August 3, 2015

Phyllis Somer

Phyllis Somer was born in 1936 in Brooklyn, New York, into a family that faced hardship during the Depression. Her father had worked in a successful dress manufacturing business with his brothers before it went bankrupt, and the family also encountered overt anti-Semitism in Brooklyn, where landlords would rent to her fair, blonde mother only until her father arrived to sign the lease. Her maternal grandfather, a tailor, died when Phyllis was an infant, and her grandmother lived as a widow for decades. Her mother's family had immigrated from Europe when she was three but rarely spoke of their background, a silence that later inspired Phyllis to read widely about the immigrant experience.

When Phyllis was three, the family moved to Dallas, where her father built an optical business filling prescriptions by mail order for doctors in small towns across Texas. His early lab was located near what is now Thanksgiving Square. He taught himself the trade and, as later recognized in an Optometric Journal, perfected the assembly line for filling eyeglass prescriptions before large chains entered the field. He remained in the business until his death in 1980. Phyllis grew up in University Park during the war years, walking everywhere and going to the movies on Saturdays, and attended Highland Park High School and Hockaday before going to OU and then SMU, where she worked part time and was active on campus.

Phyllis met her husband Joe, then a medical resident, on a blind date, going to a play at the Margot Jones theater at Fair Park. He served in the Navy attached to the Marines overseas before they married, and he later practiced internal medicine for 44 years as an old-fashioned doctor who made house calls. They settled in Dallas and raised three children, Stuart, a daughter, and Michael, and have five grandchildren. Phyllis became deeply involved in the Jewish community, serving as president and campaign chairman of Younger Set, chairman of Women's Division, and a leader in the JCC, American Jewish Committee, ADL speakers bureau, and B'nai B'rith Women. She was especially proud of helping bring the Federation together on behalf of Soviet Jews. She recalls the day of the Kennedy assassination, when her parents had attended services at Shearith Israel with Jack Ruby, and treasures memories such as shaking hands with Golda Meir at a national convention.

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