Patricia Titche & Lee Harrell
Patricia Titche was born into a Dallas family with deep roots. Her father, Ellis Titche, was born in Memphis, Tennessee, and his family had earlier settled in Port Gibson, Mississippi. Her mother, May Levy, came from a family that traced to the Alsace-Lorraine region and arrived through Baltimore, with an ancestor, Abraham Levy, who had been in banking and ranching in Victoria, Texas. Her maternal grandparents, Henry Titche (Hexter) and Amanda Hexter Levy, lived in South Dallas, where her grandfather ran a successful finance company and helped found the Community Chest, and her grandmother operated one of Dallas's first lending libraries. Patricia lived with her grandparents until her brother was born, when the family moved to a house on Mimosa near Hillcrest.
Patricia attended Preston Hollow Elementary, Benjamin Franklin Junior High, and Hillcrest High School, where she excelled academically. Her family belonged to Temple Emanu-el, where she attended religious school and was confirmed, though her parents attended mainly on the High Holidays. She chose to attend Pomona College in California, studying English literature. There she met Lee Harrell, whom she married shortly after graduating. The couple settled in Claremont, California, for more than twenty years, raising son Jed and daughter Amanda, both of whom became B'nai Mitzvah at their temple. Patricia ran a typing and editing service, was active in the temple, and moved in a circle connected to the Claremont Colleges and the civil rights movement.
Over the years Patricia and Lee built and sold several businesses, including a solar heating company and a trailer sales and rental operation, later moving to the San Francisco Bay Area, where Patricia worked for the phone company. After she retired in 2001, they lived aboard a sailboat, cruising in Mexico, before settling in Fort Lauderdale and finally in Santa Fe, New Mexico. Patricia remained devoted to her parents, who visited often and traveled widely with the family. The Dallas Jewish Historical Society received the wartime correspondence of Ellis Titche and May Levy, and much of this interview reflects on their courtship, Ellis's World War Two service, and their lives together as remembered by Patricia and Lee.
Full Transcript
today is Saturday September 3rd 2016 I'm Debra whole ski and I am recording in an oral interview and I'll let Pat introduce herself my name is Patricia and tight Carol I believe and it's so interesting that you never asked the right questions until you can't anymore I definitely was not named for any particular person my middle name and is spelled with an E perhaps because my mom wanted it to be a little special but I can say with pretty good certainty that Patricia and tide was the name because my mother loved for initials to spell a name and I was always called Pat not patty
or anything else because my initial spell yeah as solimene erected is for Sanok do you did you have a heap do you have a Hebrew name I was just gonna say no I was never but that's good and I am unaware in a Hebrew name okay so tell me about you tell me what you know about your family and I know that you know quite a bit on some sizes and not so much on the other but how they got here where they came from how they came to America anything that you know about your family I know much less in terms of where my
father's family came from I know that they generally settled in Port Gibson Mississippi and moved to Memphis my parents my I mean my father was born in Memphis Tennessee my mother's family primarily came from the alsace-lorraine region through Baltimore my and I really know much more about my grandmother Amanda Hexter maybe then I do know about my grandfather Henry touch I'm trying to think if I even know of a middle name for him I know my grandmother's family which who were at one point Levi's Abraham Levi was sort of the the progenitor or whatever patriarch thank you patriarch were in Victoria Texas where he was
in banking and farming ranching in interests my grandmother and grandfather always lived in Dallas after their marriage and sort of South Dallas I used to know the name of the street that have done but I can't think of it now well that probably either Park Park Park Row or South Boulevard that was area that's a sound familiar but I could potentially find out my grandfather was when he certainly started he had a finance company that also sold used cars and I don't really know how he became pretty darn successful but he did at that same location my grandmother had a little lending library one of
the first in Dallas and I know that my grandfather was a founder of the Community Chest in Dallas and they were moderately prominent they belonged to Temple emanu-el when it had its location prior to the Hillcrest location that was actually where I attended religious school for a long time and I think once I haven't seen these photos and really time but once I can remember there are poram pictures of us in costume in front of that temple before the building moved to Hillcrest which is where I was confirmed okay we're your parents active or grandparents didn't eventful they all at some point in time my
grandparents were somewhat active but my parents sent my brother and me to religious school and we were both confirmed they went to Temple on the High Holidays only and as sad as it may be it's the truth my mother not only didn't like being asked to pay particular dues rather than being able to donate what she thought was appropriate but also she never felt that we could really afford to pay the dues at a level that the the temple requested and certainly once my brother and I were adults they they were not members of the congregation anymore but I know I don't believe I ever
saw this but I know for a fact that they read the prayer book on high holidays at home what do you remember about your childhood their great childhood I have virtually no bad memories where my brother and I may differ no bad memories my parents had a great large group of friends my mother helped in Girl Scouts and maybe at the elementary school which was a within walking distance whatever the government of our house I need to back up actually because my parents and I lived with my grandparents on woodland drive which was in fact a lovely Street at that point a huge piece of
property my parents and I lived with my grandparents until the birth of my brother when I was about six then they then they did buy their first and only house in Dallas on mimosa just a few houses off of Hillcrest my as I said my grandparents were certainly comfortable and I do have pictures of this nice attractive pass my grandparents doted on me as it turned out I was not only the first grandchild I was the only girl of four grandchildren so I was definitely golden and lucky too to say the least and what elementary school teaching after my parents moved to their house up
in Mosul I went to Preston Hollow it was close enough to walk which pretty much I did much of the time for most of the time and one of my vivid memories was of a Great North you know one of the Northwester storms that would come in and the temperature would drop 30 degrees or something and I guess as a real storm was forecast because I can remember my mother walking to the school and cutting me home which was out of the ordinary what do you recall about your parents social life parents had a great social life they were when I say never I not
until close to my father's retirement they were never as prosperous as their social group was but I also have pictures of this my father and I guess my mom too was father was pretty creative and in the backyard of this large home that we had a huge birthday parties with tables set up occasionally entertainers and you know dozens family children friends would come to these birthday parties another thing sadly no that's not shouldn't say sadly we always celebrated Christmas and we're lots of pictures not only of extravagant trees and presents at Christmas time but my father for a number of years until actually probably my
brother was born would photograph me or me and presents or something and make make Christmas cards so there is a series of of those my mother's sister was also very creative and they used to wrap presents the one that I really remember was somebody don't ask me why somebody needed a new toilet seat and it was the kind that was split at the front it wasn't a perfect oval so they wrapped they made a cowboy out of that with the toilet seat as he's bowling so they did things like that not having a ton of money they did fun creative things I remember one of
the fun things we did and this was after my brother was born we would chase down searchlights there would be a searchlight harboring the opening of some kind of business probably a farm lot but maybe another business as well and we would spend hours following that light until my parents they know found the source of it which was sort of fun we thought and do you remember any of your friends from then that okay are there people you see you're still friendly we're at pretty much everybody moved away we all went to college in different directions and I went all the way to the west
coast and many of them you know went another direction so I am no longer friendly with them but my group consisted of the flax things I mean these are all names the Aaron offs Burnett's Rosenthal mittens all that we were probably the group that really hung together and and after Preston Hollow where did you go to school went to Benjamin Franklin junior high school which is directly next to Hillcrest High School where I went to school and what was that money it was fine generally speaking my all of my best Jewish friends did not attend Hillcrest they they went to other schools Hockaday as well
as I think TJ was I think there was another high school Thomas Jefferson High School that they attended but we all saw each other and socialized through through the temple High School was great I was very successful so you know I got lots of props and you know won awards and I was you know very fortunate and were you about in in youth groups or I don't think so I mean I I was involved in the Latin plug god forbid that I remember and I know nice you know I was a member of the honor you know did well academically so I was a member
of the Honor Society and I do remember because it played a role in my marriage that I won the Daughters of the American Revolution essay god knows what the yeah remember but do not remember the topic at all and and and you said you were you and your friends who are involved in the temple youth yes so okay so you made the decision to go to college far far away from balance was that intentional I mean how how very perceptive of you yes my father would have given anything in the world for me to attend Newcombe because that would have permitted him to visit his
favorite city New Orleans but Newcombe at that point was just sort of like high school one step up and you know I was I was sort of pegged as the Brainiac and I wanted to ditch that persona so I applied to come on I applied to actually Occidental College in the LA area and Pomona College in Claremont California and I was accepted and chose to go to Pomona where I was at the very bottom of the heap scholastically intellectually in that suited me well that's great so you and what what did you mention started out as a math major and that lasted maybe a one
semester when I realized I was so outclassed and switched to that generic nature of English English literature and my mother was adamant that if I was going to major in something as not really impractical English but that I needed to be able to get a teaching certificate which this was all I'd say very typical for the era and even though Olli and I got married like a week or so after I graduated I did go to graduate school and did teach briefly and I was so unsuited to do that that that I was I was in a college town that colleges are there and there's
also a graduate school so I was able to but basically I think I got pregnant so that I was able to put teaching so that would everybody know but then after our son Jenna was born I did for a number of years and really quite successfully had a typing and editing service that did academic work in Peru oh so what what kind of things were you active in in college in college anything partying and drinking I mean I did well in college was there a Jewish connection there at all learn oh I should tell this story it's my favorite story it may not be anyone
elses there wasn't a big Jewish crowd in college but but there must have been a there must have been a sign-up sheet if we wanted to attend probably Passover services I don't remember - we days but but there was a sign up for Passover and so I put my name on it and an adult member of the community was going to take me to a Seder dinner so I put on my one good dress which I could still describe to you it was sort of yellow quilted sleeveless and it looked great and I loved it and when the time came for someone to pick me
up it was a Volkswagen bus and a husband and wife and three children were were there so the only place for me to sit was in the back of the bus and as it turned out I guess they were doing yard work because I did sit on the bag of manure that was I was in the back of the van and we went to the home of a local lawyer and her husband to put this on the couple the family who took me were not Jewish but they were super super liberals and were connected sort of with I think the lawyer was active in civil
rights and this man was active in civil rights and the I'm probably going to get this one wrong a minister a local minister in the community donated the folding chairs you know to grab at the dinner and so he was invited and I do remember that he got a little lit up on on the wine but and the other thing that I remember about this Seder was that in my very best dress I was asked to clear the tables and scrape everything into the wastebasket which of course everything splashed all over me but the hysterical point is that several years later I riemeck the man
who who transported me that evening because he and my husband-to-be were the head of the civil rights movement in that in Clermont and word that that couple are still our friends to this day that's a great this is right I think ironic so you tell me about meeting your husband I I was friendly with the same group of about ten women from my freshman year through my senior year in fact my freshman roommate was my roommate every year at all there were ten of us who were really good friends and by the beginning of my senior year all those women were paired up with males
except for me and at some point I got a phone call from Lee who did become my husband because he was referred to one of these ten women there was a kind of long connection from his prep school she had gone to boarding school in Switzerland and he was told to get a hold of her she was involved with a male I was the only one in this group who was unattached and fifty years later I think I'm the only one who's still married to to my original husband but that was originally okay to get married right out of college yes a graduate school yes
you start teaching yes I stopped teaching and you and you chose to stay in California yes did your parents think that you would come back commit to balance that - I don't know that I can find it which is a crime if I can't but certainly during the 60s everyone had a charm bracelet right and I did as well and one of the charms on that bracelet is a little gold state of Texas with a tiny diamond marking word Dallas's and on the back of it it says CB t t come back to Texas my mother feared rightfully that once I left I probably wouldn't
come back I was not as iconoclastic as Lea but I was not as traditional as a lot of people I grew up with I didn't wear a mattress all the time a lot of things like that so California suited me better than Texas luckily Lee was Lee was getting his graduate degree at the Claremont Graduate School at that point and teaching at a local college so we ended up staying there for over 20 years most fortunately my father having always had a pretty sad low-paying job at an insurance company a little a small independent insurance company in Dallas that company was purchased by equitable Life
Insurance Company and they vested him for all of those years he had worked without a pension and he had this huge pension and took early retirement at about 45 or 47 or something amazing like that so he and Lee always got along super super super well and my parents would come and spend six weeks at a time with us in California twice a year the children traveled both to my parents and with my parents we went to Europe with them the children to Europe independently with them all sorts of wonderful things like that so having had sort of touch-and-go childhood and their young adulthood in
later life they were they were fine that was nice that's a wonderful story is that happy for them that's really that's really lovely and and I'm gonna ask you a lot more about your parents certainly in a minute but I do have one question I mean obviously you grew up with the name tight tight debt and hers was you know that massive store did people assume that your means were better because there was a canoe - that that's an interesting question I don't remember certainly ever talking about that or even really thinking about that I don't think that there was really any assumption and I
I said that my mother was very straightforward and had no heirs of any I mean a IRS of any sort and so she was very open about how much money they did or did not have so I I don't really think so I remember you know these were that literally the good old days I remember us one of my fairly good friends was Cary Marcus an heir to the Marcus's and that carry was a male and he and I gave a right sort of buddies but before that I remember going to Neiman's Neiman's had big Christmas displays and you know where to this day they've
got that huge Christmas Caroline and at least one year they had a department that was designed for young people to shop in so I was probably no more than ten might have been younger but I remember wearing a cute hat and gloves and going to shop there for presents for holiday presents for my family my parents so we one of my good friends was Mary Sanger at that point another department store are saying there's department store and I guess my parents had the pedigree so even if they themselves were not very long heritage matter at that point right right and I've heard other people say
that but obviously like was so different than but that going downtown going to Neiman's are going to you know just downtown together the movies or whatever was so different do you remember sort of man I remember a couple of strange things the the Neiman's I do remember going to Neiman's downtown but the Mina's where I went shopping was actually the one in Preston center so I'm not too sure it opened that would probably date you know when when I was there maybe it was older than ten or so but downtown was an interesting thing in two respects when we lived with my grandparents they had
help they even had a small really small apartment off of the garage and one of sort of a revolving door of maids would live there and there were all sorts of interesting stories but some of them for whatever reason would take me on their day off on the bus shopping with them and I I don't remember a specific experiences but I do remember doing that also when my grandparents lived on this unnamed Street they met when my mother and her sister were young a German immigrant and her husband her name was Hattie her husband's name was George George was a baker and Haddie took care
of my mother in particular who was 10 years younger than her sister as a young person and had he stayed with our family until her death so when my mother had children and her sisters had children Haddie came to our house once a week and did laundry and ironing and special stuff like that but I can remember that Haley would take me to the State Fair so I remember that very vividly that that and my oldest cousin Richard it was only a couple of years younger than me we did things like that but yes I can remember the department stores in downtown Dallas as being
really large and luxurious definitely of a bit of a bygone era yeah absolutely so let's turn to your married life tell me about where you lived what you were doing having kids come plumb out is very definitely a college town with the Claremont Colleges being there and primarily because of our friend John who was a math professor there our social group was pretty much connected to the Claremont Colleges eventually not so eventually in 1970 our son Jim was born and Jeff was a pretty sharp little kid and he went to a wonderful preschool but when he entered first grade now I don't think it was
kindergarten I think it was first grade he actually was a bit of a handful because he was sort of ahead of himself so our daughter Amanda was born two and a half years later and Amanda while certainly bright and darling and extremely verbal was not the little Brainiac that Jen was and there was and actually still is in Claremont play small circular country day school which was well thought of and at some point lately had come from a private background and so he he approved the private schools I had not and therefore I did but the public schools sort of recommended that Jim do better
in that kind of an environment because they started a class of twenty every year in their kindergarten there were only 20 places and so it was difficult to get in after that so we actually enrolled Amanda epidemic every day in kindergarten opening the hoping that then Jed would be a little legacy or something and if there were an opening he would have a chance to get into it which is what happened well certainly at Phillip country day school I met a lot of the Jewish community whose children were going there and actually there was one family who who Jed was friendly with at from from
public school who they were also members of the temple and they encouraged us to join the temple which of course we had not done previously I wasn't wild for the rabbi and everybody knew it and the day that the rabbi resigned my phone rang off the wall with my friends calling me to say now you can join the temple which we did in fact do and we had we really had a large group of both Jewish and non-jewish friends in Claremont both of our children were B'nai Mitzvah there Lee who was a convert at our at the time of our marriage as is sometimes the
case was very active in the Brotherhood he can tell fabulous stories about his female impersonations and his [ __ ] love codes at the temple and doing a whole lot of other things and I was actually I was very active there as as well we hadn't we really had had a great Jewish group of friends you mentioned the fact that you were that Lee in particular they were your most of your friends are people who were involved in civil rights movement who were involved in you know making the world better Isis liberal causes that's a great description and tell me about that tell me about your friends
and how you've got have what you did and it kind of man you got there well the story definitely starts with Lee who should describe it better than I could but when Lee came to Claremont he actually I really I really do need to let him tell you tell you about that because I can't even remember I'm pretty sure he was a member of Corps and perhaps that was how he met his friend John and the two of them were definitely the movers and shakers in that movement I certainly during college did not have any connection with anything like that I was just trying to
keep my head above water and I can't say that we were were members of any specific groups or movements during our our married life specifically okay may have a much better man okay and we'll we'll get that from him what what your married life like in Claremont I mean goodness Lee has always been an incredibly hard worker he taught history of political science at Matt's Anna College and I after I got out of teaching junior high school English thank God I did start up an editing and typing service for primarily Claremont Graduate School but also I I typed photo-ready books for a number of years
and everything things like that so that was our fun money and it was all in cash and that was we were very fortunate to have it Lee was teaching schedule was from 8:00 until about noon and at one point he met an adult student I mean it was a non-traditional student who he became friendly with and who was a trailer semi-trailer salesperson and because Lee can fix anything and do anything he suggested that Lee start a trailer repair business which we did he drove an old pickup truck with a service body on it that had all his tools in it he would leave San Antonio
and drive for 20 or 30 minutes to Montebello and and fix trailers and fix roll up doors and all sorts of things like that and I was still doing like typing and editing and then he actually created a company that was worth selling he had assets to sell which he did and he and one of the Harvey Mudd professors started a solar heating company because Lee had the the physical expertise and Bob had the computer expertise loved my dear mrs. this was probably in the middle to late 70s 78 79 7:00 and they were wildly successful they started out just doing consulting and computations and as Lee would say people started wanting them to actually do the installation and they said well you know you have to have either a general contracting license or a plumber's license to do the installation and the plumbing test was thought to be was for a state license something pretty arduous but then they were able to find out that you could program like a little Hewlett Packard of a handheld computer at that point this was Bob's expertise so they passed the
plumbing license test with flying colors and eventually we had a crew Bob's wife Kathleen and I sort of took care of the behind the scenes and the books and everything and they really have very very successful business they installed solar heating at the Claremont Colleges and a number of large as well as many many many homes once again our best friends at the time the sacristans were among many of the Jewish clients I mean and it was it was sort of a word of mouth kind of thing yes they I don't even know if they did really advertised but it was very word-of-mouth and we
did a whole lot of home as well as commercial installations and we have some moderately hysterical stories about some of that but it was very successful and Lee was able to sell his half of the business to Bob and because of about that time the same trailer friend had become the vice president of a national trailer sales company organization that was big and very prosperous and because of these expertise he asked us to move to the Bay Area and open a branch for them so in two hours we talked about it and decided to do that and we retired from teaching college we moved to
Northern California where our daughter attended all of high school our son was was on a year of study abroad so he I think actually came to Northern California for just a year before he went to college but that was that was a very nice move for us financially I mean college even with all these other side ventures College teaching is a labor of love not of Labor of money absolutely but the trailer business was very successful did you travel much during those years and it sounds like you were very busy with certainly when all that we were doing was Lee's teaching he always said because
he was a mountaineer that he chose college as his teaching as his profession because of the great summer benefits program so we did travel pretty much every summer and most of those travels were camping and most of that time we actually camp with my parents whose god forbid have never camped before but we were enough of a draw to make them give it a try then my mother my father always knew he would love it but my mother discovered she loved it too so we did that that was actually highly first I I first was acquainted with Santa Fe so he did that a lot
and I think as I mentioned my parents first invited each of the children to visit them in Dallas when they turned five and could fly alone so they did they also asked our son Jed and a very early age where he would where he would like to visit and he said England so they made that a reality and they had a several week trip to England and our daughter you know had the same opportunity she chose Italy so they traveled with her there I was trying to think then I know that my my dad took us all and by all I mean my brother and
his wife the four of us and Lee's mother who had been widowed we he took all of us to England over the holidays and we had a wonderful wonderful time doing that eventually Lee and I became interested in sailing and we chartered a large sailboat on which ten of us my parents Lee and I our children Alan his wife and her daughter and our cousin Jacob Stein the Stein suits to live in Dallas we all went on that sailboat for a wonderful wonderful week and I was trying to think of other places that we traveled oh-lee fished a lot in Mexico and so we would
take fishing boats and caravan with some of our California friends and our parents to Mexico our parents were very very good sports and certainly when we were around they would put up with anything and everything so we got good that's wonderful sounds like a wonderful life so you're in San Francisco then what happens next what happens is that least say trailer sales operation was very small he had two salespeople who worked for him and some some like drivers and things like that to sales people and I was actually his office manager and Lee and I have always worked together probably even better than we've lived
together but we were doing fine but if it dawned on us that since we were sort of the heart and soul of this operation we'd never been able to both be gone on any kind of vacation so this longtime friend of ours ex student of Lee's was on a work rotation in the San Francisco area for a civic bell directory and in fact she lived on our sailboat we had a small sailboat at that time she lived up there and she decided that I would fit in well at the phone company and lobbied her boss VP of the phone company to hire me which she
really didn't want to do because I was a middle-aged woman who he was much interested more interested in having young people but in any way I did get a job at the phone company and Lee was still running his trailer sales business I did because I was a middle-aged woman I did fear about the phone company and rose through the ranks quickly I was only there 10 years but it was a great 10 years in terms of the retirement that I got and the medical benefits that I got and Lee was able to start and ultimately buy from the trailer company a trailer rental company
we rented to a he granted trailers for storage and then was able to very successfully sell that company we decided that we wanted to live on our sailboat and sail around and the little boat that we had was too small so he launched a search for a bigger boat which we've done in Fort Lauderdale and had brought back to California and while I was still working at the phone company and Lee had sold his sales and rental company he refurbished this boat into an absolutely gorgeous gorgeous gorgeous boat and in about 2001 I formally retired and we headed south on our Sabbath how long did
you live on the sail type if they've done a sailboat for about 10 years we actively we actively cruised it in Mexico for a couple of years and it was big enough that all of our friends did and could kind of stay with us and then we were Saturday beaten up the boat was beaten up in a hurricane and we decided it needed to go to Fort Lauderdale for cosmetic repairs and so we and the boat ended up in Fort Lauderdale where in fact it was repaired beautifully but Lee and I were getting sort of beaten up too and so we sold that boat and
bought a little condo in Fort Lauderdale and lived there for about seven years which was fun because Lee is an avid fisherman and he had a small fishing boat and that was all good I would say there was not a hint of Jewish life in Fort Lauderdale except for his very good very very good friend David Goldberg who was a fishing guide there and we became very friendly with who and David as a as a practicing Jew well semi practising judo he said but anyway they may ended up in here and how did you end up here at st. affect primarily our daughter Amanda who was living as always a good careful in Southern California visited here on her own after probably not ever remembering visiting here before and we were living in Fort Lauderdale my dad who was growing older was living at Boston and Amanda was living in California our son and his family were actually in Florida but we were sort of out of place and I madness said you know gee I think Santa Fe has a wonderful place let's buy a house and you can live there in the hot during the hot Florida summer time and go back to Florida for the winters
and I could use the house as a place to as just a vacation spot or place this Ephrem and it's also close to my dad in Austin so that would be a good thing so that evolved strangely because Amanda and I were going to buy the house together we you know everybody has their foibles or their their weirdnesses Amanda's weirdness is that she doesn't want to share a bathroom with anyone so to find a house here where there would be you know a master suite and at least another bedroom on the same level for my dad but room with its own bathroom for Amanda we
ended up in this moderately oversized house which luckily we love and partly because of the expense but partly because the very rightly I think saw the handwriting on the wall that Florida was going to experience some difficult weather and we also you know Florida is Florida exactly decided that we would move here full-time which was a great decision and you've been here how long four years four years and you're loving it and when you bumped in now that you're here at least still fishing is actually fishing in Florida wasn't super super simple because to go to the best fishing had to drive couple of hours
that's also true here you have to drive a couple of hours but at least still is a very active Fisher person I have been fortunate that this two sisters who are very good friends have moved here so they're an important part of our life the community that we live in is a very friendly community so we have made good friends we socialize with Lee in particular and I as a subsidiary love classical music and Santa Fe couldn't be better for that there's a Chamber Music Festival Liberty SAR that we partake of there's a lot of good music all year round our friends have moved here
love the Opera so we've been sort of exposed to the Opera and I my volunteer I my dad did after he moved here to volunteer at the local hospital and I volunteer also for the school for Advanced Research which is a very interesting heavily academic place that supports Native American arts and also our art and artists and has a phenomenal collection but it also supports academies of every strike who get to come for nine months and live there virtually expense free in wonderful little apartments and they get to come continue with their research and discuss that research with other scholars and totally different fields so
that's a very interesting sounds very exciting like it will take a break in just a minute and when we come back I'll ask you more about your parents but let me ask you a couple of other questions really that you were your role models throughout your life growing up yeah I am my father's daughter I'm not introspective so I'd have to think about that I would say probably the most influential person in my life was my mother's mother Amanda Hexter levy for them our daughter is named she was a very very important influence what would you say you you've got from her I mean what
about her she in my eyes was a great blend of being a real lady and being a very down-to-earth occasionally slightly potty mouth too kind of person and I have missed the great lady part but the potty mouth Florida actually start with you pretty much and being the only granddaughter I I was really close to her and she was just a special lady one of the things that shows that as my dad maybe he was never super close to his parents but my dad called her every day of the world and at 11 o'clock every day and would ask whether she had any dirty jokes
to share which occasionally she did so they were really really close and you know my mother was close to her as well as I think I mentioned my mother was 10 years younger than her only sister and all four of us I mean all both of those families and the four children the cousins we live fairly close together and my grandmother paid for our one nice meal a week she were on Sunday nights one night one setting my mother cooked the next thing and cooked and we all have dinner together and we that was when we would maybe have a roast or something like that
a nice meal and she was pretty much you know as many people would say the glue they tell the family together special lady nice what you've done a lot of different things in your life you've traveled you lived in many places you had wondered sounds like wonderful experience yes what would you say at this point in your life that you're most proud of children of course both our daughter is incredibly successful as Lee would say she's by far the most successful heroine in all history she is a very very very successful entertainment law lawyer and luckily she's also a very generous and funny person our
son sort of surprisingly is a phenomenal family man you know wife and two stepchildren as two stepsons and a genetic son his world is all about his family and he works very very hard with him and he still is a really kind giving person too so you know we have to I think be pretty pleased about that that's that's important if you could leave a message for your children your grandchildren generations that come after what would you say very thoughtful person that was tricked I think I would say and I think that we have managed to do it is to be true to whatever you
really believe in I do remember when I was a man with the phone company and I had about 10 supervisors who worked for me they would come to me and they would complain about some change that was being announced or coming down the pike and I would say you know we may not be able to make any difference but we have to say we have to have our say we have to say what we believe in and what we disapprove and I said then you know if it doesn't go your way your only choice is guess you can quit your job or you can go
ahead and follow whatever the rules are but you have to have your say about how you believe what you believe in and I think that's important great all right we're gonna stop here for a moment today is September 4th 2016 my name is Debra Polsky and we are recording Lee Harrell who's the husband of Patricia hi Cheryl at their home in Santa Fe New Mexico and Lee is going to tell us about his family and how he became part of this tight Harald family so tell me a little bit if you know about where your family came from how this you know how did when
did they come to America or if they were you know weren't here what's your background my family came to the United States on one side as the Talbots in Maryland in about 1600 or something along those lines the Talbots have been family members and to this day the heralds came as near as we can tell in something in the order of the middle of the eighth or early 18th century Errol's an Old English and Irish name and so they've been here a long time the other side of the family are rushes and I guess the only person of any notice gentleman named Benjamin Rush who
signed the Declaration with an immensely answer the doctor supplied Lewis and Clark with their medical kit for the trip they've obviously lived in this country a long time but my family moved to Texas in the 1840s North Carolina Tennessee and across that way I was raised in Texas all my life to school in Colorado at CSU and CEO and then CSU before going to California to finish my graduate work I married young lady there we were married for a short period of time and she departed for me and it was in that interim that I called for dividing Houston woman whom I had been in
for it closely and she said well your clermont there's a one of my friends from school and Switzerland his there he should follow her see if she wants to go out and so I did and she said no all the [ __ ] moment she she said no no I have a boyfriend but I have a friend in punch it doesn't have anybody that she's attached so I count that we started going out and my mother was very happy its back Texas sometimes this big deal bottom line is that and I got married maybe eight or nine months after we met and lived in Claremont California and
how many years did you live in Claremont let's see if I count time that I was there if somebody else from 63 to 86 when you went out to graduate school yes I went to the school of 63 was there - a year or so that I was in here until after we left Southern California and and I understand you were professor yes I took a job what was a one-year appointment at this in the college east of Los Angeles I was supposed to be very temporary and drugged out to 22 years and then never told any place else and I understand at the same
time that one of the reasons that job was subtractive was because it gave you the summers free primarily to pursue your other passions I was a climber an alpinist and teaching had a great vacation program for people to find what so Pat and I spent a good deal of our time and the summer times camp in one place or another traveling around what would the fact what were your some of your favorite places that you climbed well I suppose in some ways my one of my favorite places was in Europe or I didn't know some interesting clients when I went there not with that and
then we're back to the country I did a lot of climbing California Colorado Wyoming probably my favorite place to buy insurance Emily and I in 1960 I did an extent of the Northwest space of half down went outside you see from the valley and it remains one of my favorite lives its seen anything not as hard today as it was now or so appears so but it still was fun for me that's right is there any thing that you never got to climb that you wish you had I I never really sort of got it in my head to do the nose capitan which was
the first thing any number of my young protégé did do it it wasn't that as impossible it's just it is such a striking piece of rock very much like the face of Half Dome and I made an effort to find several clubs in Europe which because of weather didn't fit like you about girls but obviously those are analogous memories so what would tell me about your childhood about your family you grew up in Texas where in Texas I was born in Austin grew up most of my life in Houston hustle in a town called Berlin which is about 50 miles from Austin my family has
a said that they're a long time but growing up in in Houston the most part and in the beginning I wanted to be a rancher and so I cowboy a lot which let me go out west texas a lot things like that but my my father growing up on a ranch and he wanted no part of it so he regarded that as being foolishness I come from a background in which my mother's family the Talbots were all disc opinions and in her childhood two of her uncle's were Episcopal bishop Maurice places one of the United States but unfortunately I never met my grandfather Jacob Andrew
Biermann he died before my parents were married but I instinctively knew that Jake Berman who by all accounts was just a hell of a guy was probably Jewish but he lied about his background because now Charlie was a looked with the niece of the Episcopal bishop of mistakes probably wouldn't sit very well no I come from a very background and it's where you rights at the civilian to whatever degree you can do that yes I was I'm not very good believer gotcha we'll talk about that in just a second so tell me a little bit about school you said you I think you said you
went to America I went to see issue then I went to see you back to see this year i I had I had not been a very good student because my father and I sadly did not agree to weather the sunshine and I got a CSU I had absolute phenomenal professor in the history department who had been in command of the troops who had liberated dick it was so great experience even though I knew a lot about it obviously I learned a great deal more and I I remain completely puzzled why how anybody could be so cruel and mean but they certainly turned my mind
to the idea that why would anybody do that to anybody and Bruce Wireless was really quite spectacular man silver eyes the relationship so what prompted you then to go to California for your graduate degree I went to the Claremont Graduate School and it had a good reputation in political science which is what I was going to get my degrees in and I guess it's sad to admit that it's there several places for climbing the glues vicinity but several places and now are so away from there that was actually the birthplace of American really premier rock climbing and that was the main focus for me it
was a good school so I could have my cake and eat it too right man that's great so you had met you know this day you married fairly quickly what was your life like together as young marrieds before children came along we we had a good time Pat had no experience and outdoors at all her family probably regarded outdoor as going out and sitting in the back of the house certainly not climbing or hiking or mountaineering or even for that matter of camping I can imagine you know since I had left Texas yeah as soon as I could get out just can't be in the
summertime in Texas is instructing me suddeniy pay particular fund certainly not compared with being a Colorado or Wyoming where it was chilly at night things like that we traveled around a lot i was i played classical guitar i've always been interested in classical music pat head again relatively little background her dad liked classical music but he didn't do a lot of it so we wind places we have always had a very sharp verbal relationship in fact we had a friend who our play consequent are with who would call off about once a month and say they were starting a new group and it's a really
neither joining we're not much good joiners so finally Pat said to it well why do you keep asking us about this group and he said well you guys obviously don't get along because John and my mother so sharply that you must hate one said oh no no that's just the way we are and we enjoyed I think we to this day we join another and regarded as being part parcel of just our relationship other people that's fairly general did not do that so I understand that you converted to Judaism as you were integrated married and I as I said at that point I did not
know that my grandfather was Jewish but I absolutely would have been all the money I had that he was and when I decided that patent I should get married having taken in the class British bride in German history if they were going to come for my family they're going to have to go through me and I'm not going to surrender I'm going to die fighting that's just the way I am and so I figured that was fine by me so I took instruction and from Josh gerrett he was the rabbi of the temple camera manual just the nicest guy rabbi Klein anyway he was he
was just a super guy I was not completely finished with my conversion so Jerry bless us but didn't officiate but did change anything and the tightest were not inordinately religious so it wasn't something that was really important my mother might pad a whole one and she wouldn't say she was happy that somebody she liked she doesn't very fond of like the first one so from that point on this was very honest with you so the kids hanging on kids came in 70 and 72 73 and they and we think we believe is a bliss of childhood they did lots of things that had real good
relationship with Elsa may in fact great sadly my mother was she just was not a good grandmother she was too disciplinarian and we kept telling her look you know enjoy the kids spoil have a good time then he can send them back to us we'll take care of that throughout her life with all of her grandchildren all five of them she could never do that so it's unfortunately they had a good time didn't go to a religious school because that did not like early Mandela was the red wine Temple Beth Israel and it was quite pointed about it and as I think she has related
the day that her team had resigned her captain was appointed the phone rang off the wall the people saying okay time to time to join up which we give what as you know a young family and what were the things that were most important to you I think first of all we were blessed with two kids that bright and learned how to study and they went to a small private basically Elementary School in Claremont and it was with 20 kids in the class they really have a great education it pushed them but it taught them solid fundamentals and it taught them the value of an
education he never had to push that map so they had a great time and I think probably most important thing is to have fun we did you know we never really had a single problem with our kids at any point they they had lots of friends we did lots of things the jitters a baseball player Amanda did all kinds of things gymnastics all right and she like she liked to cook and so every year at the little school they went to a football they'd have a craft in they men who would make cheesecakes and take them things like that but we get what so you
were teaching that I know you also started several businesses teaching at least certainly and the middle sixties was a wretched way to make a living and if you were trying to do something for your family and so I was complaining to a fellow in one of my night students who became a really good friend and fishing buddy and he realized that I am one of those people that can fix opposed to anything and he said why don't you come down to my yard he was the branch manager for a company felt strip trailer and I've got plenty of things to keep you busy you know
but you have to figure out to do it well my teaching schedule finished normally at 12 o'clock our or 1 o'clock or something later than that every day so I basically I bought an old service pickup with the service planning on it but got flip tools out of my shop went down there and from one to the six or seven o'clock at night and come in a business and then and that provided more than enough income you know it was I had to work and I developed a clientele that counting on me for things and then a friend of mine who was a college professor
with one of the other colleges in Claremont said you know social slowly heating is becoming you know it's really the wave of the future and he said we ought to probably try to do something and he was basically a theoretician in low-temperature physics and I was sort of the engineer so we started doing design consulting and design were we there were municipalities were required to develop solar ordinances in those days and we consulted with all kinds of helping of standards that were reasonable for having solar stuff in their communities and we were getting people coming to us wanting us to design things architects because architects
and engineers versus nothing about this it wasn't that they were stupid it's just they no experience in it and we had made ourselves Baltimore we wrote some software for design and we were doing very well I mean we we had appropriate licenses for what we did and then people said we'd like you to build it and we said no can did either have to be a general contractor or you have to be a plumber we went out and tried to solicit some plumbers to join with us because they had that appropriate license we have the design licenses and between the two us we could probably
do that I would say that we were markedly unsuccessful we could not interest anybody's doing so we sort of started thinking about it we the plumbing that are all the building trade tests in California are pretty rigorous because scale for me being that way and we were reading the requirements for plumbing license and at the bottom of the page it says you can you if you wish you may use a calculator in the performance of this test the test consists of a bunch of things legal business things like that the hard part of the test five-story building have equal flow an equal person top employment
which means the pipes have to change now editors and everything think about going to hotel turning on the water on the tenth floor it comes out instantly hot if you didn't have something on there to help do that you could probably wait till next week to do that so we looked at one another it said Hewlett Packard 28 seats it's a programmable calculator in the old days plumbers were were called frictional losses that means the water goes around an elbow or through a tea it slows down so it means you have to calculate that in order to be sure you've got things going right so
we just programmed all of it in and the test asked these two gentlemen they said only PhD plumbing and we started to company that did that we were more interested in doing commercial work because it's bigger and the scales more interesting but obviously residential would somehow rather we became people at the temple knew they were doing this and so they immediately started getting us to do this sort of things and we did very well that there the problem was my partner like to be the president and I like lots of black ink and eventually he we had a excellent wide agreement we were friends and
remain friends and I said Bobby upon him so he bought me out almost immediately I was visited well my friend who was in the trailer business came over all of a sudden he just really I now know he came over with a purpose of mine but he we were sitting there talking and he said why don't you impact in San Francisco and start a branch force at that time he'd become the national vice president of a large trailer manufacturing company and we talked about it for couple hours it was obviously an opportunity for me to make two or three times what I was making and
so he said I retired from the College of San Francisco we were we were only moderately successful doing what the ranch was supposed to do because San Francisco's funny place and this company were probably the masters of building huge numbers trailers in fairly she may be the principal supplier for a bunch of companies JB Hunt Walmart things like that they take orders for three four five thousand trailers but they can build them in a few months my problem is that when they do that there's always the traders never coming back as trans and they're never really good shamed and our job was to sell and
you could sell them in Los Angeles but you could sell services and so eventually I told my boss my friend once you confirm and send somebody else up here okay didn't work he said I needed money so they closed the branch I took the assets of the branch and Lewis severance which by that time I had established a the credit range from storage do the companies that my clients were Genentech Sears when it's nice maybe and so from the first day they opened the door we were making plan and I bought the company did this because I believe my kids two men who I wasn't
going to do it she want to be an actress but Jed was mechanical and he worked around trailers he just hadn't graduated from UC San Diego so mister that lasted about a year the largest owner of semi trailers in the worlds now GE camera D IP and we've got 90,000 traders worldwide and they came over said they'd like to party so we sold them the company and so how did you have to buy the bag and ultimately live on it for a while a friend whose children to feel that she's a travel agent they she would take a trip this is in the beginning of
the period when there were big bruises companies in it and they would give travel agents free passages pack to go along with a friend for $25 a day so they took lots of trips one of the trips they took went to the Panama Canal and that came home we had fishing boats but we didn't have sylvans Pat said I want to go through the Panama Canal Atlanta which frankly is quite surprisingly this that was not her cup of tea I said sure we can do that we're gonna have to sell that boat we'll buy a sailboat you gotta learn how to sail I know how
to sail and so we bought a boat and that was about the same time that we elevated to San Francisco Sanchez does a different place to sail so they kept flying blows anyways if you can sail away sailing to us so we say up a lot and then the Dogon path one day that this boat was 37 feet long really wasn't big enough to have lot of gifts we'd been at sea with another couple but two people slept in a salon TPB slept over one cabinet one head and so we started looking for a boat and ultimately found a book in Fort Lauderdale Florida and
taken apart truck to the Bay Area and we reassembled and we decided at some point in there we've been living on the other boat and this boat of course had two cabins to the heads and we did not the both off and on while I was working on it and then moved out of the book full-time and this it was a good experience because we spent eight months hauled out meeting the boat was up on that stands in this boat yard and the ladders about twelve feet high to get to the top of it and that's still she was the manager national publishing the yellow
pages and some she had to go up and down that ladder whether go to work clothes on every day and so we've got the boat finish she was still working at the phone company we'd get up I take it to Barbara she's doing today I had work on the boat actually developed kind of an issue because I completely legal under galley and I would go out about three o'clock in the afternoon and buy food a great home pilot in the middle of the table and that was what she had to make dinner out of me you know some of the things I got actually made
me shocking surprise but it was great for her because it did in fact teach her what she would find in foreign countries and she wouldn't stay at the phone company until 2000 she resigned in 2000 and 2001 we left San Francisco went out the gate and turned away [Music] we're down in Mexico for a while up and down through there and we back sent just go for the way and a hurricane and it white-white done three were in the st. 90 votes we got a message while we were in San Francisco that the cannon kind of already said your votes myself sitting really maybe and the person in the Senate was not a particularly reliable respondent the next day I got a many viruses in retired United Airlines pilot who was there we obviously weren't there and he said you must be the luckiest sons of [ __ ] alive his boat sunk all over the place and we're sitting there and even the electrical cord and the TV cable were still attached we move forward about six or eight feet as the dock collapsed but we were stretched up when
we were damaged every week cost anything we got a email the next day you can edit this out but he said you look like a diamond in a goat's ass because I mean they're both around these multiple hundred thousand dollar boats stick with it or knows the sticking out of the water mass picking out of the water all over they and some other friends of ours move they are going out of this place down at the marina we got back a couple days later and it is thing we did transported the boat around to Fort Lauderdale because we didn't want to go back to San
Diego because that's a thousand miles of pretty unpleasant trip I've done so we know before today where we got the boat unfortunately we also found that the boat was fixed and beautiful of the cruellest beginning the Shonan stage so we decided to see if we could sell a boat we put the market and it sold in one week and a week after that it was it was never in the boat it was a spectacular and so now we're on bail by condominium which convinced about doing because men only property or you know car and we were there for seven years then we need to say
what's your favorite place that you live because you've lived in some pretty beautiful and interesting places if you're talking about on the boat that would be in a category all by itself we certainly enjoyed the perhaps the pause probably was our favorite place that we stayed up above as far as land Rollins there's no doubt sanitized for us both Pat and I have independently said yes wonderful is great you've clearly already made lots of friends and yeah I like to finish I can fish here it's it's a little bit admitted to go fishing but it's not it's not possible in Florida I both wished I
could care less about fish she likes to eat fish yeah no captain what in your life would you say that you're most proud of well I can answer that - its first law my climbing career was such that if you think about immortality out of there his longest be applying mountains did first sense on lots of places which are now being repeated by people but the guidebook Lee here Alice there is the first ascent I suppose that's as close to mortality is anybody so it doesn't really mean the dam failure you know exploding we did it we did it was fun I would say my
other than that my family particularly watch it lucky when you think about you talked about your professor talked a little bit about your dad who were the wrong house in your life I would not consider my father be a role model except in this respect the cat and I got married I told her because she knew my father she she were married for quite a while that's a very 60 70 - 72 she nearly and she saw him so to speak for what he was he was not my mother I told her when we got married there are a lot of things that have done
to me never I don't know how successful are those I think that's more generous about myself my best role model was my father's favorite friend Tuffy Smith he is executive vice president of American Juniors Tuffy Smith and his wife Ruth were married remember Tuffy went to him once in this crash while he was in school he had to go back to East Texas to make money no more education and just like gumption he became executive vice president in other words their basic United States he never had mature they could that's really something that's a great my father would not get me a job I thought
maybe he shouldn't do that which I personally thought was actually wrong sense but if I called all the tough he is withholding he he'd call me back and say still see plug wise you know time I said should I go and get a job my father would see mr. wise and smallest and he'd say you know I can't even have a job me anytime anyplace made my father happy but he never wants to not him I don't know why I got a clue I know that it was didn't make me here so I you know I I can't save my father was that he was a man of integrity he was the man of capabilities he was just one good for me it was his life see father right I think it was a model for you what you I'm a stupid hard-headed person and my father liked it from a very early age I was
very small I did not do it took me she realized wasn't there for once I was there I never was off the Dean's List one semester I took 24 units made outlays and I got a really nice look from the Dean and my father yeah that strong silent generation big that's true you know he's the generation came of age the thirties the actual drafted it quickly figured out that they weren't going to send him off to fight this is what he was doing was not important to the Sherman I mean he was here to this one I did I didn't realize it until later the
shifts and this guy's work six seven days a week the war better there were 12 hours a day six days a week so it was way he was he was exceptionally he just never to the point my mother was a saint she was much more affectionate than he was he was very affectionate you sounds like you've had an interesting life and fulfilling life you've done a number of different things you've taught you've bought in so businesses you climbed around the world you sale all kinds of things and now you're in the sweet spot of Santa Betty and anything else you'd like to say if you
could leave a message for your grandchildren right great shuttle or even just your own children about life about what's important what would you tell them well first of all tell them they trigger their own characters villagers that's just for today and if you promise something and never spend time today I'm gonna shoot you that's right choices by gonna shoot me first run away and I suppose that's the Texas you know stand up alright well that's you know you're fine and thank you very much we appreciate it and well Ann teer this is part two of our interview with pat tight Carol and now we have
her husband Lee Harold with us as well and one of the reasons that we're here to do this interview with the two of them is that we were the Dallas Jewish Historical Society was fortunate to receive the may and LSM tight wartime correspondence collection and we want to talk to both Lee and PAC about may and Ellis and more about their lives and who they were and what they were like and so we'll begin with that and again today is September 3rd 2016 on Deborah Polsky the and we're gonna begin here so we have all these marvelous letters from May to Ellis and Ellis to
May it's really quite remarkable that they not only save them but devised a plan ahead of time what who do you how do you think that happened actually I I feel certain that it was my mom's idea she was both you know organized and sentimental and romantic but I also think that many people at the time did things like that I would certainly understand my mom saving the letters in the event that my dad was killed in war I'm more interested naturally don't know the answer even though we went through a lot of them with dad in Austin but I'm more interested in sort of
how LS account is you know we think it would be smooth Parker if you move from place to place maybe that was complicated I don't know but he was young and in love and he probably found those letters comforting to keep as well I think it was something that was done much more than yeah for sure tell us we'll tell us about how your parents met they meant because when dad was stationed in San Antonio Fort Sam Houston it was Antonio Harrison when he was in Beijing in Boston they can't Swift okay I won't dispute that because he was in Texas and away from home
his father said you need to go meet the family of our cousins Henry touch our Henry touch leaving was his name and he did do that I'm sure they would welcome me and that was that so may your mother was the daughter of Henry nicely that's direct and I'd forgotten I don't early Australia but what is but I think was I forgot that it is in fact I'd and what's the difference what was the difference in their ages virtually not Ellis was born in March of 23 and May was born in April of now Ellis grew up in Memphis right and then do you know
why he decided to go to a mmm it was there wasn't really school he went to LSU and then he elicited and that was where his basic his basic friend was in Texas okay and it and he'll see what did he graduate normally she did not graduate fellowship do you ever come back and finish no no interesting that was not a dedicated student mother graduated from UT okay so they needed in while he's already in the service and they decide to get married and hard we have some cool letters have to dig those album maybe a Contessa when Ellis asked his father to get a
ring in Memphis and you know I guess his father you know maybe had a connection and that's where the ring came from do you have a sense that both families were excited about it that this was a connection that's really interesting my grandma thought or not this is background information it doesn't necessarily have anything to do with anything except for the fact my grandfather was sort of profoundly deaf Ellis's Alice's father and I don't know how long he deafness definitely runs in our family my dad was petrified when our son was born to check his hearing right away there's a funny story connected to that
but in any way so that people are hearing aid you know what happens great big huge battery in the shirt pocket and his speech was I would say 90 to 95 percent normal so I believe that he lost his hearing and some later ran his life but he was the warmer of the two my grandmother Eva was she was a housewife her excellence and yet she was not to us who were the visitors in the house incredibly warm and the story is packed when dad said he had proposed or that they were going to get married my grandmother got mom said well if she's didn't
you she says me so my mother was pretty offended and perhaps hurt by that we certainly traveled back and forth they didn't visit us always looking like a Cokie bringing chickens and butter and fig trees and all sorts of crazy things when they traveled usually by train to Dallas and you know we went up there once again dad's sister Eileen those three years younger than that their children who grew up in Memphis I'd say would describe them very very very very very differently they worshipped them they were a really close family like my cousin Leslie is a real sentimentalist and anything that was in that
house you know he loved my cousin Sharon lives in the house that my dad grew up in they bought that from after my grandfather died and they're completely devoted to them in fact my grandma's famous eva grandpa's name is Claude and Sharons daughter is named Eva caked and so they're they're super super close now having said that our side of the family and the Dallas side was equally close to Ellis and they to the extent that with Chuck's older oldest daughter had her second child this February not too long after Dad died they named her Ellis also and that was you know they were really
close to my to my parents they had not had a father the two boys yes he died very early Ellis became a surrogate okay so they met by married and he then they went to war and he came back to civil in Texas in Dallas as I mentioned they lived with my grandparents for the first six or seven years of their marriage until my brother was born my dad who didn't have a degree opened a a chemical supply company which provided cleaning chemicals to commercial outlets right and I've got too sure how many years he did that it was never wildly successful and then as
far as I know the very next job he had was with traders and general insurance company based in Dallas and actually at least one know I'm missing a suspect think I'm missing story so anyway I mentioned that he worked there for many years until it was bought my mother never worked outside the house until I left through college and that was sort of a little devastating for her really close really well and at that point she became a bookkeeper for our Barbie's florist in North Dallas and she worked pretty much for Polly she did all of their ability so tell me your impression from having
known them as a married couple certainly as their daughter and son-in-law you get a different you know view then their friends might have had but what do you what brought them together do you think what is it that they saw in each other whatever I say is it's you know you you don't really know I know that my dad thought my mom was attracted I know he loved her legs my mother didn't consider herself very attractive but she was very insecure and I think somewhat shy and so his attention was a wonderful wonderful thing to her I understand that it's sort of a matter of
time and place dad was was certainly funny but I can't say exactly what kind of magnetism there was we mentioned earlier that mother was a point of stability that sometimes I think my father really needed I will also say that that my dad absolutely adored my parents it was much closer to them that he wants to miss our parents he repeatedly said that he married me because that's true that's right he did say that as well I don't think he ever had much of a relationship certainly not the kind of open relationship that Ellison's done for with his own parents they were very stodgy they
were they came from Germany their family family yeah so our family did pretty much awesome yeah but you were a little closer to France might have made a little bit of a difference so they tell each other in these letters so many things did you bad ever talk about his experience in the war not at all I think which totally talked to many men in war in general in World War two in particular maybe what the world war took to her not a whole lot not until he wrote his little memoirs he was probably in this eighties when he did that but about what was
Italy about 1989 he did sort of go we went to Europe always except Lee who was managing their company couldn't believe in us at that time but our children my brother who at that point was not married and my parents went to Germany and dad was definitely reliving the places that he was stationed in Germany and dad as a clerk is that what you would call him he used he would say my dad would say that he won the title of the war with the typewriter because if that he was not in combat but he stayed in spas I want to say all over Germany
but then several gorgeous gorgeous hotels that had been taken as that's places to house the result the 15:30 was going to be the Army of Occupation Ellis was basically the company but he never carried a rifle and that the closest he came to it was when the Bulge broke out they rounded up anybody that could walk and frost mirror handed the rifleman hitting them on foot to the front but patents people got there before and they were necessary sister Madison he spent quite some time in vehicle the belgians castle that was the headquarters company for equity was when war was finished as everything was done
this depression finish so he and he really didn't ever had the war for him was a marvelous experience it wasn't like random foxhole shot at it that was actually a good experience interesting it's very interesting it seems like your mother in the few letters that I read and certainly they bring more Debian Alexis had read more it's always like keeping his spirits up or cheering him on or that kind of thing and and we wondered if you know was it being away from home and family that perhaps or just the kind of daily grind of being a clerk and ordering and keeping details and all
that kind of stuff and we I have seen a pamphlet that was instructional to young wives during World War two that gave them instruction on how to write letters to their their husbands and it was just to do that to keep their spirits up and like my grandparent I know that there are some letters from my grandmother and also I am in that collection that they sent and they were supposed to talk about what they did on a daily basis and I guess the expectation I don't think there was a distinction made between combat and non-combat positions these were people who were away from home
so I think that instructions were generally the same without regard to the posting so I know that that's what she did having said that he hadn't been you know he had been away from home he lived up to LSU and he definitely took advantage of that I don't know how risk gave you would like me to get but I could tell some interesting stories that my father reveled in telling okay if he told them I can tell them he would one of the reasons he did not have time to graduate from LSU but that's not to say that he would have managed to graduate if
he had had more time he spent way too much time in New Orleans and in his words he visited a whorehouse there that he was a very well received at and thought of it was it was on diversity they'll think of it in the minute but he always talked about this street address of this house that he visited Burroughs Jerome Street which does distances in New Orleans and when we scattered his ashes last spring that was one of the stops we made because we knew it was extremely important to him unfortunately it's not a sign of a Walgreens and in New Orleans and I'm sure
going to be extremely disappointed but certainly the end of his life he talked a lot more I think we all get nostalgic about all sorts of things he went on a river cruise after my mom died maybe the only trick he ever took by himself and he went specifically to visit the river cruise were not the same but it started in LA all the bridges that's the port that he came into when he came to Normandy was obviously wasn't business universe those months after the invasion and of course any cruise that sort of stops at the American Cemetery where he shall we say first-class treatment
because he definitely enjoyed being known as a veteran his later years but certainly the whole time I grew up pretty much other than hearing the stories of when he first met me on his return the only other story that I heard repeatedly was and a lot of this I heard from my mom the ship the javelin that he was crossing from England to the continent was in fact mine and did in fact sick that was classified information I think there were some fatalities not tons yeah it's safe in about 15 minutes which and it was pretty quick this was a I think it was probably
just sort of a stack of people and it went down very quickly and he went over the side and into down the net and into a book and was rescued by a French frigate he he always resented that event because his buddy that was with him cut his finger going down the cargo net and went to sickbay again the band-aid and as such Jennifer Mark Ellis [ __ ] actually he did service credit for that he got he gonna try to yes but he is no big deal so he didn't go and he was mad at himself I remember hearing was that was classified information and my
dad was not allowed to tell my mom that that had happened but my mother figured it out because you know I'm sure you'll find those letters initially in a series of letters he would ask for gee I need an eraser and Gi he needed all of these personal items replaced so my mother who was dummy figured out that something like that had happened did did she of course you were a baby but did she talk later in life as you were older about what it was like being pregnant having a baby him being away no and I don't know whether that's because it wasn't I
don't know I wouldn't say that my mother was reticent or although there were judgments and things that we sad they never did talk about but I'm sure it was a wonderful former but I shall I suspect it wasn't that bad she was still living with my parents and my aunt who was actually not married at that time and the letters revealed that they had a huge social life of maybe just trying to be brave and busy during the war I don't recall that's there were stories of rationing especially about tires but I don't remember them having a difficult time of it so I think that
they were moderately unfortunate deeply so she wasn't yes so she didn't fit the necessarily the stereotype of a young soon-to-be mother on her own kind of left behind at the army base or whatever I never got that sense I mean you know I know that my grandmother and maybe my aunt were with her and when I was born and the only thing they were really concerned about to me honestly was because the world the war in Europe ended but the war in the Pacific was too annoying money all of them Ellis was amongst them we're scared spitless that there will be part of the invasion
of Japan which everybody needs going to be very much the first week Cheers so you said for your dad it was kind of a a good experience or an event do you think it was more like an adventure for him I believe in fact I know that they don't have a copy of his memoir that he wrote him I had it it was some thought that it didn't type and I think that issued the flavor of his his wartime experiences I don't want to say I have read it in a couple of years I don't want to say there was nothing in it that talked
about difficulty or privation or anything but off the top of my head I would say there wasn't anything like that in his experience did he did he remove loose boyhood friends I did maybe I think maybe was some people getting worst part of his organization how he learned to fly because there were the army had a lot of but none of the Piper Cubs could use for surveillance and he Ellis was always very friendly with me and so what's the result he got a lot of things done or got to do a lot of things maybe so he got the burn out and then took
off abandoned upon the Autobahn and this mostly here remember most air drums have been nothing but he the submission of photography and he ended up getting a really good camera while he was there and he also pursued the daughter like a manufacturer to this day I understand what he thought he was going to do but he was after he didn't care about her other thing but he did definitely care about like a camera which was the best camera why did he keep in touch with any of the people that he served with was their connection after they made them there was some I not gonna
remember many but the total reunion that he talked about when somebody caught him from across the river was that wartime or was one man who was a photographer in the Los Angeles area I think for a newspaper that he when he came to visit us and so he called him a couple times but I don't every weekend to see I just said this I'm sorry that it's a he in it for him when the war was over there's I'd like I think for many men there's just get home you know go get get out of life I don't know how many men I served with
people they grew up with I mean I realize that people did it list together and my father did in this with at least two guys from Memphis but you know I think that that he didn't really serve with childhood France free often so I so when he kind of come to you and your mom Hecky he hadn't really lived in Dallas for tell her like no so he was sort of coming in new back to this wife that he hadn't spent that much time with man and the baby what do you have any sense about what that was like for him because your mother certainly
had her that's right her social group that she could probably known most of her life I believe that he fit into that quickly easily and seamlessly and even though they were not avid temple members of goers their entire crowd was of young Jewish people of their of their generation people that my mother certainly had my father was so pale and Hardy and romantic I he definitely formed good friendships my dad was always a bit more of a ladies man but but he did have a number of male friends who he did things with yeah he did only I think Memphis was a place to be
away from I think that's true and Dallas was a place for him to go and so when he came to Dallas he sort of had a black parent and I think that's what he did because he was the personal because you go through all the pictures of everything else and Ellis is always there in the middle cleared the part of the scene and the big smile on his face sorry I think the Alex was a great placement of course all right so it sounds like they had a pretty active social group and were there any particular things that they were interested in that that either
of them you know he said they belonged to temple for a while but it was not you know the center of their lives or anything I think you know certainly as young married people are they didn't have a lot of money and so of a lot of the things they did were didn't cost money they did and I don't remember whether this was right after they were married and before dad was deployed or whether this can afterwards there was they absolutely adored them and they as often as they could that was a vacation for them and tonight you will see a heavy metal ashtray that
was from that dude ranch that I use as a wine why I told her it that was definitely a place that they really really loved I think there is the big deal for them as young marrieds that changes kids new kids came along so quickly that definitely made a big difference where they involved was he involved I mean obviously as a businessman you know particularly once he was selling insurance sometimes that's where men get involved in civic organizations or you know rather military daughter was upset so I wasn't selling he was the treasurer of the company was moneyman kind of thing so he never was
a salesperson he was sort of a salesperson with his chemical business that successful he was a member of Scottish Rite yeah to stop me when I when I'm wrong okay but I certainly don't remember him as a meeting and when I met your mom not really I remember she was a girl scout co-leader and I know that she volunteered at our elementary school actually if she if she played mahjongg I'm not sure that that's true she had a group of card playing Prince that's last many did that play together the two of them are like our day later I did hear about poker games and
I'm pretty sure those were that certainly as they were older meaning when I was in high school eventually in college my dad who was the the techno weenie was able to erect a somewhat unreliable television antenna so that they could receive local cowboy games I know that they were a big center of activity because of that so there would be a number of people who would come over and then definitely probably when Lee and I were actually married dad was an early member of blazing me to them and that was a very eclectic group in that I think there were four or five couples and
I know that one of those couples James and some Olivia I know they were Catholic so but if they were joining us it was less humanitarian or and more much more social and what was that group about the legs of a dove that they get what they they conducted and went to my intestines they were they became pretty devoted wine doors I don't I know for a fact I never had wine growing up in my life and 1966 my college roommate and I spent time and we traveled to the summer and even Europe and we brought back a bottle of Mateus why that was the
first wine that I can have a remember drinking and that sparked something especially in my dad who was the enthusiast and later you know my mother as well so you left for college and then of course your brother left as well and how when you think of them as empty nesters I guess what is their life look like my dad was fortunate to take early retirement and my mother told him I married you for better or worse but not for lunch and encouraged him perhaps insisted that he find something to do with himself and there was a man who was performing home inspections at the
time of sale which was not nearly as common not nearly nearly as common as it is today and so he because my dad was so mechanical he really could fix everything and you know he understood electricity and a whole bunch of stuff they they didn't really quite well together my mother continued working for the florist it was a three years before we had children they were very wonderful grandparents they spent about six weeks with us in our house twice a year and those those were wonderful wonderful times of my children absolutely adored them and at that point our kids were going to a little private
school I was incredibly involved and I just never considered doing anything but though I'm volunteering at the library at her home I'm fixing lunch I just didn't even ask my mom she just a company and one of my favorite things was we lived within walking distance of a grocery store and at one time that they were there I asked my mom pick up something from the grocery store which was super close like 45 minutes later maybe more than that she still has a comment she when she got back to no although I ran into someone I knew so that that was really what happened our
friends in California adored them and whenever they were there they were invited to our friend's house for dinner and they were really fairly beloved like that they also began to travel quite a bit primarily not exclusively but primarily cruises and I think they also took some Perillo mentors at the beginning of their travel and they spent a fair amount of time doing that my grandmother lived until about 1974 and as her health declined some you know I'm sure that that took some time but you know my mother played cards my dad at one point volunteered for spore which is a small business retired executives do
that mother do some work but it wasn't it wasn't the focus of her attention I mean she she did it because she loves you and she was driven by things like that so yeah they they leave the drummer simply in that respect aside from an interest in wine and the travel they went camping with us what never they went camping with us - with a and alluded to the fact that her mother no interest asleep today is Sunday September 4th 2016 and we are picking up our conversation with Lea and Pat tight Patricia tight Cheryl and we have been talking about primarily about Pat's family
her parents and we want to just finish up with that the the one the question I wanted to ask you was you know them as a daughter you know them as a son-in-law this these letters maybe give you a little bit of insight into them just as adult people you know who are not you don't really think of as the way you think of your parents how did you characterize who they are who they were what words would you use to describe your parents a a.parentnode homemaker that was the role that I saw her fulfill there were certainly good friends and they did have a
big circle I call it a big circle everybody who knew always just going to describe him as a hail-fellow-well-met funny sense of humor both in terms of humor but also peculiar some every once in a while he would do or say something that didn't quite come the way boy other people expected it to be that's my character well I think I think sometimes you know when you get to know your parents a little bit as you're older you you begin to see them some of the words other people have use is they were great team they always work together or you know this person was
the disciplinarian and the family or this is the person who was sentimental and family was important more important to them than maybe the other person in the family though any of those kinds of mother was a disciplinarian in the family and my mother was also the history keeper sadly dad and I are much more alike and looking through old pictures and documents it was my mom who he was organized and I think the wartime letters show along her back and my father was just probably by nature not as organized but so she was the one who both collected but also reported a lot of family
history genealogy her sister my aunt also did some of that I know that they would write to people who either they didn't know or and they collected some genealogical information so that so for both of them at least that idea of family history being part of well it's so interesting a wine mother kept lord knows everything I mean we've got little totally disorganized bits and pieces of the he had a little stamp collection and he had a coin collection and he had all sorts of collections that he never really carefully pursued but get kept all of those things and he had a fair amount of
the memorabilia that that he kept he had you know some toys and he had a little corner bookcase that he made I think was he was in middle school you know once again I would have thrown this stuff away if I hadn't really toward the end of his life so I said why don't you keep this all these years I think what it least would tell me a little bit more he was a sentimentalist and perhaps as a man of his generation he didn't show it that much but but he but it was important to him to hang on interesting Lee you need them for
many many years may was the steady rock on which the whole thing was built she was but she was very sensitive very sentimental about a lot of things but to be perfectly honest I'm not sure she wanted the role but she had nobody else Ellis would not or could not take it it wasn't any to do it and so as a result she was the person who was the steady rock and the governor and she sometimes appeared assertive to me and for which I apologize verbally any number of times we thought she was a wet blanket she wasn't a look like at what she was
doing was trying to make sure the cannon didn't go off in the wrong direction Ellis on the other hand Pat used the term just a second ago undisciplined disorganized and he's all of those things that he he was a loose cannon you never knew what was going to happen it wasn't that he was dynamic in doing it it's just that he would abandon something and start something else he after he painted some of the paintings including the one that's on the wall he gave it up he didn't he it apparently have achieved enough of whatever it was to satisfy himself and he went on something
else he would not pursue things I have only Justin it has been on over a year now since he died just finally got the unbelief some tools and screws and everything because I kept screws and bends that were properly labeled so if I wanted something every my daughter Ellis wouldn't even look forward each ship to go by another hundred and the result was we had red stuff and I've made anybody that I know this areas where they will knock by a screw or a nut or anything without first coming to consult the herald hardware store because I got stuff coming out of my ears stuff
that I would not normally have this was the thing that made Ellis interesting was I don't know that there was really a vicious bone in his body but he was in fact very insensitive sometimes and he did as Pat said he would say things and when somebody said what we meant why are you saying that he said are just meant to be funny which was basically a way of him that he either intentionally run additional missiles it's clear that their personalities you know at the core were more different he was much more a person of many interests maybe not lasting a long time but was
interested in lots of things and lots of people and that she was a responsible you know sort of responsibility at her core for the family her mother her children whatever it might be and yet they radically different and so I I really it's not so much that opposites attract but I think that opposites balance each other and I certainly think that mother and dad did a lot of that what's the best memory you have of the two of them together just stop and think for a minute you know a moment where they're laughing or they're happy about something or you know just enjoying each other
I think my favorite memory of them was the first time he took them camping we they had to spend an extra night in Albuquerque they it was in the strollers or something and they arrived she had been to Neiman Marcus and a block really gorgeous sweater because it's going to be cool chilly and so we stopped outside of Telluride and I can't and she liked that coffee so we made coffee and we got ready she's been sitting on a log off to the side while I made coffee and so the coffee was support and she got up to come over and she did cultivating their
coffee and it had been packaged it to go to the fever 2,000 feet but she was at 8 or 9,000 feet and so when she cooked both seal it looked like the old faith in God this huge cloud of coffee made with the air only did then that we discovered that when she'd been sitting on the law there was a lot of pitch on it she'd gotten on her pretty new sweater you know because it was stinky it was it remains one of my funny experiments that and yes mother would always approach it in the aerosol deodorizing spray can she love camping I can see
the two of them it was actually gonna stand Colorado we come out of them the backcountry so to speak where we'd been camped and this outhouse was badly in need of service and they would not they were approaching it side by side eagerly canopy over friends cabin as an a-frame and there was also a little like a carriage house and the children were open enough that they were staying there the four of us were staying that a-frame and I guess it was mother who discovered there was a fact in this apron and I can remember both my mother and grandmother I mean I I'm not
sure I'd ever have seen a bamboo I was growing up I think but I heard tales about bats would get in your hair and I was really a scary thing so there was a bath in this in this house a mother immediately went and put her shower cap on so that it wouldn't get into her hair and so there I know my dad had like a blue more because I think that's maybe a big push because if it wasn't it was awkward and they were trying to capture this back and leave eventually disabled out there yeah why he hadn't gone this was a log cabin
an old one cabin probably built maybe in the 20s or something it was owned by a very good friend of ours who happened to be our dentist that we would go and fish together and collide together and oh my this bat flew around and I I thought the baby's gonna expire actually never screamed but she was in distress and he was clearly coming to the rescue flailing with this oversize ineffective broom that was really funny one of my good memories of mother was pretty much any time they were taking care of our children are really being with our children once again I think a little
bit like Loretta and she certainly encourage children to make a children in general I love our children for children in general but mother would have the idea and dad would implement it as dad was just a big child himself and he physically and mentally doc mom children's level he all small children loved him and but yet the ideas the things they did were always mother's ideas you know each carried them out that's a great then that's your great story and I do the same thing I mean I've got a good idea but I guess I'm too lazy to carry them out and we will carry
them out he Ellis was rather fond of glazed doughnut so whenever the children would come they would all get up it would still be a bit yeah and they would all climb in the car and go off to have done us Ellis because he never was fat could afford to lucky have done this without in trouble at all and then there was at one point rather considerable debate about what the children all the grandparents and Ellis this was before yeah yeah no well the king came to fruition was there was some debate but Ellis said I'm going to be called grand so grand as no
big grand sob that was yeah and ultimately they always called him gum because how hard is it to say grandes i'll be a great physician when he's three years old you know my grandmother was always called sister because she was the first of eight and you asked a three-year-old to say sister and it comes out shitty so i became city so what if they call man-boy all made up because my grandmother have always been a man that had always been called a mall and so I think we I think we sort of decided that a lawn more more than the children saying you know just
distorting something said okay they were you know in that respect they were both very fond you know the grandparents were in their own way super grandparents and certainly by comparison my mother who sadly never could be a grandmother could rail that repeatedly he may always had you know great great fun with the kids Della's having more fun mother had rules but they weren't horrible rules they were the kind of rules that for example mother was a Napper so the children knew that they were going to read for the 30 minutes that she nap and so she definitely had rules but they did think that she
was also so thoughtful like that was one word you just write where she was really thoughtful and so she made sure that the children got to eat what they wanted to eat not what she wanted to eat things like that the other thing that I'm thinking remembering about Elsa was I think it was Lee it was very fond of a brand cookies mother's brand still still there today and probably this has happened often we introduce those to my dad who really liked them too and I don't remember I think dad started it I think at that monster those like that those cookies were not available
in Dallas and some would say it's a nice ring and dad who was balding the get-go started saying that those cookies made his hair fall out we would actually package them up and send them to him with along with some Thurl and disrespectful no yes lost a pair of things like that which of course he and the kids excited about he got a big bag you know I mean they they did enjoy really it was like three children that's not that doesn't mean Ellis any insult because in some ways it really is that he was in fact a big child and he had a good
time dad dad I think had with some things what I call short attention span and he was always he would always was ready for the next best thing so so let's finish with this maybe not incredibly carefully or thoroughly and then let's move on to the next I hate he was half attention pay attention to something for short periods of them and then something else would catch his eye or his mind and he would technical magazines only casually generally at one point briefly he was sort of a techie of the family he was the first personal computer and he read a lot to figure out
how he would bring a book and several yes there was this thing I'm not exaggerating and that book would sit in our house and be moved for sure and never never be opened and he never opened it at home what he learned for the most part was from other people who were better than he was and in many cases he didn't quite get it always right and he was a fairly vocal square when things didn't go right and you could hear him pretty much anywhere in the house because he would be very upset when it was alright anything else that we've missed about your parents
about your lives something that I do want to say is that in general I would have said that certainly mother was the caregiver you know my dad was the fun giver or whatever but when my mother had a series of strokes he was a really good devoted maybe a little bit Maggie but he even said was deadly for moms oh good he was a good caregiver and during her final illness it was a really really good and devoted I just give him a surprise and certainly give him all the credit for for doing that so that was that was one of his finest hours that's
that's nice to hear that's a nice memory I took it after me I took him about to its months to get over the sore back because unfortunately he would not wait until they have systems right to do something and he would hurt himself and but he was very attentive to me and having said that and having described about moving on to the next best thing he was introduced to an apartment in Austin probably no more than three months after mother's death when we were on the boat and he kept disappearing to make phone calls so we didn't after the fact so he moved on very
very very very quickly they they didn't marry right away but he moved to Austin and they moved it together all that extremely quickly and that was dad moving on to the next best thing but also in retrospect dad never took care of himself I mean maybe maybe in the army and I don't know really what that consisted of but his mother took care of him my mother took care every minute took care of him and after menís death he had another lady friend who took care of him so not a typical for his age word and it is statistically men remarry fashion and but again
I think that's a great example of that's kind of how he took care of himself he was a junior and what's he what's he doing here he I don't want to say he specifically surrounded himself but he was around but ladies like he right now at the retirement facility where he was living he sat at a dinner table in which he was the only man not all the rest you know I mean it was and he had he had a lady for him not you know they were not near as close but I think they were actually closer than we perceived because she would come
out here for dinner she was an interesting lady although I don't think he ever questioned what she did you know what she had done but yeah he was he was always good for him all right well thank you so much I know we've taken so much of your time and brought back hopefully some great memories and and as we progress in this project with getting the letters digitized and and being able to sort of read them in order I'm very excited and looking forward to the picture that we're going to see of who your parents were before you were born and who how they grew
together even though they were you know thousands of miles apart so thank you very much and we will leave it here you