mignon was one of her favorites and she named her daughter after that.
Okay, and did she remain then where you were? My grandmother was always part of our family. Oh, she lived? Yes. She and mother and dad were married, as I say, when mother was 19, dad was 26. And my grandmother has always been part of the household. They moved to Kansas City. I guess my sister, who is six years older than I, so she was born in 1916, and they must have moved there shortly after her job. I think she was just about three or four months old when they moved to Kansas City. Todd was a factory representative for women's ready to wear, women's sportswear. And of course his experience and his world was that of the traveling salesman.
And he truly was a classic representative of that particular profession. He was very, very well known in the field. There was a brief period when he did go into the manufacturing business, the jobbing business, but he always returned to traveling. And he had a very large territory around the Middle West, and so he had felt that Kansas City would be the better place for them to reside, and they remained there always, and they were very much part of Kansas City. Well, what was that like for you? Obviously your father was gone a lot. What was his traveling schedule? He would go away during the week.
He'd usually leave Sunday evening, come back Friday evening. And so he was home on weekends. Mother, of course, had great responsibility. However, with my grandmother living in the home, I realized that that was a great assistance, and of course my grandmother had a great influence on my development. Did your mother work outside of the home? No. She was a housewife. She was a beautiful girl, woman. She loved social life. She loved bridge. She also did community work. She was very much a homebody when Dad was away. And theirs was a beautiful, loving relationship. He was somewhat of a substitute father, I believe. And he always treated Mother very much like his darling.
So what do you remember about growing up in Kansas City? What sort of school did you go to? I went to public school. You went to public school? Yes And at that time we had seven grades kindergarten seven grades four years of high school And you were public school all the way through Yes, public school. And then in my first year of college I went to Washington University, and then I transferred to the University of Missouri where I graduated in 1943. I was a late bloomer. I was really very, very mediocre in my younger development years. Oh, you mean scholastically. Scholastically, yes. You were a late bloomer.
Yes. And I seemed to find myself in the field of social work. I was part of, fortunately, I was involved in one of the very early programs, undergraduate programs in social work, and had a very comprehensive training, education in this field, including field work. And so that when I did go into graduate work, well following graduation from the University of Missouri, I did go to St. Louis where my sister lived at the time, and stayed with them that summer and had my first social work job with the Prophetman Association, which was a children's agency. and they encouraged me to go on to graduate work and I acquired a fellowship with the Jewish Social Service Bureau in Kansas City where Washington University had a campus of their graduate George Warren Brown School of Social Work and so I did pursue that graduate training for one full year found it rather redundant over what I had already had and it was in the middle of the war and I really wanted to go to work.
So that's what I did and then I returned to St. Louis after a year at the Jewish Social Service Bureau and went to work for Jewish hospitals that had an agency as part of the hospital. It's rather different than we have now. It was not just a department of the hospital administered by the hospital. It was a separate agency, but housed there. And it was called the Jewish Medical Social Service Bureau. And at that time, they also administered the geriatric center known as BIFI out in St Charles and I was assigned to that facility as the intake worker and the chief social worker So young so inexperienced and when I look back now on the responsibilities that we had and the things that we were expected to do I rather appalled but then we expect those things of our younger people now too Paul, they're impressed.
I'm sitting here very impressed. No, I look back and I felt that the experience and knowledge was not quite adequate for the kinds of work that we were expected to do in dealing with the life's adjustment and eventualities of older people and adults, adults in trouble. Let me take you back a little bit before we leave Kansas City, because you were going to be leaving there pretty soon, I'm sure. Let's go back to growing up in Kansas City. Did you go to Sunday school? Were your parents affiliated with a temple or synagogue? Yes, we were very much part of the Reformed temple there, known as Temple of the New Yehuda.
And Samuel Meriburg, Rabbi Samuel Meriburg, began his tenure there my first year at Sunday School. And he was a saintly man, and I felt it all rabbis. I've always had this vision or this image of the fatherly person. So as we find young women entering the field, the rabbinical field now, I've had a little difficulty adjusting to it, but I think I've made it. Oh, you have? The Rabbi Nielberg had tremendous influence on my life. I was Disney's wife. We called her Aunt Gertrude, and she was the director of our choir, and I participated in a rap activity. In what way did the rabbi influence you?
What areas? Well in looking back upon it now as I have occasion to speak to other civic groups about the motivation behind my work why do I feel so strongly that I have this commitment this obligation to my fellow man to my community And in researching it I realized that Rabbi Meierberg, who was one of Albert Worspan's Giants of Justice, that there must have been a strong influence on his part. Perhaps the things that he told us, I didn't like Sunday School, it wasn't different from any of the other children at the time. However, after Confirmation, I did return to the post-Confirmation classes. Voluntarily? Voluntarily, where suddenly the subject of our world, society, humanity, public affairs, perhaps politics.
We must have had a good deal of those kinds of discussions. Because, of course, my more recent influence by Rabbi Olin, but I relate the two of them together. And that's in Dallas. In Dallas, yes. For the benefit of people who may be listening to this tape many years from now who didn't know Rabbi Olin. Rabbi Levi Olin was one of the most remarkable men I could ever dream to have lived. And we are so fortunate to have had him as a teacher, a philosopher. He really gave us so much in terms of sensing, realizing our obligation to humanity. And to make this a better world.
It's also very much a sin. It's a while later. Yes. What did your parents consider important in the way of, I don't know, Jewish holidays or Jewish observance? We were very much a part of the early reform movement where the pendulum swung Very far into the extreme of, I suppose, what we call the right, where holiday observance was not thought important. As a matter of fact, by some people, maybe even have been ridiculed. The high holy days were observed traditionally and quite thoroughly. What do you mean quite thoroughly? Well, we were always attending all services and the children's services. I remember going to services as a young child.
We did not observe Hanukkah in our home. Christmas was a time of celebration. Did you have a Christmas tree? Yes we did, always. And not having the example set before me by, in my own family, I have had some difficulty adjusting to this as I've gotten older and have wanted to bring about these observances. You mean the High Holy Days? No, I'm thinking about Hanukkah as an example. Oh, okay. You mean for your children? For my children, yes. We did not have Friday night candles, but we did go to, we always had Seder, and we always attended the Temple Seder. And I might add that Rabbi Merriberg, I think, very sadly approached families wishing that they would not have Christmas trees.
Oh, he did, individually? Oh, yes, absolutely. Oh, yes. Did he approach your family? Yes, he did, I believe, and he made it known that he did not approve. And what was your mother's response to that, or father? I don't know. You don't know? No, no. But did you keep having them? Oh, yes. Oh, you did? Oh, yes. Now, my grandmother had much more of a religious nature. She would if we didn go to services on Friday night and I don recall doing that very often on Friday night But I do recall going to temple with my grandmother frequently on Saturday morning So she was more observant traditionally Yes, yes.
I go from a very Reformed family also. But I remember her lighting the yardside candles, and I recall her being in her room reading her prayer book. at certain times. So there was always that part of it. As the children, as our children grew at Temple Emanuel, we did adopt the tradition of Friday night candles. I did not learn Hebrew except for the traditional passages. So we had a lovely English prayer for Friday night services. Both of our children have married young people from a more traditional background. Beverly Rick's wife Beverly is from a family of conservative tradition from San Antonio and Beverly's husband Monty Krieger is from New Orleans, born and raised in the Reformed Temple however, his father's background is more traditional I believe Orthodox and Monty has become a student of Orthodoxy.
However, they do not keep a kosher home, but they have observed many rituals that I think are just lovely. I feel very strongly now as an adult, particularly with my council training, I truly believe in the Jewish identity and the necessity for us to perpetuate that. And I'm very pleased that both of our children are raising their children with a great deal more tradition and religious experience in the temple than we had as we were growing up And I guess what I saying is it really represents a cycle or a swing from one extreme to a more moderate approach to this question I think during the 20s and 30s there was real focus on assimilation into the community.
I know as a young child, I would call when I was four years old, that we had a neighbor who berated me for being with you. Oh? I grew up in an area of great anti-Semitism. Oh, she was Christian, this lady. It was a little boy. It was a little boy. Oh, a boy. A little boy. Oh. Yes. And he came at me with a pair of binoculars focused on his eyes and he said, you are a Jew. Oh. And you don't forget these things. No. Did you have other experiences like that? Oh, yes. As we were older, nothing quite as striking as that. I have since seen this little boy as an adult.
He's also a social worker. It's amazing to think that happened to be home. Now when you left, let's see, when you went to college, your first college was Washington University in St. Louis, and you left home. Okay, and you say you lived with your sister? Yes, that first year. Okay. Now, did you identify in any way on campus with any Jewish group? Oh, yes, yes, as a matter of fact, entirely with Jewish students. You mean all your friends were Jewish? Yes. Did you pledge sorority? didn't have a sorority, Jewish sororities at Washington University at the time. The A.E. Five had been on campus and had disbanded several years prior to that.
Was there a Hillel then? No, there was not a Hillel at that time. This was in 1939. And there was at the University of Missouri there was a Jewish student organization that was likened to Hillel but Hillel at that time was still at the University of Illinois and at least had not come to the University of Missouri And I was involved in the Jewish student organization, and then several times I was asked to lead the congregation in prayer to read from the prayer book. I've done a professor by the name of Isidore Kaifitz, K-A-I-F-E-T-C, I believe it was. He was named Professor of History, and he was the leader of this organization.
And at the University of Missouri, I guess, starting in my... I did pledge Alpha Exilem Phi at the University of Missouri, became very much involved in the group, very much involved on campus and campus organizations, and I suddenly just seemed to bloom. So not just scholastically, but socially. Socially and in scope and interests. My interests were greatly broadened. I was introduced to the field of social work and it just hit the button. It seemed right for you. Apparently it was right for me in terms of my own background and special interests, and it opened a whole world of interest and learning. It seemed to be my entree to learn about the world and the relationships of people individually and those groups.
And I find the full subject the most fascinating to that. So that's very interesting. It wasn't that as a little girl you dreamed of doing such and such, being a teacher, being a nurse, which is what girls seemed to do in those days. Well, I remember, I recall that. But this just happened to you when you were in college. Yes, and interestingly that you said that. I recall one time, I guess I was still in high school, and I decided I wanted to be a nurse. And my parents thought that that was not a very good profession for a young Jewish girl, and they had me speak with a physician that they knew.
They thought, as a matter of fact, it happened to be the physician. You were asking me about Jewish experiences. This was a man by the name of Dr. Max Goldman, and he and his wife and their son, an only child, every single Hanukkah gave a huge Hanukkah party for all of the Jewish children that they knew. Really? And we would go to their home and their, oh, as I recall, there would always be at least 50 children there. But that's as I look back on Mel. And this was a memorable occasion every year. So this was my, a very lovely exposure to Hanukkah. Okay, anything else about college that is important?
is important to you when you look back they were they were wonderful years as compared to my high school years were very um i i hear young people uh i young people and other others are reflecting on their high school years it was so wonderful mine i don't have that recollection as much and also the jewish children were off to themselves they really were not included um this was a as i said before and um and a part of the country where anti-semitism ...sororities and some other activities. In college, on the other hand, we... Of course, the high school years were prior to the war, and it was at the time when problems in Germany were just mounting.
Now, which war was this? World War II. And of course, I recall many families coming from, emigrating from Germany and being absorbed in the community. So that there was an atmosphere of much interest in these subjects The University of Missouri being part of campus activity and the sorority life of course I remember we all remember exactly where we were at the beginning of the war on the day that Carlton Bourne announced the bombing of Pearl Harbor do you do you remember Oh yes, I certainly do. Where were you? Well, we were in St. Louis for the weekend, and I was visiting our cousin there, and it was about 2 o'clock in the afternoon, and the radio was on, and Mr.
Carlton Bourne was announcing it. I just remember the scene so vividly. And then we returned to campus, to Columbia, which is about 125 miles from St. Louis. And then I graduated in 1943. I recall having large numbers of servicemen on campus. were in special training and it was during this period also the summer of my junior year there was a young man that i was dating his name was michael traftenberg and his family had gone from russia where they were very enormously rich and they had gone to berlin and then with hitler's marching. They came to the United States. And it was because of Michael's influence in public affairs and world politics that I went to Eleanor Rose, a camp, a five-week camp at Asheville, North Carolina called Campobello that was sponsored by Eleanor Roosevelt.
And this was a very intense program in public affairs. And again, opened up so many avenues that I believe are the background to my great interest in our community and much of the activity that I had here Now you mentioned dating a young man Obviously that not the young man you married Tell me about how you met your husband. Well, I've known Bondi. Now what is his real name? His real name is Morris, M-A-U-R-I-C-E, Bondi, B-O-M-D-Y, Pryser. is a family name it's his mother's maiden name his dad's name is also morris and they were from kansas city from uh from independence but part of the social group in kansas city and so he was known by our family and uh he was known well by my sister i actually met bondi when i was 12 years old facetiously we talked about the time i visited my sister at the university of missouri when she was a student there and i was 12 and that's where i met bondi and at that time he worked his way through college and he was washing dishes at the sorority house your sorority at the sir I remember at the 85 house where my sister was a member at that time.
And then I actually started dating him as an adult when he was working in St. Louis, which was before the war. Bonnie is a mechanical engineer and he was with Matthew and Company in St. Louis. And so I would go to St. Louis to visit and we would date them. and then he went into service as a meteorologist at the University of Chicago, and I saw him then. This was following my wonderful experience at this Campobello that I mentioned. And then he went overseas, and he was in England for two years as a meteorologist, and then he returned, and that's when we became serious. and his family were known by my family and it was just a very, very nice union.
Bambi's family is an interesting one also. The Bambi family came to the United States from Bavaria and his mother maiden name was Pollock and they met in New York. The family were cigar manufacturers, one of the friends was Kaplan Brothers and Bondi, and there were members of the family that were founders of Central Synagogue and this was so interesting to us in New York in New York because Rabbi Zimmerman who is now a Temple Emanuel also came from Central Synagogue as did the young Rabbi David Stern who has just joined the congregation as assistant rabbi so we feel like the circles are closing bondi's mother was born in new york city and she was invited to kansas city by some friends and that is where she met morris piouser morris was born in independence missouri in 1971 and his mother was Marie Ansel from Hessingen, Germany.
His grandfather, Matthias Peiser, was from Posen. He was born here in 1828. I'm not certain when they came to the United States. So both your families were from that part of Europe? Yes. Now, in Independence, they owned what was known as the Kaiser Building on the square, and it was torn down just very recently, and the bungalow that Bondi was born in, it's a one-and-a-half-story house, and it was built in 1909 and is married just one block away from harry truman's home and is now part of the the area that has been designated the historical district of independence and it is such a trip to take the children back especially to take beverly and monty now so that they can see the homestead and what has happened to it because it is in the the most beautiful condition.
The people who live there now who are just the second owners since the family sold the house. They just take exquisite care of it. Did Bondi's family know the Trumans? Yes, they did. That must have been a very small town, Independence. Well, it was an extension, not separate from Kansas City, actually 15 miles away, but Bondi took the streetcar down 15th Street every single Sunday to go to Sunday School. And his mother was very much part of the Jewish community in Kansas City. And he was raised in independence with Christian people. And to this day, he is very, very close friends and sees every time we go there some of the same young men that he grew up with.
In independence. In independence. He went to the first grade with them, went all the way through college with them. It was a very different society, I think, very nice. Yes, uh-huh. So I guess it was more like living in a small town for him. Yes, but as he grew older, even though he lived in Independence, he was part of the Jewish community, Jewish young group. Now, when you got married and you lived in St. Louis, right, did you continue working? I worked part of the time. They called me back to help out for several months. And we lived in St. Louis for a year and a half and then Bombay had an opportunity to go to Houston where an office had been opened by Al Mack in Houston.
in Houston and he wanted Bondi down there. And of course we had no children at the time and we went down to visit and we loved it. And so we did move there and we lived in Houston for eight years, at which time Bondi was offered the opportunity to open an office here in Dallas for the same company. And this is how we happened to come to Dallas. So you came here when? In 1955. 1955. Okay, so your life must have really changed. What did you do? Did you just remain a house life and start raising kids Did you go to work What did you do Well I had already become very involved in community life both in council the Council of Jewish Women We always referred to it as council, now it's known as NCJW.
Very much involved in that, actually in St. Louis, and particularly in the field of education. And when we moved to Houston, the lovely people in St. Louis wrote to their friends in Houston to let them know that this young couple were coming to Houston and they hoped that they would welcome us and in love us in the community, which they did. And it was a wonderful way of moving to a new community to be welcomed in this fashion and to feel that you had a role in their society. This was so soon after the war, and it was, the whole atmosphere was one of growth and development and doing and being involved.
And then we had our children, Rick was born in 48, Nancy was born in 1952. And even as they were young children, I was very involved in the community. And Bombay has always nurtured my work and has really been so encouraging about everything that I've done and so supportive. And so that kind of situation urges you on. Oh yes. And who were some of your friends in those early days when you moved to Dallas? Well, when we moved to Dallas, we had associations here. First of all, Rose-Aline Burnett had grown up in, well actually in Dockland, but she moved to Kansas City as a young girl, and her mother and Bombie's mother were intimate friends.
and our adopted family in Houston were Carl and Gloria Herman and both of their parents, Gloria's parents lived in Galveston, their father was the former mayor there, Adrian Levy, and Carl Herman Sr and a host of people in Houston who had associations also in Dallas Amosu and Jerry Frank Amesu is a cousin of Carl Hermann And so that, again, we had associations in Dallas to help us become acclimated, to find our way in a new community. and it was a wonderful experience. Through my council work, when I was in Houston, Fanny Conn and Mildred Sack would come to Houston for training sessions and for meetings.
And so that they really gave me stars in my eyes about the work of council and the opportunities to serve through council. And so that when I came here again, my association with Fanny, she was always the most supreme role model and really my mentor. Anything I could learn from her was very important to me. And she got you involved in the projects? In the projects and the council. areas did you work in here in balancing council my greatest interest I think was in public affairs social action I very often wanted to work with children but somehow or other I was always asked to be involved in program development and education for social action and really as I developed in the organization and remarkable training opportunities that we've had both at convention and here in Dallas and later when I became president they had the first national president president's training Institute that was one of the most remarkable training experiences anyone could have.
It was experiential, and my group leader was the national president at the time, Gladys Kahn from New Orleans. And so this was just a remarkable experience on the way through You say you like to work in social action What were some of the hot issues of the time There were so many hot issues that there's never been a time in our lives that there haven't been hot issues. Oh, of course not. Getting into race relations and civil rights was probably the most poignant part. Prior to that though, the understanding of the relationships between community services and social action, education and social action, that there were some of those that didn't quite understand that interrelationship and how they actually rotate together.
and so that there all of the programs that we were involved in in the community would have an educational complement and the opportunity for social action whether it was in the field of education our schools for community action were so very important because the whole approach to them was on a very broad educational basis of community education but there was always a built-in agenda as to what objectives are we trying to reach and how shall we reach them and then how shall we involve the community in the full understanding and implementation of corrective measures. Operation Lift was one of those things that I think taught us how to do a broad community education program.
It was brought to us by a gentleman who had been involved in it, the program elsewhere, and I was president at the time, and we mounted this huge community education program um we in order to get as broad coverage as we needed we went to the dallas morning news and asked their participation and they joined with ncjw as partners and provided us the most remarkable space in the newspapers the coupons for recruiting volunteers or recruiting students, where a quarter of a page I ran them three days a week, and we had three divisions in our structure. In organizational life, if you have a good structure, you can work through.
And this was one of the first things that I learned in my president's training experience, and it has really held opportunities for everything that I've done. So what was the structure? We had three departments in Operation Lift. One was... Now define that for the benefit of people listening who may not know what that means, L-I-F-T. Operation Lift, literacy instruction for Texas. This was the first time that the condition of illiteracy was brought to the consciousness of the Dallas community. So this is being done now, and this is not new now. No, it isn't. This is an old, old problem. How long ago was this now?
This was in 1962. Okay. And for us to become aware of it, and we were just so appalled that this condition should exist and we had to do something about it and the organizational structure which was patterned really after council structure we had a volunteer recruitment department we had our teacher training department we had our public relations department and I assumed the role of administrative head which I've always likened to an orchestra conductor right symphonic conductor just bringing all the things together okay and how many students did you start out with we started out with I believe 18 centers and there were teaching centers teaching centers teaching centers yes And I think that there were up to this many as 15 to a center to begin with.
Classes? These were classes. Okay If not I believe it was three times a week at that time The Dallas Morning News with their compelment of WFAA were willing to devote a half hour twice a day at 6 o'clock in the morning and again at 4 o'clock in the afternoon so that this was a live television training or educational process using at that time what was known is known still as the Laubach yes so that the training was for whom teachers or students there was the television training was for students okay there were separate classes that were conducted for the teacher training initially before the program got started yes and then i know that through the years it has continued pretty much as it was then uh there there are a few centers out there i believe there are 26 now I was most pleased today I had occasion to go to the Lyft office and to consult the young woman who is the coordinator of the centers now.
Her name is Lisa Thiem. And the organization continues. The need is so vast that it seems to me that they're doing a highly professional job in the community and certainly a remarkable service. The track record apparently is very good. They have recently tracked the students started last September and found that 56% of them continued in May. That's remarkable. I think this is a remarkable list. showing. It gave us a very good feeling to know that this has been perpetuated as a lot of the community. I've seen it expanded even more. Well I think they are. But that's been how long ago that Council got that going?
It was 27 years ago. Under your leadership, 27 years ago. evidently and in- For that effort council received the very first Times Herald Club of the Year Award Now that is remarkable since the Dallas Morning News had been the co and the other paper gave it an award That is fantastic And that was the first year that they gave this particular award. So you were in on the birthing of that very well-known, important program to stamp out literacy in Dallas. What other projects were you involved in? Well, I referred earlier to the Schools for Community Action, because I think that they were, and I was just part of that, and those followed the years afterwards.
And because of the experience with Operation Lift, I think it gave us an example, a model, of how to do community-wide education. Some of the subjects were education, the child starts behind, is left behind, women in poverty. There was one important subject after another. Through the whole era of the war, the Economic Opportunity Act, the OEO as we knew it, through the Johnson years. There was the opportunity to do so much of the community action program and I'm so saddened that it was dismantled. It had such an opportunity to do things important for the neighborhood communities. We knew the neighborhood associations worked but the political structure of Dallas could not tolerate the people in the communities gaining power.
But they had the opportunity to learn to do for themselves and it was taken away from them. And then of course we've seen the abusers in this whole field which is saddening too. We've seen it in food stamps, we've seen it in housing, the immorality that we are seeing before us and literally ruining the opportunities to make life better. Yes. You feel very passionate about that, don't you? I really do. And another program that I felt so good about I was sure the year after I was president Anita Marcus was president at the time and the community in 1959 had promoted the had established the mechanism for doing what became the Dallas County Child Welfare Study and you stay excuse me the dallas county youth study and after three years they finally came forth with 12 volumes on in 12 different divisions of findings and recommendations and this was such an important thing that we in the council simply had to do something about it and came up again with a community education program and through a very large structure and working in partnership with junior league our first effort was directions for tomorrow which was a dramatic presentation held at the convention center auditorium where all of the leadership of the entire community and organizational leadership were invited and we had over 700 people there and Thelma Vogel as you recall was our public relations chairperson at the time.
Ziona Balaban played the role of Betty, which was a composite of a young mother on welfare. And the composite story was given to us by Selby Ply, who at the time was the executive director of Hope Cottage Children's Bureau. This is really taking us back. but we produced a publication called 190 190 took a long hard look and these these findings were were just shocking at that time we found that the infant mortality rate in gallops was the highest of the entire country now these are shocking things at that It was time for Dr. Floyd Norman to have the courage to tell the powers that be.
But this was the kind of information that came out. And the flight of the mother on welfare. And unfortunately, how many years since then? 25 years since then. We go up and down. We never seem to get far enough ahead that we can stay ahead. Out of these findings and recommendations, and I do believe the council's project had something to do with it, came the establishment of Dallas County Child Well Care. That was the very first time. And this was when? In 1965. So that's fairly recent. At that time the climate was such that things like that could take place. It came of the establishment a couple of years later of Dallas County Mental Health, Mental Retargetation.
So many things came into being at that time. Child welfare, the objective was to provide preventive care. Of course, you and I know that it has become too little, too light. and the focus now is on the hideous being a child of fostering a child's sexual abuse. And their resources are so scant that they have to prioritize them for that purpose, not to do preventive work such as removing a child and placing a child into a foster home temporarily while the mother is being rehabilitated so that she can have her children back to a stable environment. So we're philosophizing of things that should be. You sound very pessimistic about the picture of child welfare.
I always feel that we know how to do things. We have done them before. We know what is possible. And the sadness is that the needs are so great. And recently we did a paper on volunteerism. And I learned that supposedly 80 million people in the United States are volunteers If that is the case why is not our society a better place to live And what your answer Do you have an answer No, I know, but now I don't have the answer. We could go on for a long time about the human condition, and the condition of our world, the greed, what is happening morally.
I have to totally understand that. Now, we haven't even touched on your professional life in Dallas. Would you like to talk about that a little bit? We've certainly talked a lot, and I know you could go on for days on your volunteer work. But I would like to hear a little bit about your professional life in Dallas. Thank you, Denise, because it was a most unique career. I had probably one of the most wonderful opportunities to serve through a professional career of anyone that I know. When it was time for Rick to go to college, we had always urged him to qualify for the college of his choice, and he did.
We assured him at a very young age that it was up to him to do that and we would find a way. Well, son went to Yale and mom went to work. And my first opportunity was at the Jewish Welfare Federation, between the Jack Crabbets that time and coming in as an administrative assistant he had encouraged me to apply for this job because he knew of my work with council and in the community and of my social work training and so i did join his staff and had a very interesting experience my real focus was on on social planning because that was really my area of expertise at that time.
And then of course I was the assistant with the women's division, helped them organize their organizational structure as it is today but also assisted with the campaign the Women Division campaign feeling that fundraising really was not my forte the thing that I was most skilled in So that I had planned to leave, but along came the six-day war in June, and I was asked to remain until that part of the emergency campaign was ended. So I did leave the Federation in July, and I was with Samson Wiener one evening, Samson and Pham, and he knew that I was between jobs, and he asked me if I had ever heard anything about Scottish Rite Hospital.
Well, I knew what it was, but I had never seen it. He said, well, why don't you go down and talk to Jerry Hopper? I understand they're looking for a social worker. So I did go down the very next day, and I left Mr. Hopper's office with stars in my eyes and began work at Scottish Rite Hospital for a career that lasted 20 years. I was the first and only social worker in a facility treating children from throughout the state of Texas who have orthopedic and severe neurological disorders. So the Scottish Rite Hospital is part of their lives until they are young adults. And I had the opportunity to develop the kind of program that has become what we know now as case management in assisting families to understand their children's condition to deal with their growth and development to help in their education and maximizing their opportunities for life's adjustment and it was the most wonderful that i i was allowed to my imagination was the only limitation that i had i just um the program the department grew uh the hospital grew as the hospital did in its concept and service and today there's one of the model programs in the country probably one of the most outstanding orthopedic facilities that there is and the opportunity to serve children to help them to become the best that they can be and to help their parents adjust and cope and to establish their lives with their children but also as individuals.
And these were the goals of this department. And at Scottish Rite Hospital you have the opportunity to be creative. One of the things I was allowed to do was to establish a camp that I had designed called an Adolescent Self-Awareness Camp to give the children that were selected for that camp the opportunity to learn about themselves, to develop a positive self-image so that they dare to go out into the world and to know what is out there for them in pre-vocational evaluations, pre-vocational training and development. And it all fits into when you have the multidisciplinary team working together and each of the disciplines doing their thing and coordinating into a remarkable whole.
The program at Scottish Rite Hospital and the whole operation as an institution is like a perfect prison. In the way they run the hospital, the way they allow their staff to develop and grow and to be part of the whole, I always, any time I hired, I let the prospective staff member know that I would expect them to be part of the whole, not just part of my department. You have to really care about an institution to be part of that growth and development. And so Scottish Fair will always be very much part of me. I have been a volunteer down there since I retired.
Oh, have you? Yes. Doing what? Well, just to think, since I've brought his clinic on Fridays, and for the first several years I would go every single Friday, and I learned so much from him. By being present in that clinic, I learned what it was like for a parent To have a child that hurt all the time. And that tenuous ledge of indulgence and discipline. And the manipulation that a child can perform if they are allowed to. It's a very delicate balance. But as my department became so busy and doing, we became resource specialists. There is not a resource in education or health care that in the state that my department did not know about.
This had to be a first. So we became so busy I wasn't able to devote that amount of time to arthritis clinic. And Chester always asked when was I coming back. And so I really didn't want to divorce myself entirely from the hospital. I have a tremendous investment in it, and I wear it very proudly. And so I was thinking one day, well, maybe Dr. Fink would like to have me back. So he welcomed me with open arms, and so I have gone down every Friday until recently. my work at the alcove as volunteer coordinator of the vocal alcove the child care center for the children of the homeless and it really has been so demanding that i wasn't able to give up an entire day each week and then i'm also currently the president of the united cerebral Policy Center which is a wonderful opportunity to serve again the population of children and adults with disabilities.
We have a very vast program there. And my other major project at this time is chair of the Access Committee at Temple Manual. And we have been able to achieved some wonderful objectives in making some accommodations, making access to the building easier, doing all kinds of special arrangements, special accommodations, and now we are beginning to pursue the educational and programming for children who have special needs So my life as a volunteer again has come full circle and it keeps me terribly busy. So you're not out on the golf course or at the bridge table every day, even though you've retired. Well, what do you do for fun?
Do you do anything? Oh, I love music and art, and my community work is fun. It's fun. It always has been my avocation and my vocation. Are any of your children... There's such a piece out there. It's all there to be done. Are your children living here? No. Oh, Nancy. So you can't do any... Why don't I tell you about my children? I want you to. That was my lead-in. So you're not doing any grandmothering locally. Not locally, you know, but we do a lot of grandparenting where they live. Rick and both children have been tremendous joys to us. We've been very, very fortunate. They've always been well self-directed, very productive, and very satisfying and very satisfying individuals.
Rick is a professor at the University of Southern California. They had been living here and he was invited there to establish the program in real estate development. And so his wife, who is an obstetrician, gave up this remarkable practice that she had going here. And I was just so amazed. And I said to her one day, Beverly, why is it that you're so supportive of Rick in this goal? You're giving up so much. She said, Pat, I know that you're aware that he gave up a great deal during all of my training. he saw me through my residency and through getting established now it his turn and so they went to Los Angeles three years ago and they have a great background It was very wonderful I mentioned before that he went to Yale, and then he got his MBA at Harvard, and then took himself to Cambridge after working in Houston for a year, and went to Cambridge because of their program in New City Development.
and he obtained his PhD from the University of Cambridge in England. And so they're out in California and Allison is eight and Michael is four and a half. They're lovely children. Well, did your daughter-in-law go back to medicine? She is again in practice. Oh, she is. And has established her practice in Los Angeles. She's primarily at the Good Samaritan Hospital downtown, which is likened somewhat to St. Paul Hospital here, which is where she received her training. And Nancy is a dance therapist, and she graduated from Goucher College, and then took her Masters in Fine Arts at Southern Methodist University. And she met this lovely young man here who was a fellow at the time with Drs.
Goldstein and Brown, the Nobel Prize winners. And he is now a tenured research professor at MIT in biochemistry. And so that's what took them to Boston. And their two little boys are almost five and a half and three. and so that they both have lovely families. Is she working now? She is working for the Jewish Community Center. She has classes for very young children and their mothers in movement therapy. She had been working at the New England Rehabilitation Hospital but with primarily older patients of chronic pain. And then when the children were born, she of course left that field. She's still very much involved in dance therapy.
She an officer with the American Association And she very involved and they just delightful people I just wish they weren so far away I bet you do People tell us we have lovely places to visit and they do come and we get to see all of them quite frequently. Thank heavens for Delta Senior Fairs. Thank God for God's sense. Delta Airlines. Is there anything I haven't asked you that you'd like to talk about at this point as you look back? You're not old enough, you know, I don't want to say as you look back on your life, I see you're not looking back, you're really looking, still looking forward very much so.
and I just feel very, very fortunate to have lived at the time that we have lived, to have the opportunities that we have had. You mean as women? As women, as families, as Jews. Yes. We're going through almost a golden era. I hope it can continue. I'm concerned that our children were raised to be not pacifists, but gentle people. And in the world that we see right now, I hope that they are prepared for it. I'd love to be the fly on the wall and see what happens in many years to come. That would be interesting, wouldn't it? You have done so much for your community that I have no doubts that you will still solve a few problems that we're all so concerned about.
I'm so glad that your community has appreciated some of the things you've done. You've gotten several awards, haven't you? I have received some lovely acknowledgments. I was talking about Directions for Tomorrow earlier in our conversation, And as a result of that, the production council and junior league received the Edith Lauer Award from Child Welfare League of America, and we were invited to Kansas City to their national convention to present other parts of that. And incidentally, the program was continued as a community-wide educational program for another year. But in addition, I received some personal acknowledgement. I think my treasured Hannah Solomon Award that I received from National Council of Jewish Women in 1985.
And then that was followed the next year by receiving the Social Work for the Year Award from National Association of Social Work Workers. And that was really a wonderful experience to know that my peers had acknowledged the work that I had done at S.C.T.R.I.D. Hospital. Of course, I've been very much involved with NASW, as I've had been with other professional organizations such as the American Association of Hospital Social Work Directors and the Texas Union. So I certainly have had my share And also I wanted to mention I mentioned before the wonderful support that I had from Bondi and from the children They all take pride in what I do and they so supportive and always helpful in any way that they can be But also my sister has been a wonderful influence on my life and the directions of my work, and not everyone has the privilege of having the devotion that I have for my sister, and we're very, very close today.
Well, that's wonderful. So, everybody appreciates you, your community, your professional peers, your family, and I appreciate all of the time you have given to me so that I can see that you are part of this oral history project. This has been so interesting and you've been so gracious. Thank you Bernice. I'm very privileged. I'm a very lucky person. I'm very privileged to be a part of this process. Thank you very much.