Paula Frank
Paula Frank came from families with rich and varied journeys to America. Her mother's people traced their roots to Grodno, in a region that was at various times Lithuania, Poland, and White Russia, where they had been in the grain business. Those who emigrated made their way through Cracow, Cape Town, and finally Boston, where an immigration officer gave them the name Porter. Her grandfather learned watchmaking in Basel, Switzerland, ran dry goods stores in St. Joseph, Missouri, and later opened stores across the Oklahoma Indian Territory during its oil boom. Her father was born in a village south of Kiev, endured pogroms, and came to Chicago in 1908, becoming a traveling salesman who met her mother while making a sale.
Born in Tulsa in 1933, Paula moved with her family first to Henderson, Texas, where her father was the Pabst Blue Ribbon distributor, and then to Dallas at age five when local elections dried up much of East Texas. In Dallas her father owned a chain of liquor stores and built homes. Paula attended University Park Elementary, Armstrong Junior High, and Highland Park High School, with a brief stint at Hockaday. She recalled experiencing anti-Semitism as a child, including a painful moment after winning a fourth-grade spelling bee, though she later formed lasting friendships across Dallas society.
Paula studied radio and television at Northwestern University, where she belonged to the SDT sorority, and became a television producer and director for the National Safety Council. At her father's urging she also earned a teaching certificate and learned typing and shorthand, and she later taught theater, English, and history at a Catholic school while her husband, Gordon, completed his ophthalmology training in Chicago. Back in Dallas she worked for Herb Shore, helping establish Golden Acres from about 1951 to 1954, assisted the Federation, and did public relations for Sisterhood. A lifelong lover of history, she treasured family letters written in Yiddish from relatives who perished in Europe. She and Gordon raised three children in Dallas.
Full Transcript
I'm Nancy underman we're going to be interviewing today Frank we're at the or athlete Dallas Jewish Community Center the videographer will be Ruth Andrus hello are you a Dallas site have you were you born in Dallas no I was born in Tulsa Oklahoma oh and when did you come here I came to Dallas let's see well first we went to Henderson Texas and then we came to Dallas I was 5 years old my father was the Pabst Blue Ribbon beer distributor in he's Texas when they had the big oil boom back in the 30s and one of the ministers and Henderson decided that there should
be no drinking in East Texas so most of the territories were dried up by elections so that's how he came to Dallas how but that was East Texas these Texas Henderson North Texas - no it was just East Texas and how long did you live in Henderson five years came here ten years old well I was born in 1933 so I came here in 1938 38 and my father owned a chain of liquor stores and he was also a builder of homes and I guess you want to know where I went to school I went to Highland Park High School I also went to caca
day I prefer little boys so I got out of Hockaday and went back to high school and then I went to Northwestern and graduated from Northwestern yes your mother and father were they my mother was born in Boston Massachusetts her family came in 1830 mm-hmm from Gretna which at one time was Lithuania at another time was Folland and one time was bile Russia but her family had been in the grain business in Gretna and half of them were so well-to-do they didn't want to leave when Frederick the Great came in so my half of the family immigrated first to Cracow where they were active in
the university believe it or not I don't know how they did it but they was act out Poland yes Cracow was Poland at that time and then they emigrated to South Africa to Cape Town I really don't know I really don't know all I know is that they didn't like Cape Town for some reason so they came straight to Boston and they had an unpronounceable polish name so the inspector or the what would you call him the officer immigration officer gave them the name of Porter P ort and one owned a dry goods store in Boston and my grandfather felt it would be a good
idea if they could learn what making and be able to repair watches and sell watches in there dry goods store so they sent him back to Europe de Basel Switzerland for two years to learn watch making and that's how he learned German in Basel which was the german-speaking part of Switzerland and then he came back and decided since he knew German he would go on to Missouri to st. Joseph Missouri where they had a tremendous German population and he had a dry goods store there and then when the Indian Territory opened up were going way far back in history now when the Indian Territory opened up money was gushing from everywhere so my grandfather decided I'm going to go to Oklahoma so he opened dragon stores in a de Shani Muskogee and various small towns like that and believe it or not the squaws were so wealthy by that time and the oil operators were so wealthy by that time then my mother was doing a lot of buying in France and sold them Chanel's and scaparelli
isn't that a scream squaws where he Chanel skis but then the oil boom petered out completely but a very handsome stranger had come into one of their stores who happened to be my father and when the oil boom petered out they closed all the stores and my uncle said that East Texas was booming like crazy five times bigger than the Oklahoma album and he should come and settle in East Texas so my uncle was in Longview but my father settled in Henderson and that was when he opened up his beer distributor now my father had a completely different story he was born in a village
south of kids in a village called slow vodka SLO be OD ka where they had had tremendous amounts of pogroms his father came to America but went directly to Chicago where an older brother had settled and when he made enough money to bring the family over he brought them over in 1908 my father with his sister and their mother came to join them in Chicago and my father became a traveling salesman at that time and that's how he met my mother because he came in to sell her something and that's how they met and when the territory who was dried up in East Texas as
I said that was only moved to Dallas and have been here ever since that's a wonderful story it's wonderful that you've been able to get the whole story I was very lucky because my father's uncles we're still living when I was a little bitty girl and I loved history even then so I used to quiz them constantly and I would do the same with my mother's uncles and that's how I the history and I still love history to this day it's my thing your mother's people did they leave because of anti-semitism I'm not sure I think they heard that America was a wonderful place to
go to and because of that they left I don't think they were doing well like their rich relatives were doing so they came for as I said emigrated for to South Africa and then to Boston were they religious I don't know all I know is the ones that remained who were very very wealthy wrote constant letters to the families here in Boston telling them what was going to happen in World War two and trying to figure out a way to get out but they waited so long because they were so wealthy they couldn't get out and they were destroyed so your childhood was actually in
Dallas and in Dallas what was the school I went to University Park Elementary School and then Armstrong Junior High in and out of Hockaday very briefly and finished up at Highland Park High School the boys were the boys was your when you brought up in a religious home not really I think we it was very awkward being in the park cities my next question was there any oh yes oh yes in the fourth grade when I won the Spelling Bee some child jumped up and said Paula Feldman cannot win the spelling bee because don't you know she's Jewish so that was a hideous experience what
did the teacher have to say she was speechless she didn't say one single word she just acted as if nothing had happened the same thing in Hakka date no strangely enough there was no anti-semitism at all and Hakka day not at all but by that time I had formed friendships with people who were amazingly high up socially who made their debuts and they accepted me very easily and very nicely and I met a whole bunch of kids who were like me at home in the park and so from the senior part on I did not experience any anti-semitism what street did you learn I lived
on a Colgate Colgate in Baltimore Drive and were you philly ated with any Jewish oh sure we belong to temple Emmanuel and I went all the way through and I adored grabbed by Lefkowitz I think he loved me too because I was one of the few students who actually paid attention in Sunday school and in college at Northwestern what did you study I studied a radio TV and I became a television producer and director for the National Safety Council at that time National Safety Council had 30-second spots telling you how to be safe when you cross the street and all that sort of thing so
I wrote directed and filmed those things with this business before you were married oh yes this was before I was married and in the meantime my father who was a very practical man said I want you to have a teaching certificate when you graduate and I want you to know typing and shorthand when you graduate so I also had a teaching degree and of course when you're in television your hours are all day and all night and that didn't work with marriage so while my husband finished up his ophthalmology training in Chicago I switched to teaching and I taught in a parochial school Catholic school
called Notre Dame de Namur taught theater in English and history for the nuns I was one of the few lay people there and strangely enough I was the one since I was the only one that didn't have to go to Chapel I was the one who rang the Angelus bell to summon them all to prayer and every time the priest would go by he'd give me a big leap yes it was I called my mother in long distance and I said mother I've met the boy I'm going to married I said now he looks like a Shaykh it's but he's not he's blonde and he's
blue-eyed but he's very much Jewish and I'm going to marry him and my mother said take a cold shower dear and she said if you're still going to marry him in a month let me know and I'll fly up for the Opera season and get to me so that's what happened did you fire yes she did and she approved mother always wanted me to marry a doctor that that tells you what your absolutely absolutely and we had a baby grand piano to which unfortunately I never made much use gertrude Mandelstam said I had great talent but no application give us a review on where you
met your how your husband met you I was dating a young man who was a cardiologist a wonderful guy he became chairman of Columbia pres cardiology in New York City and also northwestern and he wanted to marry me and I said Don I just can't marry somebody who's so much shorter than I am I said I tell you what I'll do we will make a business arrangement you will introduce me to all the interns and residents and I will introduce you to all my sorority sisters and by god that's what we did I introduced him to his wife and he introduced me to Gordon and
that's exactly how it happened was there any life yes I had SDT was my sorority and I was very glad because another girl from Dallas to t-top 'let's philipson would ride with me on the plane back and forth so it was not exactly as though I was totally without Texas ties and what was the other part of the question we both belong to sdj yes I was kind of getting that was a Jewish oh yes yes we had Phi and we had SDT where are there any organizations that you're that you work with or worked with either in either in Dallas or Jewish yes I
worked for her Shore for a long time every summer I would come back my father was stricken with lung cancer and mother said as long as you're able-bodied why don't you try to find a job someplace so I went to an employment agency of all things herb sure needed a secretary of course I had the taifa insured and because my father didn't make me heaven so I helped him establish golden acres and all the board meetings I was the one that decorated all the tables with satin and got all the flower arrangements and all the drinks etc ready for all the board meetings for golden
acres what's a date on that let's see it would have to be 1951 through 54 and I would also work a little bit for Federation going through the donor cards to see who had coughed up their pledges and who had not that type of thing - yes oh by the way I was on the board for sisterhood did all their PR for several years when Helen still was president now I have two daughters they're both graduates of Green Hill and one daughter was Tex Rams assistant at the Dallas Cowboys for ten years when the new administration came in she knew she wasn't a good fit
for it so she went into book publishing and became PR for book publishing company called brown books and the other daughter supplies all the pies and cakes for Neiman Marcus Christmas catalog and Mother's Day catalog and Valentine's Day catalog in addition to badan where she really makes her living is designing websites your grandma I have won only one child and he's a graduate of Green Hill and he's at the University of Texas he'll be starting his senior year next year he also worked with Cowboys for five years doing this filming and interviewing and he was the one that would write the releases for their online
website and the names of the girls okay Jill and well it's Jill Frank Edwards and Cindy Frank burn bi RNA and they live here they live here yes and I'm very grateful for that because Gordon and I are both only children it's I'm very grateful that they live here which Sydney does what and city does public relations and Brown books yes yes and she did every holidays book when heavy wrote her biography and there was a dreadful book called rich Christian which was a best-seller all over the United States and she did all the PR for that too and just a few things that you
would recognize and then and Jill is still designing websites she does it all out of her home she does a lot of work for Indian firms Delhi New Delhi India Bombay did she get to go India she doesn't need to they come here sounds like you had a lot of role models but what role models in particular are you oh the most connected to or you're the proudest ever well I think all my relatives who have the guts to come to America and work themselves up from being in Boston of dry goods merchants and a streetcar conductor the streetcar conductors children are all graduates of
Harvard and Wellesley and to me this is the greatest role model you can have is to look at somebody like that who had the drive with nothing behind them to just come up from scratch and my father who came to America when he was only 12 years old still had a thick accent just think how he was able to accomplish things it's just amazing to me and I guess those were my role models what am i leaving out what stories might you have that are funny or interesting or sad well I think the saddest thing that ever happened was when my relatives in Boston showed
me the letters from red no from the family who had stayed there they were written in Yiddish and I had to come here to the center because Jerry Klein could not translate it for me I had to come here to the center and some lady I forget her name I'm sorry to say translated for me and that just broke my heart to see how desperate they were and how there was nothing that could be done at that time so that was already in the early forties yeah well it would have been in the thirties actually when you know they went into Poland and that area
first as Czechoslovakia Poland Austria in the 30s and as far as funny straight out still got out yes that amazed me beyond everything that they would somehow get that mail out I don't know whether they smuggled it through Gentile friends or how they did it but the mail got out the German efficiency you know have you and you still have the letters yes yes I have them in a safe box fewer and fewer people now are able to translate them which is a darn shame isn't it is there a way to translate them and have the translation that would be the next step that would
be the next step to do it would be wonderful well you were going to say something more of being a story oh I think just the way I met my husband was funny enough now he'll tell you all about his father his mother was from Poland his father was from the Rhineland and Germany and he'll tell you all about that well this has been your terrific oh thank you thank you so much well as much we have covered most of the most of the details shared well I'm delighted to have done this because I think it's a good thing for the kids to have two
very important absolutely well I'll go to the library and send me on my boyfriend because somehow and all the excitement he skipped lunch and he's starving in bed so I'll send