Ralph Pinkus
Ralph Pinkus was born in Philadelphia on September 3, 1915, the youngest of five children of Russian Jewish immigrants. His father, a trained tinsmith, fled Odessa as a stowaway around 1905, shortly after the Russo-Japanese War began, traveling through Holland and Liverpool before reaching Philadelphia, where an older brother named Samuel helped him find work at eight dollars a week. His mother, a strong young woman who could not read or write, followed later by steerage with their infant son. The family settled among fellow immigrants in South Philadelphia, moving frequently as they got by on modest wages during hard times.
A child of the Depression, Ralph graduated high school in 1933 and, unable to afford college, enrolled at the National Farm School near Doylestown, a three-year agricultural program originally founded by a Reform temple in Philadelphia. He specialized in nursery and flower culture, then worked at a cemetery near Harvard in Cambridge, where he learned to transplant large trees, and later at the New York Botanic Garden, where he moved trees for the Arboretum and deepened his knowledge of plants. During World War II he was sent to Guatemala to grow and graft quinine trees for Merck, a wartime effort to secure a supply of the malaria treatment in this hemisphere. He and his wife Muriel, whom he had married on February 1, 1942, lived there for several years, developing successful grafting techniques and employing local workers and German Jewish refugees.
After the war the Pinkus family drove through Texas and decided to settle in Dallas, arriving in 1950. Ralph first worked at Lang Floral before opening his own business, buying land on North Haven Road and founding North Haven Gardens, a nursery, garden center, and landscaping operation that grew to include wholesale plant production and served major clients such as Texas Instruments. His sons David and John later joined the business. Ralph was a founder and longtime supporter of the Dallas Arboretum, donating plants and serving on its board, and he was active with the North Dallas Chamber of Commerce parks work, the Jewish Federation, and Temple Emanu-El. He and Muriel returned to Israel and Guatemala over the years, and he remained devoted to horticulture and to the idea that Jews have a duty to give back to their communities.
Full Transcript
and we're at the home with this is ginger Jacobsen we're at the home of Ralph Pincus and Debbie Rabinowitz is doing the camera work and how do you like to be referred to as Ruby Ralph and where are you now living what is the address the dresses 6101 Ohio dry Villa number three in Plano and the number is seven five zero two four and how long have you lived here about four months and what is the name of the house it's called legacy now are you the first generation that's come to Dallas your family and where were you born I was born the Philadelphia and
when September 3rd 1915 and what are the circumstances you either you are did your parents come from Europe are you first-generation my father came over and 19-5 right after the Russia Japanese war started and he had gotten married and the wife was pregnant and it came as a stowaway from Odessa came to Holland and from there to Liverpool he had to work his way he was a tinsmith in the old country he was apprenticed there and so when he got to anyplace he could always find a job in work there and then he finally got across to Philadelphia where he is you know older brother
who had also been attend Smith living and work and after and he lived with him until he saved enough money to send for his wife okay who was praised me then when she left about time she she got there she had a six-month-old son and my oldest brother thing going on okay now what port of entry then did he come into or what port of entry did he come in to the United States I'm not sure because I couldn't find it in Ellis Island his name they had to list at all but he came in to Philadelphia there may have been an important there and
in the old days they had the word once one was the guy who came from your same country and they were more or less obligated to take care of him so yeah its job and could take care of yourself I'm but he stayed with his in-laws until I brought her here and she came over he paid passage and they sat on the steerage where they said on them deck with their bagels and everything like that two to three week trip and she came by with the baby and she's quite a strong she was raised in not necessarily the country but she was a country girl
type and those days that men old became more mistress but the women didn't get education they couldn't read or write and she couldn't read or write and so she used to speak to us and initially yes so that was a common thing and it was his first jobs were eight dollars a week five and a half days a week 10-hour days and when your father had come then he was put up with the family can you explain that he was well he can you explain what members or how what you mentioned you had an older brother my father's oldest brother was named Samuel and he
had married into a family more or less well-to-do and became a meme noble that were established here and my father stayed with his brother in Philadelphia his brother was also at tinsmith and he helped him get a job and the job was eight dollars a week for five and a half day's work including a ten-hour of the work days and it was they were hard workers in those days their competition was basically a bunch of Irish people that are ahead of them entrenched to them it was a little difficult sometimes for a Jewish people to get a job with the other competition the Irish came
over several years before with their potato blight in Ireland and they were all starving and became farmers and whatever they did Oh [Music] now when you get when you grew up or as you were growing up what was your background and then what brought you did that was good most of the Jews that came to Philadelphia in those days came to what we call South Philadelphia you know Jews generally stayed together and that's where our people were at first and as they stayed there while they be I'm moving around a little bit mostly north put in South Philadelphia there are like in one area of
her presented shoes and they their synagogues and their activities they spoke Yiddish and it was push carts and things like that that you see in the papers but they're very poor they were selling everybody's trying to sell something on these push carts and but the people that had a trade were supposed to be better off with their eight hours and he saved up I don't know how long it took him probably six months before he he was able to get enough money to send for steerage I don't know what steerage cost maybe twenty dollars or something like that but it was a lot of money
in those days and his wife with the bill little baby how they sneak out at night over the border they regard local the guards bribed the guards they get through and they came to like a little gang just like the Mexicans comes in you know and they group here they come in the truck there they came by foot they walk miles and miles to get across the grayness was the border and then they had to take a lot of bagels and rolls and grind dried bread and everything the last two to three weeks and these are sat on the boat and the whole mostly on
the decks and there was a place down below too but it wasn't very nice traveling but that's the way they all came you know so were they rich ones came different way and but my mother was this very strong person she was only 21 years old still and they came over and set up house and with little be earned they managed I know she used to cook everything from raw can like a can of beans would be ten cents but you can buy the beans for some reason for cents the thing no sir said she always she didn't use camera Goods I thought it was
because she could do a better job which she did do but it was more expensive in a period of 10 years my father mother had five kids and I was my last and I was born on September 3rd 1915 and in that time no we probably moved to three or four or five houses it was a very much like Mexicans coming into Dallas today you know just what they wear was your name Pincus originally had it been changed from another name the name Pincus me in Hebrew means a ledger book and usually it's pronounced because pinc HSAs and there's even streets in Jerusalem named Pincus
but when they come over here and you say Pincus that summer my uncle's are all the save you from Brooklyn and our family was all okay so that's why did you say what it isn't we my father was I had formal three brothers three brothers he was this is the second the oldest and the others came over eventually the last one of the youngest wasn't all in the war Japanese Russell Moore and he had an operation on the backbone out of his head but he was an artist when he came over he he smoked so much that he he couldn't do his art work so
well and so he made in those days they had those new signs the red the red and what he called was the glass glass covered with a red line yeah neon signs and he got into that business but he basically as an artist he ended up over the years making all kinds of busts which became very everybody in the family one that won it we moved out too soon but from Canada Germany how did you come to Dallas what brought you to Dallas oh I had been working I was a child of the depression when I finished high school in 1933 the Depression hit very
hard and so our that in the cold Philadelphia we didn't have enough money to buy me a car it's the Westerners and there was no money and going to college after high school was out of the question we have no money to do it however there was a reformed temple and some love yeah I can't remember anything though in Broad Street where they wealthier Jews were see the German Jews came to New York and lived up in the Riverside and Park Avenue in Philadelphia they lived where the women lived here and north of him and they had a synagogue up on Broad Street and they
thought that the Jewish people should be able to work on farms so they went 500 acres they loved him when he over the acres Ruchi 30 miles north of town in Doylestown and they thought that at least some of the large part of the cost would be in produce that they would make on the form they didn't know that funny doesn't favor about and after they're headed for a while to realize they were all Jewish that they had to go to state that was a lot of river year if they made it non-sectarian so it was a national park that time I got there 1933
it was a half were Jewish and half or none and they won't learn everyone poultry and dairy and Orchard isn't greenhouse and landscaping the whole business there are seven disciplines about took flower culture I mean nursery were and we were there three years old no vacations just worked in the summertime and classes half the time during the rest of the year like eight weeks of class and they teach the form work it's true at the time and the last year was simply just what you're living a specialized major Julian okay when I was growing up they had a Boy Scout movement that was quite strong
in Philadelphia and we had a reform of the temple that had a big Boy Scout Troop 72 Scouts and I joined that because I had been earning some money selling me somebody at the door selling newspapers because I was I had a route the newspaper out a friend and I each got a round of 50 customers two cents of paper and each had fifty and after about four weeks or so he backed out and so I got his so I had a hundred papers to deliver and we charge two cents and made 2/3 of a cent on the paper so we made about thirty three
cents or whatever it was it was money and depression was depression you know so I earned my money from early days and here I had money to go to the Boy Scout camp because 18 dollars for two weeks camp and so the boys with my money what our uniform and they couldn't mend I enjoyed it a lot but the Boy Scout Movement was a whole new thing for us and the tourists that you know keep learning all the time and so we learned do nots and learned the plans of camping and cooking and everything along with it so when I finished high school my father
want me to work in his shop he had four sons and I was the last oldest couldn't get along with my father so he became a driver in the grocery store but the next two were working with him one of them was none of them at high school one of them went to a trade school and they call that what we learned he learned blueprint reading blueprint reading in those days of my computer today you're a step ahead of the guys and so he could get the good jobs then a good-paying wage in those days for a worker was 25 cents an hour now what
year well actually 25 cents an hour became the minimum wage in 1938 so this was before then this was about 1930 and and I didn't want to work in this shop there you know in the shop the Sun they had a window there their old buildings and you could see the dirt dancing around in the sunlight and here I was camping it's just didn't do so I said I'm gonna see if I got this farm school I didn't know money was a mouth they wanted 350 dollars we had no money but anyway they they let me get in and after several months the horses note
the cows everything this one my father came down one day he gave me two dollars that's the Boise forget but I didn't even eat it I don't mind captain but he said around farming his little thing and that's you know you're wasting your time don't there weren't many options to work for him I wouldn't get anything and I didn't like working inside you Thunder twice finished and where's our little jobs and city semitism pretty strong you couldn't get a job in utilities you didn't get a job in the bank and couldn't get any good businesses Jews weren't alone and so I gotta go 1,300 miles
to get a job in Cambridge Massachusetts for 2150 a week Douglas in 1937 me I figure before they made the amendment arranged when I died when they went up there it was right next to Harvard University big old cemetery the only one written up in the Bailey's encyclopedia that trees 100 feet tall the place was 25 years old or more all the wealthy people from Boston and Harvard were buried in that place and they did everything first class they moved they claimed a lot of trees on the place was small and as they grew then they would transplant them to Annapolis places so they have
a permanent and I learned how to move these big trees I didn't know anything about that we don't didn't learn that in school but that was very important for me because even Dallas nobody knew how to move please but I came here and we had a lot of success where people didn't and after I was there a little while I had applied to New York Botanic Garden it's in Bronx park shoes all around the place there but all the place there's only one girl that was work that clerical business there that was Jewish the rest are all non-jewish so the one that hired us was
a kind they brought from England and he didn't know anti-semitism so he didn't ask if he were Jewish or not in fact when we applied another guy I applied it we said well we'll take his chance tomorrow doesn't hurt Cambridge they called me it was called a student card worst thing you didn't work during the day but on nights two nights a week they taught you about me plane identification things about plants they had lined up the soul of the botanist came from the Midwest you know they were a Midwestern Missouri and places like that but I did one thing I learned about plants it's
gonna buy time I got there I knew more about the different trees and shrubs and the books so he used to write articles for the paper and he'd say Ralph I'm Friday afternoon let's write about the lie marks he asked me what do I know about he had the girl dictator in charge of the urban Arboretum the Arboretum was a question in 400 acres some of the botanic garden they had planted their older trees in the scientific manner according to the way they are scientifically ranged and then they have a guy named Robert Moses in the city there who was the big Mothra there he
wondered have run a highway right through the Botanic Garden he made a deal with them that it'll give them a fence mice harder fence if they'll let them I have got it down to two hundred and forty four acres from four hundred and all the parts of the collection had it be moved that's right and we use the WPA the Works Progress no sirs I think they gave him two dollars a day just to keep them all so that's what Obama wants to do now and paying these guys just to keep them alive and they worked hard they knew their stuff and I had eight
of them just moving those trees after I was there about seven five years the worst nor just started and Merck and another company were the ones that were buying the bark from the Dutch and taking quinine sulphate almond bark for malaria to malaria however their place the anima na plane nobody else could grow the dorm stuff in Indonesia and the US State Department said we gotta have it in this part of the world in this hemisphere because something happens in the Pacific we won't have any supply and so they said tomorrow we'll pay our expenses if you'll start it's originally from Peru and Ecuador in
the volcanic area and Guatemala as volcanic there so they located some places and by the time the were started they had three places born and they had tried to get the local people with coffee growers to gone for those guys you know they live in the hotel and they don't work and they didn't do anything so Burt finally decided we better send people down the doing ourselves and so the plants have a bark that had have a certain amount of quinine in them there are about 11 different species and the US Department of Agriculture sent expeditions out to collect these things seeds and they agreed
the seedlings in Beltsville Maryland and then they sent the little seedlings I don't think one of my ought to plan out so that was a 1939 by the time the war started we got into war under we get into Ward 41 fleet the planes were big enough almost the tests so they got me down there because I I was in charge of the operation and propagation all new introductions that came in there from seed or cutting summer grafting or anything it was my job to grow them and test them out on the thing so they wanted me to go down there I just gotten married
we married in February the 1st 1942 and November made the deal in December we went down there they wouldn't I could get on their plane but they wouldn't let me around go I asked arrow before I took on the job would you like to go down and she says yeah she was from Manhattan you can imagine and we went by train Mexican now Gage and they got their own time only a day late that's the way they work but it was interesting we didn't know any Spanish remember that was a time when the kids were going home for the Christmas vacation and so we were
sitting there with a textbook on man translating while we said with the kids from Costa Rica bottom my mom and we had a good time it was a great experience I remember one time we came to a town called Rodriguez at night probably nine o'clock tonight the moon was out these guys were very gay and happy and they went out every town has a center square and then this Roderick's they they were dancing around with their Christ child they call him Posada for nine days before Christmas every night they take the child and dance around get drunk and leave it in another house and nine
days they do that so we got there one night we went around that we died dance the conga but we were going down there at least three or four times a treatment of the tracks they went out like people do here you get a flat tire they go out they went out there they got a little Jack they're pulling up like it was just ordinary I thought a cog off like that's what are we gonna do but anyway we got down there and first thing we stayed in the hotel at the first time Europe I didn't sleep together since we were married she stayed in
the Palace Hotel in Guatemala City and I went out with all these co-operators and the murk people visiting the plantations they had started in these other places but they use these first plantings to use for testing and they took them and already just take him to test them a couple of plantation and they showed us how they grew and I've never seen the plane before and so we saw them and then they took us to a plantation and we lived in first with the Casa Grande which is like a little hotel very crude and then the guy that I was replacing was lent to them
by the United Fruit Company United Fruit Company pitched him we had one of their best box fare and this man I didn't know much about the grafting but he started trying to graft he did a very miserable job and the expertise now there wasn't the big thing and so he left and we moved into his house they built this wooden house their wooden frame house on specifications from the United Fruit Company they were on the coast growing bananas we were up in the mountains just like that and right away I they they read all things the list though he she had anyone that had 7%
quinine or more they numbered so in one play impatient which called Helvetia they pin h1 h2 h3 so we knew where they came from and although there were seven percent moreover they would like the percentage down and the number Z with zapatti and they did the same there and there was another one anyway and Naranjo that was where we were company plantation company had three plantations and I was to stay there and we did all the grafting for the three plantations we grafted them and shipped them one wheel back to two to three days to carry them there and you know we sent bite we
had to cut the pipe it but the punch of 21 feet long into the main substrate like seven foot each and time to the new and very crude everything was already crude but I have a lot of pictures of these things and you can see the people they call them muchacha as the adults and they were over the life expectancy was 45 years and they're all little guys and they had what they call children like from seven years to fourteen they call them bottles but no in Spanish means a handicap but they meant little time and they we got them to put the wax on
the graft so we got taught the graft us how to craft we spent a week I organized the propagation teaching on how to make a cup just to make a straight cut I said it's easy but they could do to swim with anybody it once they they're very handy with minds and thing my chip days and they were doing is the most percentage take everybody funny it's any place in our living room really good I took 25 of them to graft and then all the trees over 7% on over we went through and took the little signs some of them at 25 some 135 so
much 40 so once we grafted them by the end of the year we could get several more from them and go back to the original so the second year we would get instead of 35 looking at 142 hundreds were some of them third dear 5,000 of the better varieties so anything that was seven we didn't want them money we went up to eight and nine and ten we went up to thirteen percent so we were doing real well better than the Dutch actually but they wouldn't help us I wouldn't give us any sign they wouldn't oh so they did anything we got one old retired
Dutchman in Canada to come out there paid his being able to show us some things and that how they planted them in that way did their various things but the Dutch monopoly is a tight situation so we did we did very well however Merck they were in strong on their patents and they usually start up they can ammonia and all these chemicals but the ended up only patents they made in the film and those things they told was one of our meetings there in six months time they had fifty chemists working on penicillin and they built the building for half a million dollars and after
they started producing it in six months they had paid all costs feel about all the wages were these guys and they were making money like hand over fist charging hundreds of dollars for penicillin I mean there are robbers if you want to know that quinine the price is $12 an ounce of quinine sulphate $36 just like that they were night and you know mark is the biggest robbers in the industry and what they do they keep a record of every doctor how much they use of their products and when they go in conventions they pay for the boat trips and the food in the launching
and give them thousands of dollars worth of kinases on their prescriptions know it says you can't sell them not for sale charge your form you know that little package is $72 you think the doctor is going to give it to you for free so I mean it's a big racket now if you don't use that product you don't get any of the freedom freebies and so the doctors not any charge of people for the service but they give you some lettuce you know and they don't say they're gonna charge you but the tender bill there anyway I learned a lot from work you know their
business techniques and all that helped my business you know when they had somebody they didn't just charge him a loser double and triple and quadruple anything so when I had the first piece of land that was gonna sell I bought it for two point six acres for $8,000 I borrowed 7.9 1,000 mile I had it seven months and T I wanted because it was the front of their property so I they said they had an option on 300 acres behind it but we had a little triangle up front on the next recipe so I said no I said 25,000 they took the check Borgata so
dr. Berg when they had that they really have you about what year was that with her about what year was that when you sell the property that was nineteen but no twenty I started you know T I started from a geophysical company that 60 employees on Mockingbird and they got four people from me from the Navy that were scientists that developed the radar on these guys started making the semiconductor and they all eventually became the president's McDormand and all these guys Haggerty we knew more we did their landscaping - so we got a double with you so to the so evident and got their business so
we landscape their place - all right yeah let's go back to your guatemalan experience where did you go from guatemala and how we took these people in Alphabet those mother love Katerina Ryan 25 grams and about 15 of all the guys that did the waxes I know them can read or write but they had a memory you know you give them this piece of paper it says z24 or something like that and you tell them they go in this bed did number a one two three four and they come back to the end of the day they say of this one this tag I did
72 and after that when they put a stake there and this this one we did a before they would memorize the doll font they were accurate but we had down there a Ladino is what Spanish and part Indian and some of them had a little bit of education not much they could read or write and so we had three of them they were the formal and they would get the data and turn it over to one guy who who has was a barber in Antigua they must go Elio and he knew the man that was there before me who was lent by Texas by a
United Fruit Company and he wanted to know if they God didn't have a job for him with my quinine in place so he said since you can sharpen a knife maybe I regret so he did the record-keeping and he learned English he learned shorthand and he kept all my records and he did a very good job after about four years or five years I had a friend in California from or with me from New York Botanic Gardens and I asked if they wouldn't get him a job up there dollar dollar an hour they were paying then and he got him a job there they was
really oh and he did well he went to my school and learned business machine and then he contacted one of the scientists that came to study our disease problem in Rhode Island University and those things they had a thing they called good neighbor policy where they took the Latinos and sent him to college and so he got on a scholarship and graduated I mean they just made not done they're smart as we are but they'd had no opportunity and no training you know from anyway well how is it you left Guatemala and came back at the United States and that way we first down there
they wanted they thought we could probably squeeze out a hundred thousand grafts which we did and we have pretty good tanks think about the quinine when you crafted if it doesn't take within three weeks you can tell because somebody's on shoe now you can take it off a regram so when we had like 500 plants in the bed if we didn't if we lost 20 didn't take her so couldn't go back and read come again so we'd get everyone in that way we made use of every plant and then we didn't take them long in one year's time from the time we sowed the seed
no tiny seedling and we put them out eight inches by 8 inches in the beds so I got pictures of the bezel and there was all very crude so the smoke you know every bit had to be dug out of the mountainside and see when it rains the water comes out on a sheet about two inches down and it could make big crevasses and washes and we learned from the Dutch this guy showed us the Dutchman that as you go down he's you have a contour they dig down there and the end of the contour you plant them on the edge and you slope it
towards the mountain and turns a mountain you dig up a trench about six inches wide by six inches deep and so the water would go into the mountain and we wouldn't have the washes was a very important thing for us to know so that maybe have paid to for that guys cost he was 70 years old when they came down there we had a ball but you have to pay for knowledge how did it is it happened that you left Guatemala with the circumstances yes and where you did when you plant there we planted rows on the contour you know since it's like this you
start here and then it gets wider so you have to have another piece of a row indeed so you have a concern elevations and you draw a line down the center of the mountain and you run off your contours it was formerly half feet three feet by four feet so the three and a half feet in the roman four and a half feet between the rows and we went in seventeen hundred and sixty-six plants per acre theoretically where actually God knows and after about three and a half years you thin out the trees that are not growing good now you know you don't get much
climb down out of a bar but they beat the bar complement anyway and ship them so we started shipping three and a half years the first shipments have above the bar then the next year we go through and take as they get a little crowded you take the the weaker ones and leave the straw it was supposed to take twelve years before you take the whole thing out when you take the whole thing out to get more quinine in that harvest final harvest than you do all the time but be four more then the war was over and Merck made a deal the Dutch had
the handy monopoly in Indonesia but then it needs since through the mouth and so they came with Merck and gave a good price for the plantations so then we had a you know there's a week left in January first they met they told us two years ahead of time that that's going to end there so when was that meanwhile we were shipping on more quinine every year and it was a good grade and everything was good and they did what the government wanted they got a quinine production and this Hemisphere and that was important sauce Berta Burke is not a plantation place you have to
earn your money there was with their monopoly then you steal the money so where did you go from there when you terminated in Guatemala and come from New York and lived in Guatemala you have a period of relaxed living didn't want to go back to the rat race of New York he's left the wait three lights before you get across the street and so either song when we when we were there we'd been on vacation to New York but I went to California to visit some people used to be with me in New York and I saw how they were progressing there and then we
drove now we've got a car of 1948 and went through Texas and I said the mural you know this place looks just like California did before all this business we can do the same thing here so I said why don't we get the Texas so that's why we chose Texas and then one day in one of the trade magazine Wayne floral advertised I guess I was getting a trade magazine they wanted somebody to work in their floral business they had greenhouses and nurseries so I went up to see him $75 I was making money by making six thousand six thousand seven hundred dollars I started
at two thousand dollars a year you know and and so I took he said you get $75 a week well they were so far behind I said well I could help you get this thing going I said I work here for six months another one of the in charge of production he had three big greenhouse ranges and they had had everything he was 70 years old he used to buy out all the nurseries that the guys died and so yeah but didn't take care of and so when I got here I said what do you want me to do he says just make yourself useful
that's about the best way for me but the worst me for anybody him so I went around with him one or two days of them I figured I saw a truck and a florist delivery truck that they were amazing they said had a broken ax so I said you got a lot of stuff in the greenhouse is not selling you know most of it was growing through the benches and on the floor it was just abandoned think the people left and so I thought suppose I get them together see what he had and I made a list of all the plants that I couldn't sell
in a flat I've got together 72 flats we made up a priceless based on the cattle are some of the other people I showed them to him and he says okay so I put 72 flats in I got the axle fix it was you know accident and hurt the blade of the knife and I went to Sears and Roma and we're buying their planes from California they didn't know I was Hardy and was or me am I just what stuff I'm a freakin man they found out and this I do what the guy said on Ross Avenue Asia I said he said how many can
you do that I said kind of like 12 send some playing or 12 says I would back again by the time the week was out I saw everything I hated in this home so I began propagating the plants and I got another guy to take the round out while I I cleaned the house I threw out all the stuff when I threw the stuff out mrs. lang the wife of the guy when I went out she came in took on the garbage you gotta go back on the benches you know so in order to get rid of this stuff I had a wait until the dump that are came around and all right you were right get rid of that stuff you hear someone and well the guy said they'd never saw so much stomach or now in that place so I thought I had a good deal but he didn't want to change it after six months I said that's it and I went I tried to buy a nursery but I didn't
have enough money had $7,000 and I thought I was a millionaire but they said there's two Jewish bankers in town Fred Florence and rich offski and I went to both of them and they said you don't have any assets tonight I didn't even know what to work less so I started anyway I said I put $3,000 down on the lamp the lamp was a thousand the maker birthday over and above mine acres to date out in ten years and we put 11,000 our house and put $3,000 on that side $1,000 left and I went into landscaping because if I did something I would buy the
plants and put it in and then they asked for the money so I had lived from check to check and I gave myself the same $75 a week but it wasn't enough to raise two kids I took kids by that and murals father was an attorney and she knew terms and legal offices and they had what they call the Kelly girl the girl didn't show up one day so they called the Kelly girl woman so Miura went out there and did two typing for little it was so that was the help when we came we brought a servant with us from Ramallah theater $18 a
week down there with bait or four dollars we a week something with but we gave her a room and everything she was a Seventh day Adventist and that's another story Muriel and the kids left on January the first one our contract was over but I had drawn some bulbs and things on the side there and until I harvested Ivan shipped them it was already March the first of I came March the first big guy to work for mine and me or let stayed with her mother in New York and so on March first came I wired her to come in Dallas and I stayed at
Lange's house for three or four days and then we rented a place and Oh cliff the living room was so small I kept touch Souls but I didn't want overspending and he started from there and all right now where do we go from here i standard line for six months and then I went decided on the bio nursery so I went to a sovereign ursery he said he would sell it but he wants to know something about me with I just start working there same Friday wanes I thought and then he would make an arrangement well we start in September and by May he says
now I'm going to the bank and we'll set up a deal and he came with me to some kind of a deal that he would evaluate my money I'd double another one so I gave myself in valves they would put in that four things out and he said this place is for a $30 so he double is there so it'll be sixty thousand and when I owned and handled it you know then I would borrow the money for the rest of the he thought that was the deal so I went to his banker and I told was that he said you'll never be able in
the nursery like that so here I didn't want to go back there so we just started all right let's talk about your Jewish education and how it was at home and holidays that you celebrated at home growing up what was your Jewish background like in Philadelphia when you were a kid let's go back to that now we were what they were called assimilating Jews we had Chavez and we we weren't Orthodox in Europe the all Orthodox my father knew all the prayers and was a job raising five kids I imagine we just I would call when I look back we were just assimilating learning English
the whole the kids spoke English and my mother spoke Yiddish and my father knew lot of languages you know he knew Czechoslovakia and polish and some French and German and many so tell me about Jabotinsky did their energy intensity he was throwing Desa yes and he was the ringleader and trying to get the Zionism going from here from there he wasn't too successful but he was a big strong man and I have followed him a little bit went to services only on holidays and if you run a member of the synagogue you stayed outside if they're in a room they let you sit in there
so we were outside those hood we always got a suit fur or we bought one suit a year there were like four dollars a suit a year each one of us and by the time the next year came around we had out girl in the holes all over look you know did you have any Hebrew training did you go to Hebrew school did you have any kind of religious training outside of us became our Mitzvah my mother she had I thought he was a rabbi of Orthodoxy with the beard he'd come around and have me read Hebrew and the guys were playing ball down the
corner and I couldn't wait to have the hour go by before I get run over there I never learned anything really except I know he was very nice about what he's fell asleep at the time but that's none of us became do anything were any of you chew it were any of you Bar Mitzvah no think you've learned to read easily I was the only one who went to high school my oldest brother didn't even finish grammar school and the others I think all finished elementary school but I don't think any of them went high school it's strange because I thought my older brother was
a dope and the oldest one was a child of the depression he he had one child and didn't get very far but their kids the second the one that I thought was the big toe Charlie he had a son named Fred and his daughter was top of the class in college and they're her younger brother got a job when he got out of school and the career builders of the vice president's you know I'm a Mason were these kids men the second son John the one that learned blueprint reading he had three kids and his older son was 17 years younger and I may have
gone I know he went to high school I've gone a little beyond that is it coming through no let's go back about your absurd Jewish observance right now though and how it has come along through the years well not much as in in the family I would say about much at all all my father's friends were are desperate and on Sunday we all would get together and talk and have tea and either out there talk about the old times how he came over and every once in while we're giving I just come over and they would tell us how Odessa has a mama so we
were still living in the old country over here what L said you have servants when I joined the Boy Scout that was ma reform they wiII never belong to it but we went camping in was in their play temple of Kevin Moore and they met with him I was a very good through and then we went to farm school which was supposed to be a Jewish school you think we had service on Friday but when I went to this farm school they have an instructor there Peter he was a conscientious objector he was a real good competent per professor but he couldn't get a job
in a good place they did good school and he told us a lot of things and he told us things that for example when you asked him a question he's saying you say how come this or hopefully you take go look it up if I tell you you'll know go look that we used to laugh that's the best thing ever we have reference books of all kinds of can key all plates only bottles can do it I can do that because I learned you know for example they showed us how I do the right thing yeah lot of things he was what we would call
a naturalist he'd believed in Henry David Thoreau lake wall the different visitor it's a little late to fit them right back you protected one but so much is written about it and I didn't any was big on Emerson you know never said that essays on compensation did you ever read that it tells you that anything you do compensates for say you know you say I wish I could do this or do that you are compensated when you do one thing instead of the other thing don't feel like you're missing it and that has been very good lesson some of these things that up but he
got us to be very inquisitive we men to read stuff when I went to working in Cambridge Massachusetts it was cold it was March and I was in the Attic I don't think they had any heat there and I had about two sweaters on my overcoat and a quilt that everything only stacked up but I but I read the life of a benevolent hey Jesus I don't remember much of it but I know he got a so inclusive I always went to the laundry I wouldn't but I'm young reading Lewis and all these Jewish Zionists and and farce we did a lot of discussing about
farm school did you know Leon Rabin yes he went there with me too yeah very what about your Jewish memberships in your Jewish involvement before no when I came to Dallas thought well in Guatemala I discovered one day on my plantation to German refugees for five cents a day you know my pretend play cerumen made him the book of the administrator of made are the casa mama the one that runs that caste brandy the hotel part of it they were both very good didn't have any kids at the time and they kind of from 1939 just by the skin of their teeth and the Jews
and Guatemala made a ruling with a government that they could bring a man under one condition that they couldn't get in businesses where they bought for licensed hold firm or in other word couldn't be storekeepers so they didn't know anything about farming it was hard from there weren't too many that came during that but we got them their lands burgers and he was a good news numbers great for us and we paid a much better salary of course and they couldn't have any kids so they went to a doctor and down in novel city and he sure that she could have sex hormones injected and
I was like I am inject it she came and so she had two kids we were there 19 2001 we visited them and one of them had worked for a hotel their manager of one of the best hotels and then he married the girl of another refugee that were making pottery and they had a really good and the other one let's see the girl I don't think he married a Jewish guy but she kept the connection both of them have died and we don't we don't write them anymore but the man died but their own boat all dead except the kids are there but I
didn't tell you on Friday night 2009 we're at his home and Debbie Feldman Rabinowitz is doing the camera work Ralph you ended on our last session talking about Friday nights in Guatemala with the German refugees yeah and can you talk about that a little bit okay in 1939 the under a condition to teach people how to make a deal with the tater ship there we go he was the bottom hour and they said they let a few Jewish people come in provided they don't get into the business of buying cheap and selling either they would could work on the farms they can work on trade
but they didn't want a store keepers in other words so they made that arrangement so these people apparently got along some farm and they're probably making about 50 cents a day working there and ranch with cattle and we heard about them and we heard there were a young married couple lanes burger and we made him our administrator place and he took care of the money and great you know and she took care what they call the Casa Grande which is the place where visitors come and say well while they visit the place there they call my MIDI office which means mister of the keys and
a much better salary of course and they didn't have any children they went to a doctor and he gave them gave himself for shots but they did conceive that one girl and then later her son and we did see wait here too and the girl had her own family doing well the son grew up and became the manager one of their big hotels and then he married another of the refugees their daughter who had a ceramic business they built the ceramic business and moved over into that eventually nice the land birds eventually died after we left but the kids are doing well so that's one
service what did what brought you to Dallas how is it well - dad we had worked the New York Chanukah and during the war they needed somebody there women to get quinine it grows naturally in Peru and Ecuador in volcanic soil and the Dutch Hanuman every country major country tried to get quinine to grow in Belgian Congo in in India and other parts our own but the Dutch were successful there real good plantation people and they moved the plantation so I think rotations for quinine in Indonesia Indonesia was a very fast growing population we're in place and they had a rubber plantation there the Dutch
and rotenone plantations and all kinds of plantations and they had a monopoly on quinine because they produced 95% of the quinine in u.s. there were two companies that bought the bark and Men and took out the alkaloids from it and that's where we got the quinine sulphate which is a venereal it will it's really a pepper fuge which means that it will control all fevers no matter how and they come at cold or something in fact in US fees that way quinine water they suffer the southerners because they got a little touch of that but it wonderful thing it was discovered in 1600 by the French Jesuits that working down there Catholic and they used to call it fever bar and they bring it over to to France and
cook it up and get the alkaloids out of it they cook it in out motion and there are several different alcohol and but the quinine sulphate is the most that one and in growing in the plantation there as you grow there's about 11 different right species of quite nice in children is a botanical name and the reason Shana what was the Dallas connection that was yeah when you can't get down is how is that you chose down very well were there it's a third world country we had four servants and we're different kind of life you know we didn't want to go nice in New
York we came up for a vacation we went through California when we came back back through us to run my life and we went through Texas the punishment let's go here and it's a holding area and so we visited some clean nurseries and Tyler we wanna do some he thought well when the war was over we had a lot of leads for three plantations full of quinine three and the Dutch lost their plantation the Dutch today indonesian through the guts out of indonesia so they are playing how'd you decide to get into the nursery business well well I just assumed had in place lime floral
yeah for florist shops and first sweetie greenhouse ranges very much and when we got here I was in my glory because they had all this production and the plants were growing through the benches then look at this whole place is a mess so I miss real talked to him I said look here six months do you know is the motivator see if you can help around the place know managing the don't know he used to come in the morning and their forest shops he go in there and save the string off the packages that have for hours he bought he saved that green wax paper
you know he'd spread it out and then used it again now and that's what I'd like to continue a we're doing they told me in the bank I worth $400,000 and I can live in the in the roof apartments of them Adolphus Hotel what worse than that I said if you don't want to develop this love this business goodbye I did save what year was that we came here March of nineteen fifty and I worked for him for six months until September and then I took another nursery job I was gonna buy the nursery but he wouldn't give me a price he said let's work
for a while i was thinkin was over in May and he says I went through the bank and I got a deal for you he said you got $7,000 count with us don't fourteen the places were thirty thousand dollars and I'll double back so I went to the bank and I said eh this is a dealing with he said you'll never remember when 402 when they got there he wouldn't be invest some money in it some of these other guys thousand dollars I said I don't know this money and you know have a job and I'll make money money but that's what they got you
in their in their questions so we start on we did that money and I was and while the first six months I went around it they had nursery meetings every month and I met a lot of nourishment and they said when you do a landscape job you tell the people at a time I wonder the money when I'm finished because you can't carry you know you're doing a lot of work and they shall pay a next week or next month a minute they keep strolling in on these people hear a great story I was the best advice I ever got they said he told me
ahead of time he says when you finish the job he said that four o'clock they're gonna leave on the daily and they will come back to 7:00 so you just sit on the porch that's right I did because three jobs and I use up all my my how did you decide to buy the property on North Haven and call it North Haven Gardens oh well when when he gave us the opportunity to buy into that nursery we just saw we couldn't do both mural and I went around looking for land and on North Haven Road it was it took five years before they took us
into the city wasn't in the city what year was this was 1951 okay and I found the place where the high-rise high-five is now I could have given Lane there for $500 an acre but they swam they wanted $1,000 maker and we bought a nine point three acres they had 17 acres they were really just draw a line down there and oh three or four years later the community center so we were there before make up a larger piece I'm I think the better piece and and the value of the land was nothing compared to what they offered us three million dollars or about 10
years ago that's not was the offer to expect the job don't we like if they own the no stream there were everything they don't know they didn't know what sent when they warned me then who was this again you're talking about they owned well John has well the land we split it up each one had a quarter room no John had a quarter David at a quarter and their families and we had half and David when they got greedy and he's had at the grubbing business you know he did a real good job he worked there for 18 or 19 years developing the landscape department
that was our business plan stick and we have that we built a garden center there it gave us customers the landscape you know that and I went some trees when landscape that's our business after a while we divided up into three divisions one was the retail store there the other was the landscaping wholesale one day one of the people had supplied us with some plain matera came around and said I could send you some rude ivy cuttings and you can put him up and then also potted plants so he said we'll send you 10,000 he saw me so he made a profit you know 10
to 20 we sold about 150,000 you know take his turn quick turn over so he decided to go for the growth for the people so we started growing and so wholesome and so we don't leave those plants the council's the plastic houses is a is a thing in itself wonder what the supplier should that suppliers with sprinklers so there's stuff from all that he said he's selling plastic houses that'll cover swimming pools so then he came back to me hey I got some quite sick houses to sell of cheap he said I said what happened he says well I had to get a permanent and
flammable it's no I didn't get perfect so you can have three houses the three young mother much money but old money wasn't hard to get at them yeah they told me to go to there's two Jewish bankers in Dallas French horns in rich oh sure chops key that was the First National Bank it was a big mushroom there both of them said to me you don't have any assets I said what snacks but it's something that they could take if you don't when I did the landscaping plans they already cashed nobody trusts anybody you know so I had to pay for the plants and pay
the labor and Saturday I had to pay the labor about what year was that I know did you start immediately after you started after I brought that both places I both have landlord was cold sorry but then all of this happened in 1951 or whether some years six months in 1950 with lying in September I went with the oil in September to May yeah and then I started in May 1951 busy but these plants that they brought you then did that happen during that first year in 1951 what I mean they brought me the man that brought you the thousand plant or 10,000 plants how
many ever oh yeah I know that was about 51 when I started in 51 it was probably 50 - okay okay the first year I worked real hard on me real health of course okay and we had built the building on the place ten by twelve six hundred dollars that was important he goes five years after we got there they took the property into this there's only president so they turned us down we had a hearing and the neighbor they're already building houses their forty five neighbors came in the petition saying they didn't want to sell so we had a lawyer and for $3,000 he
got I think all the grandfather's clothes you've been here if you have the foundation built you could still go ahead with him we did we were told that by wonder in our custom rule attorneys that if you have the foundation on they gotta let you finish that building so they lost that but they they said that the guys from the city said well we're not going to give you any permits to build first of all that's illegal because if you want to do anything you have a hearing but the hearing they shut up that when they asked the people how many people are against it
everybody's but what was on our side the fact that we have that green from us cause we can continue the nursery and they couldn't fight us on that and they didn't want to give us any permits so one day I sent down a year later or so and I wanted to get a permit to build a fence when the walls on the side there so on a Friday and they gave us a permit Monday they called up and said hey I shouldn't worry gonna bill I think I had already last house there and I had a building there and then a little green house nobody
comes out there they didn't have people to come and supervise all the weekends but they never had people come out and look at it they come out to assess our taxes they they kept raising their taxes but you know there are people getting $35,000 salary or a year and telling people would put in 10 million dollars that they can't do this they can't do that you know my cooking my solo it's still like that you know so they gave it to get paid off come on get somebody on your side to work his room we never did anything like you were instrumental I believe in
the developing of the Arboretum yeah further than that after we were there about five to ten years we were doing pretty we make the mud mess up money and we joined the North Dallas Chamber of Commerce and I got on the committee they have a Parks and Recreation Committee and after here I became chairman of that committee and they were be crying the fact there are 17 recreation centers in Dallas and in North Dallas and we have one so they said that's the main project if you will get us some more of those places I went to their meetings every I think they gave us
three the threats far anyway they told three things and I was there from the dedication of the France park but while I was there going to the meetings one day group of women came to know I was then to the park meeting they represented honors and 75 gardening clothes and they had come to a place in Virginia where they had the Arboretum they won in a harbor eat'em they don't know where to plant about the corner hungry in fact the guy who was the director of the Borg yeah abortion no our burrito they'd never heard another thing that's out for another but they had no
car so the mr. bliss Houston bliss no plus lb Houston he was a superintendent and he said it Ralph why don't you see if you can't help he didn't want anything I'd say him dissipating in there he said he went boom in one Ann Arbor good say what you didn't do with him so I called some meetings with him first and that was Chamber of Commerce meeting then we moved over to to Renner where they have a thing there that have been Huey Whitehurst it wasn't administrator he said you can have your meetings here and I'll attend them and so we we started meetings every month we have about
ten women and Richard Marcus a network and people come they're all interested and those they think all know when they can do anything in fact the women said they'll raise the money big women each member or the thing put up some money they all gave $1 but they got about two thousand dollars you know for an armory and they made twenty million dollars two thousand they didn't do anything with money the men have to put up with money I mean that's way the thing but what year was that oh it started about 1972 many one somewhere later than they were of course they say it
was started in 1980 now but actually a real hard work we met every time we got an attorney to anybody contributed money it became many contributions and none taxable and we had a location together I went around and picked out eight location Sam Mills famous for the Moss farm were the Marcus Herbert Marcus the land wall over and we had him lined up we looked them over and then I got somebody from new york botanical art man in charge or at the time to come down and i said what do you think he said you know they had 240 acres and then the organic garden
so he said this one here that did call your place it had about forty acres on them and there was the next door property was the can not Kim Kim Kim they were too well people that made their money and they want business and they left their place the big all you left it to five institutions the orchestra Methodist Hospital the methods school us man SMU anyway there were five and of course on $22,000 the moment here places often we've had bamboo ten acres of the South Bay movie may cost us $30,000 just a big it but there was a mess the magnolia trees at
you're over-braking Barrington vacant for about fifteen mainland when they gave it they put in the deed that it cannot be used for apartments or commercial or homes for resident has to be some public situation so this man said this property then you have you to go on your property right in town a lot of people attending you know we couldn't how to make some payroll payroll they didn't have gardeners and people in the office dad to get the money straight and we had volunteers we built up the 700 on over there still do more now and we had a membership it's $35 or so and
we had tried to get 300 members we built but nice counters 18,000 and I I took my plants for free of them I gave about $10 worth of plants I know one day some other people went out and bought some plants somewhere else I said I hope no one day I need to change giving out free plants to the Arboretum in one day somebody the big yep to begin with that we didn't hire any gardener ser we just had a couple laborers and money we got together with mostly in the office but they collecting money and getting the paperwork and and so today and for
plants of course we didn't have any money so I gave them a lot of plants for exactly per sentence we dug beds and playing with chrysanthemums and I gave them little what we called liners they played about ten thousand fifteen and they put into one of the beds and so when the fall came we had a nice displays of chrysanthemum and other plants we gave her some perennial plants and some trees and made beds all over the place and actually some of the earlier paintings or were bulbs we've gotten some money together and some of our old our suppliers from our nursery we asked them
if they would contribute and got some bulbs for them to play now and we had a little money we bought some bulbs too for them to play now it's we had to be bold and we had a big problem with the bamboo bamboo grows underground comes up about three or four feet away and it keeps crawling in for 20 years it was a growing so these were full Bebo and all around there yeah we twice week's paid about $8,000 the bulldozers as much as we could for that much money yes I think we could scrape together so there's a little spot where the bamboozle that
we left a couple bamboos there but that thing was a mess and just made up a program and then because architect to design the program for us I remember pricing on what but what they estimated would be fifty five thousand dollars worth of plants the farther away the people are the better they are because we had just as good an architect's locally landscape architect's but we got him out and Seattle or someplace like that and we got one program money and we had a lot of meetings in between a lot of talk before before the first Libyan goes in there we had decide to place
the city bought the shares of all these five people and they put gave them a million dollars to make almond botanic reserve that's my money with a million dollar plus $50,000 for a little pump house we had over the water there a cool property next door I had to pump so that that's how we started on the money side of it when the leadership side we went and got one of the professor's of Tennessee huh is it is your table was that neither already from Tennessee yeah his name was Shannon Smith and he bought it brought with him John Backman Brackman me up the beds
and we supplied a lot of appointments man and we had a small admission charge and of course coming from New York Botanic Garden it was the city operation there they didn't charge anybody anything but they didn't have any and we in charge of the men's garden love the would know there was a would there he was in the city some of these names now but we had a dr. Floyd Norton it was a PD actress and he was these are gardening people Blair some kinda stream he bought people at the carpet takes people around the place you know like the golf cart the women attended the meeting pretty well and they know thing without us eventually they got together and collected money on their own finally we have a woman's done well designed for them and it's a good place for people to bring their visitors their family people man and wife come out they have their kid they take them you have their grandfather everybody can come together now and one good thing for us was
we're working hard on the conventions in Dallas and when they had the conventions they mentioned in there go out and visit the place that business people know did you get the outsiders to bring their families so that was a big move in Dallas newspaper cooperated with advertising free advertising I mean my part of course was was to get the plan part of it but there's a lot more in there some people thinking more in terms of a distant world you know where you have visitors coming visit I think that's where the business people the wind person but we had a combination of everything and we
made a lot of changes we had people in charge mostly retired generous you know they're great guys and good an organization plans and we had the Chase Bank Thornton the third he was good and he still sort of helping out but he's got a cousin came the president of entually Mary Mary anyway she's a branch of the Thornton family right almost and she's running it and she's done great things you know you have to get a person that helps get the money and since her family's in the banking business Chase Bank and the budget was hard to get together at $200,000 now the budget is
eight million dollars it's not a surplus we had two or three additional planning planning plans drawn by different architects and most people in the plant field here have eventually gotten into some flour phases the Business Park department that anyway we had a money'll Sperry got involved one or two and we got good response you know it was the 400,000 people well at one point you had started to talk our mentions they did bought when they first got plants and you gave them some plants and you can buy play material for us up to ten thousand and once you hit ten times gonna give you a
check for Kim's house but at least I got I got on the contribution list but that was a trick in a way but they couldn't argue about that because they can be they were getting it for free anyway so in this way they they would pay the bill and make money for that we did that for several years now we just give him that I gave him and John is on the board and they made me part on the board of director that means I can go to all the meetings mmm you can only be a board member for three years at a time but
I got the whole time and I get free passes I get every so often they send me 100 tickets to give out and the tickets are $8 admission now and five dollars for parking and with those thinking to get it from free you know so I've been giving them to these old folks homes and you mentioned something about the Boy Scouts the Boy Scout myself story they would come and show their registration card and I'd give him a tree about a foot and a half rotten planet and a couple of things have happened there one when they hit six foot I have to go in
the inspector the first three to get got Awards because kind of flashlight of skylax you know and by August and I'm six feet tall some of them they are the ones that won the prizes for once and every time we had a couple of minutes when the lady ones that move out of the house the tree was that big you know it was $50 on or dollars to move the tree my son with me to tell us a little bit about how you met your wife and your family are you how you observed within the family and how I was working with an apartment in
the Bronx park half the people are Jews in there but in the Botanic Garden there's only one Jewish girl clerical not another Jewish soul there was the Irish in the town and I boarded two blocks away for $12 a week to room and board nothing said not one she wouldn't breakfast dinner and there was another person in there they called an exchange student every year we would send us a person than a queue Botanic Garden and they would send someone of us and we would pay and they would pay there and so we sit together and we talk about what they do and how we
do it was pretty interesting and educational and however you know and then they had libraries had two boxes or the library going didn't own a book I read a lot I read a lot and most about plants on the weekends I used to go there her burying their the head at that time over a million tried specimen now they got the over five million plants collected throughout the world and in different groups and you mentioned name I could see the dried plant and that a terrific library first edition books on Batman it was an education in itself just going there and I took advantage of
it they had must had 20 botanist there they all got about $5,000 a year late 30s and the head director got 15,000 most of them were westerner you know Missouri Tennessee no Easter's none from Cornell and a botanist has a a group of plants that he is specializing and some of them specialize in areas you know the Caribbean islands or Roos eland Philippines and others happen by Bourbon AC or KC you know all over the world can they become the expert they write they call a monograph a vaccination and they quit specimens anybody goes on an expedition if he has a vaccination dry specimen he
sends it to them when they go collecting plants they try to get about 20 specimens and the guys that collect them they don't know all the plants places nobody goes some of them have been described in more official and some called new species Novus innova and when they come new species they named it after the guy who discovered the person that started the whole system of naming was to call Karl bond when a Swede who he changed his name to the time making scientific Andy Cohen Carlos place a new species has to be described in a scientific magazine and the first one that discovers that
it describes it gets that mean well you don't know there's botanist collected all over the world sometimes I think he's got a new one he names so they trace back the first one that was published gets the name the Bristol our synonyms like you know I just say these also remain the same thing but by different times in different places so the botanic garden every month they might have one or two species and when people in collections have a look at Bourbon AC plant you can know they're Verano group but you don't know the name so you send it to the monogram fost who has
that he's ever been a city guy he said then you got a new species Cory said oh this is sinking having to fill in this thing so that's what it is so you have to give them the plan yeah kids are copy and they call it the type specimen corny businessman they have what they call a key you can get a plan and certain guard this you can trace it down to the family and you can case it down to the genus and species by king you know that's the botanist trade and nobody knows how to do it except anonymous I learned so well with
Muriel wait how did you meet her and tell us somebody enjoys an activities judo yeah yeah after I was boarding in that other place there for about two years and we run into place cold ymh a or 90 seconds less pure sweatshirt who wrote this music for the temple Emmanuel bender as I call these the captains and they they phases every Tuesday they were discussing they were in the meetings and so my first place I boarded there just two walks away and I could buy lunch right off the botanic garden there we called it degree sea level and for 30 cents we could get meat
or fish plate and two sides and a drink a beverage and and you know today which cause 10 well here $10 but that was the degrees he left home and so that worked out very well however when I went to this ymh a I found the headache cafeteria in the basement and it's 10 floors 6 of the upper floors were four young men that in their new jobs are going to college there and so yeah the cafeteria we formed Manhattan - Sunday places 92nd streets you know so that's how we met what about your involvement which organization swarthy your involvement in Jewish organizations through the
years maybe not as much as I might the Botanic Garden is practically no environment there's all plants and very much there when I - the Y was with crowds all the time of Jewish people and like I said we had a group of boys and girls at least on Sundays we'd go places I had bought a car for 275 not once a Chevrolet it was five six years old and whenever I went on the trip I made sure I had an extra battery and these are little spark plugs and Republic players and a lot of wire and so I do look all my spare taking
about three hours they practically robbed you to change a tire she learned how to do everything yourself and so I parked underneath the green nail instead place for that story bottoms up in the park the car there there were weekends I could drive around and so when I was living in the why am i that mirror I said let's go but let's go on Sunday instead of when said everybody here's out Saturday night you know yours so I said let's go Sunday they can go places in very fair visit the school 90 miles away and once once we got married the war started the Japanese
land December 7 it's 41 and there's a better get married now I never thought marriage would mean a war now you know okay oh you gotta get married I'm so I kind of sit off the bottom was that okay we didn't have any money of course it didn't pay me very much there and so our folks had moved up to Parkchester or that park we develop new development and they were building a store grocery store so we had our wedding there the constructional or at my sister and my family together she had more family why did the hardest family when they have a meeting the
f-350 sometimes however it suspect and so we had this little party and when I think very badly playing I got in a subway went to the end of the lines and then got on the train I went to Vermont anyway and they didn't know details in this town and then next thing we got on the bus to another town where that scheme let me speed around every I skated and that's a lot of fun there's a lot private house and in February 1st and November of this if I want to go to propagation of plants anybody that brought seeds or cuttings are you out you
know what maybe it's just retain oh okay you're not talking about a trip to quieter mama and well then you said you were going to go to the bottom I'll I guess okay all right organizations why I was looking at the why made a lot of friends among Jewish become Jewish people boy and girl friends and got from though there with the different branches of Jewish organizations they were talking about for example the Kaplan group the Zionists and going to Israel Israel and some of the leaders of the Jewish community spoke there all the time every week there is something going on and gave me
a lot of opportunity to learn about the organization one of our groups eventually yeah one of our groups developed into what we call the Manhattans I and this club it's about 25 people admitted monthly in the way at one time after I didn't got him on for awhile I found out that our organization and as many as 350 attendees that there were meetings in New York in Manhattan so it had grown at that time what other organizations in Guatemala the Jewish organizations were three major groups very small woman the first one were the Sephardic truth that came over after the Inquisition the 1492 they were
the wealthier Jews they are they on plantations they had beautiful synagogue carved wood teak wood you know and well off in the business world the other group was the second group was the German Jews they had all the department stores and and there were more numerous and very well all the Jews were pretty much in good shape and the third group or what they called the Palacios and the poulakis came from Poland and Russia and they had their ratings in the Masonic Hall where that pool tables and card rooms and was what a recreation center and it's the second floor right in town a very
few Jews were new there that managed to get there around 1939 the last ones to get out of Germany and they had to be warranted by existing Jewish people to the dictator it was OB and he owned 19 plantations which he had gotten by chasing the owners well I mean that's the one thing if you were in the opposition you lost your place you don't know about those things but that's why it doesn't works and let's see Jewish organizations here in there we found few Jews in the coffee plantation the store or someplace like that and actually when we visited two booths a gal condors
some of them were relatives of the shoes that lives in Tomorrowland media connections with them organizations a hundred kilometers from that from that was from the city what was the closest city what was the closest city in Guatemala we have what's called chicka cow means that the place of cacao is the cocoa bean that's where the cocoa beans are native Chicago actually some of our letters one from Chuck I said Chicago on there we still got let's see yeah there was one particular Jewish man from Germany who had a sewing machine business and made the ladies ready-to-wear in Germany and he brought to his nieces
over here Steinberg was move in and order a coffee plantation and the first thing we heard about him the best coffee plantation around so we mr. Steinberg how come your coffee plantation is so good he says well the local people know what to do but they don't do it but I asked them what to do they tell me how to do it and I do it so he had no disease plants or diseased plants he prunes his plants he bent the branches so they would branch lots of had a lot of beings yeah big yield and he had sixty kin tiles he said it's under come back 60 or 60 thousand or one of the big money the big production and he took care of his in two eases and mice but
I thought it was interesting that he rever that and the sewing machine business and there was a question about the organization's Jewish organizations that evaluated went through the years organizations actually and when we came back from Guatemala when did affiliate Oh in Milan we had our own services there with this Jewish couple that we brought there every Friday night we read from the Bible we read always something and we're out the wild anyway when we came back we wondered affiliate because being away from things so we went to the sheriff Israel we went to the temple manual the sheriff Israel we got there first time
was when they have been in the spring okay and the sermon was about who's there ever do you remember the rabbi gold later she's over mu silver remaining so we went to Temple and the Temple they were singing my country tis of thee and everything was in English they were mostly the German Church and the store are keepers their own Goldbergs and golden don't find gold you know this one you know what I mean and a newcomers nobody saw us no no Thursday oh one latter very close with our friends but newcomer he could sit out there nobody say hello to me so we didn't
know what to do and so anyway he was for Worster massachusetts many have been rather well he had during the services when they had a kid winter park it's the sunday school he had a little reading for servants wonderful climate never higher than eighty never lower than 60 and no idea climate every day his son shown but it from noon time it started to rain in by three o'clock it stopped and then it was sunset but their plates and so if he enjoyed it watch you stood you couldn't drive around the place gotta go in a mule or so wasn't safe a horse will go
and break her neck but i'm you won't go if it's unsafe so that's why we use mules and rotation to get around and mural did put around the nearest neighbor was about a mile and a half away and them I check the clearing away and they treated nice and the East have barbecue there they dug a big pit around and they would take this and put them in there the ashes and fire they'd roost them for two hours then they would serve them and the way they were they would sit on the porch there that porches all around the place with their guns and then
have to chase the deer so they'd go by so we kidded the party there when they had a party didn't Goldman mind and talk for 10 o'clock come around the car and it mine in white 10 in midnight two o'clock two o'clock three dancing or sleeping around or listening to music party what about the Jewish organizations when you came to Dallas and we're going to tell the manual what is yeah well I was thinking campaign and so they gave me some five envelopes and they didn't give me the guy that big me uh personnel they gave me the guys everyone you know be surprised but
every Jewish man that worked I couldn't reach them at the line o'clock at night they were all busy wherever they were they ate nine o'clock at night and they gave you know under dollars some of the welfare I'm getting here but some of the hard-working Jewish guys gave since long ago run from these people but I get what campaign was that far piece of I'm gonna call their card preach on you got will give you five cards you don't know the guys we didn't know anybody so we took five cards we met the people they're all very nice but we we didn't have much money
you know when you start a business the amount of money we had was nothing and I remember after we were there about six months and came to the our season help didn't come on in Sunday first of all they said they committed to destroy Samuel and I would wait and if we sold $200 worth we would go to the youngbloodz for a dollar and a quarter mil therefore was five bucks but the only season what what synagogue did you wind up joining oh we joined the temple and 20 years ago you're like the rabbi over there that it's kind of we stayed with the temple
Emmanuel all the time so dude but it was a big game I have 2,000 members members and then we got the 350 real face so we quick quick quick dim but we did gave them $5,000 at times pretty good for us and he said you really like this round by I think it was Raskin or so so we joined that - we have - what's that when Raskin was the chair of Israel and so Nashua birds I'll share this one go or share or risk cheese coffee sure and the rabbinate we come under we got 24 places you can go to services and though we
only have four yes when you go to when you came except for vets often they closed their doors before moving on for goodness sake close their doors and the members went to other shows that building was only in South Dallas but at the beginning we were very busy and so she became what they call a Kelly girl Kelly girl place they got a girl with the legal terms so she did some of that and we brought this girl and over here more than a year her son David you know he couldn't say he was the one that spoke Spanish used to laugh at our accent
well he won't speak Spanish except I can't understand her anymore get rid of her you didn't want her we had a battle with send her back home but she lived right in there with us and she took care of the kid Bobby Elvis where did you live when you first came to Dallas oh the first first first place when we cut off the boat back the first week I say to mr. weinhaus home then you wrote the tickets from New York and so we got this friend place and a little place and some of the neighbors they had this East Texas language you know you'd hardly understand them we didn't anyway and then we we found this place on 3131 Rosedale right where the tower towers not turn to me they kill apartment down and lived there about three years let's say we bought it in 1950 and we moved down about nineteen fifty three years ago and we kept it for a couple years one who found ourselves with Miller what's his name bear bear the air and then
he sold it for later one for $15,000 but the house we bought next to nursery was cost us twenty six thousand when we moved out 29 years later first where where was the house 11 Dale after 11 mill was that was all crews promptly that Aberdeen Angus cattle where you know wondering whether they were on the side of the bed ever see those the horns about ten feet across we thought our place was going into expecially North Haven but then they weren't built nor uh run lane and that became the main cross and trying to sell our area or residential that's what it's on you
were here but I we were there before legally an extra live in them whether you move from lightly there when and where did you move from pine forest - we lived there 25 years and we get a lot of big losses sir we never ever see them out you know you people accumulate stuff that's I'm amazing things like I've never even opened the damn thing when did you come to the Latin Dale until the legacy when did you come to the list no longer sure I'm sorry obviously we're not fully here you I don't want to bring that stuff I say nobody plays the piano
you're the one said what about the kids as they grew did they go to a religious school what was their Jewish education like David when he came he was fine I have some friends there he's very friend gunch's he always has a better boyfriend they run around together and he didn't the reasoning when they get rid of the main even went to different he said what did I call it conforms John was only six months old when he came the Jewish education that the kids get oh well they had Sunday school at Temple Emmanuel that's where they both went mm-hmm and they were both kids
were confirmed and Barmes you know just come from ish and even his family the hardwoods family are much really just Jewish people I need the matzo and they started business down Delancey Street they moved to Long Island business big the man died early not too early but she lived to be 96 and turned it over to her son when she died when he was 72 we just heard and so he sold it after he had it about 10 years so it's open - image that was the big bigger one oh the Jewish organizations that you have been involved here well they call the Palestine Palestine
committee it was Jewish and personally one of the people in our group in 1948 they come thing but in 1947 the man who was going to become head of Agriculture Department he came with what's-her-name Rhonda Mayer I Golda Meir from Wisconsin they were both in Wisconsin they came from all them together all the Mary's to say we've got three million people in Israel and also three million people or a million that's curious what's the in in the school I would never go to school I told you it was started by a reformed symbol in New York and in Broad Street they were German Jews and
Jewish people weren't allowed to being homeland and farmland and Russia or Poland so here they have it so that's where I went and it's a three year course you stayed there all the time and they thought at first that they didn't know much about farming of course me they thought they can earn enough money to run the school well they only have about 35 percent of the cost contributed but before I got there they got a $50,000 a year of contribution if there were changes in non-sectarian it's about time I got there was half managers but then never created any problem we had a rabbi
every Friday night my father used to come in from summer and get have a service where all the boys slept it was funny yeah when you work all day in the field and the rabbi comes he's the shout them by the wakeup yeah nice little room he had the cross cuff was around one time in the gym and he brought his collection of books and we built around my thing since then we've had it onto another one too recently night slugger I don't know how many people the students had but when I was there was 106 you walk together and I think I have 12,000
the last I've heard of them it's full college now they keep talking the sciences just a trade school more or less but we did everything you ran the track we probably didn't the only people at paper were the instructors and there were small students there was a step in between where they paid farmers to come and do this what I mean let's say more organizations well in Philadelphia I know we used to have the Hebrews Society that was a very active I found it belong to the Odessa independent beneficial association okay you're joining about the organization's all of you of this have belonged to it
and what it was in case anybody died in your family it was a burial thing you made it one or two dollars here I'm not sure for the family so if anybody died they had a buried there but it was more than that they had a yard fest every year they had in the wintertime had a big yeah that's yes for their that kids fell asleep on the couch cause I'm on this place there everybody attended they used to have monthly meetings and my brother used to call the fights every guy he was in a basketball court mine and everybody would get up and had
to say something you know I was shouting so we called it two fights and like your was like what's an is really an everybody thinks that running the organization and then in the spring we had a couple of times in June and a little later picnics they run wild all over from on Park and they had organized games and so it kept know that's what together and we had a lot of rows for brothers my father that's one organization now where are the other organizations why don't we start when we start our business it took me into 1970 before we went with the Federation to
visit Israel it's 1970 they took us around every general told us how they were going to fight the war huh and so one day Henry Cohen I said Henry can't you show us somebody in the farming business so he went Bremen extended coming back somebody took me to the volcanic Institute it's a find science research they're famous for the fact that they produced the dwarf carnation the small one that was the place and they were selling cut flowers and experimenting a lot of different crops there and so we got together with several of them and we brought them plans we visited ten times and brought
plants and then we brought three of them to work at our nurseries per year we were going to train them and they thought they had to train us you know Jewish guy never takes second place and they were good only one of them couldn't speak English other two could one was an Orthodox I we're still getting mail from the one that couldn't speak English he was a relay Barok and he was in the landscape business but nice handsome guy I used to take him to the high school on the hill crest they were teaching them English I don't think they're trying to teach them English
but we didn't get anywhere however the other two started people of growing foliage plants which we told him to do and the third one it was in the Greco that takes 40 more and they think these 747 plans and bring stuff over to Newark that main warehouse there every day I'm not many planes come down load vegetables and flowers and distribute things for us that's got to be a big new thing we try to produce crops to them and I used to click points that I think they could grow I mean some of those things we got we're so interesting first they would take him
home you know powering column and things like that and I got to be the man so they opened up two stations of plant introduction okay they were trying to get new plants to come in and of course we took them around three times people won't Canada female or her husband was a mechanic on the TWA and they could get free passes that come the u.s. so I said if you come there will take care of all the expenses other than that white and so they came at least three times three or four times and we around Texas even beyond Texas and collected stuff for them when they went that long list of stuff that went and had to go through the from their customs and of course he was in charge of them but they copied the American system which is a business system rather than a plant production system they wanted to keep out certain products they said you can't send any plants with roots and soil you can send cut flower you get diseases on the cut flowers just like anyone but they wanted to keep that competition out mainly is growing as aliens so the Dutch farmers came over here in us so all my Dutch family of growers in the u.s.
anyway we got him a lot of plants and I visited all their nurseries and I used to help the little but now when I go to last time I could find out what they're doing because there's a lot of things from way ahead it was some in Monaco she self structure changing the structure of the flowers they make the pomegranates and I have all those seasons and make it like a our arm juice inside now I got 50 varieties or more pomegranates special and they have done that with so many plants what about I believe you've been active in a prison and ADL any information
we announce what about the changes in the Jewish community here in Dallas that you've noticed well you know when we came they told us there were 17,000 insurance here mm-hmm ten years ago they said we got 15,000 I don't know what we got now when you know this business the Galveston plan this guy Jacob mm-hmm he was originally your family from Frankfurt Germany mm-hmm and they were in the money business when when people you know they called a story having a lot of money what they used to do it would pool their money they supplied DeKeyser with money to fight the press Oh Franco press
on the world when the Japanese attacked the Russians to win the war their Japanese one that pushed more even than Philadelphia the family anyway but most of them came from Frankfurt Germany and I think came from ember the warbirds are with the Germans until Hitler was there then they got they probably got most of their money taken away anyway but their big bird family not only big but for 300 years well how would you describe the Jewish community in Dallas through the years how would you describe it well it was a nice semitism when we came here the Mexicans we had no money and he
was a kinsman and a black boy they called them and here they made pots pans and he could rivet and solder well and he was trained he was a journeyman mm-hmm they got $8 a week you were five and a half a ten-hour day mm-hmm and he worked for other people for 13 years before he started I imagine told you this before before he start his own business and the way he started his second oldest son I'm run over by a trolley car least have a cattle catch was I think catch up they caught him yeah a bone removed from back his head and they
gave my father seven indefinitely so with $700 equipment and he started the bending machine cutting old stuff and yeah the books came in and so let's say he kept the light on and then where he was they built the bridge so he had a move he only rented there that were critical benjamin franklin bridge north america blocks and he made your industrial silk stocking business they dampened this the thread has to go through water and he made a common dampening boxes for some of the big military and he also made stills when we had prohibition and they go around with the policeman and the policeman
on the beat would bring the captain and whenever there was a deal and the each one walked off with a gallon of white whiskey and the purest and the farmer you know given them that and my father would make us fill it a copper thing to Mike with a coil I call it and the part of a mash on the top and then this stills of throwing and every farmer in New Jersey was making liquor they couldn't control him from another reason they could cut out the prohibition it was a big business we use them you know this what is this birthright guy from Canada
they were my mother's broken Bronfman yeah and they made so much money that they bought the Seagrams company do you there was another family the Grayson 11 name there's a Montreal Canada now what's the other question well you're the community peering down assessing your involvement in the community I think the besides Federation alone going to Muslim juice started Harris peddlers and they gave us the plane brought them into Jefferson and they from there they gave him back two cases of stuff to carry around eventually they assigned towns to them and the whole store so every town of three four hundred people had old Jew who
went around measures you and brought the shirts and threatening and everything and some of them did well there some became multi-store some of them you think what about the Jewish our family affordable is none our sons are enormous so it without money is it not easy to we didn't join them in years or when my holidays we used to stand outside just an old years worth of noise Congress come around we pay very level and he'd sit there if sleep and I was thinking of the guys playing ball up there and when Howard came up I ran out the back door you know it never
dawned in that or learned something I'm just that they're so I wasn't very Jewish but in lifetime wait where do you volunteer and every Jew does something average the poorer they understand where they do you know that I know that Jews have to give I mean they do and they have to and that's a sign so it's really people are always interested in their neighbors every time when we visit it's out there yeah I had a woman in there she was in the parliament she was the only one who can see you know future so you say you know Jewish you're not Jewish and you're
born you're born with our sins you know you see these little kids making things to give away on holidays Jewish kids always doing something somebody we were first starting to click on a different tone we had a mother thing or everybody gives for the city annual collection what do you United fund my father Nick in his chest United fund I don't remember the numbers now but the man they collected from the whole city the cute the third of it thirdly the Jews you know we have a 2% 3% but the mountain gave was a very large and recently of the Jewish Family Service about 4,000
people blacks mostly they took care of during Katrina in fact a lot of the mind years that were helping Kim could use the help Goodwin the help times we got they know that that money is going to be used well so it's good to be in fulfilling you know that he rated us that was beautiful the last furrow is the name of the annual and it's the national farm school and the annual is from 1937 now here is Ralph Pincus are you getting it okay okay all right is there any thing that is something about this yeah not a problem I haven't read it he
wants she wants you to read this the Corinthians the write up about you yeah it's cool this guy called me pick him up that he's the guy who wrote the thing it's this guy and he said the Lord is a scholar if we ever mmm so on like the road you can often be seen stalking a lone burger butterfly a very colored beetle or a wayward caterpillar never a young lady which which accounts for the excellent progress he has made in his work we nominate Ralph Lister schmoozers post use a natural let me tell you why I have this I was sitting in st. Joe Missouri no I know so I took it to show her here he is again I mean Mendel was on the football team there's a small guy very muscular very active and we we used to visit places using our thumb you know in the old days we didn't get the car show me some ride we could go to New York so one day I went with him to New York like or a Sunday and you can have on the road and the highway there they 90 miles over less than 90 miles away and you get there in an hour an hour two hours three hours
and so we can go to a New York subway now he was a football player attack well you know a tougher job so some of the car pulls in mister station and doors open and you know we're standing there everybody chanting James in there oh he said Oh let him go I'll get the next one so next one came along that's the same thing so the conductor no weaknesses in the up against them and pushes in there so they can close the door so he wanted to get in and boy he just charges there like a tackler see this one go by you know he
was a country boy but I was telling this one minute I saw him under see if she said that's him is there anything else you'd like to add that's what it means to be Jewish is there anything else you'd like to add and do you have memorabilia that you could let us borrow from that was a war Historical Society do you have member be is there anything else you'd like to add and do you have memorabilia you would like to let us have for the Jewish historical one main thing was my father said being a farmer you know a Jewish guy being apartment everybody a
lawyer a doctor in when we were when I was about 7 years old he said take me to call my Tina truck tear fianc a Turkish bath next and so we used to go in there but they haven't stepped up thing it's a steam room my rock you go the harder it is and when you get to as high as you can stand it have a brush made of oak leaves and they put it in the bucket or so and you lay down on the bench and they they call it a plate song yeah you know and if you do that that you go through
the shower cold shop and they have a pool you could go into the pool or you my damn high up and the steam and mis- and Harry you know so it's sort of a Jewish meal I still eat the Saturday's like some bigger news usually called harvest these terrible drivers yeah so we used to go there but when we were sitting down to eat a lot of the friends they all sit together and they talk and this guy with a ball going nowhere baba girl is a teamster this guy was janitors he's a professor I can't help but think all these poor people this is
such filth and poorness and they were so capable of doing so much in this country some of the biggest companies are the finances of nearly all run by Jews not playing them no good finish your statement the world just wind up some of the biggest companies are run by Jews however some of the people have run the companies have their key people are cheese for example thought for parole is chief godson the Radio Shack Applebaum was the chief God and Ti we're at least have some friends and we formed the Shalom Jewish guys are management in the place they're the TI so they used to
zazz ii management or like that but the throughout the whole in the whole town is salary we've survived women mayor's here and we've got some of the top positions one day will happen we'll really have a president but up until now I've got a big number of the advisors or in their what they call the think-tank it binds the politicians which way to go Rubin or Treasury all these guys are Jewish that keep the keel of the boat very good you