Renee Stanley
Renee Stanley was born in London, England, in 1929, the middle of five children. Her parents were both immigrants, her father from Russia and her mother from Poland, who arrived in England as a young child with her family. Her father worked as a tailor, and the family was raised in a kosher home in the northeast of London, where Renee learned Yiddish at a young age to communicate with her grandparents. She recalled that her family and community were affected far more by World War II than by the Depression. In 1939, as war approached, she and her younger brother were evacuated from London to the countryside, a difficult separation and culture shock. The family later moved to Oxford, where Renee attended high school, graduated at sixteen, and trained as a medical secretary.
In 1949 Renee traveled to the United States on a one-year visa to visit her older sister, who had married an American soldier and settled in Brooklyn. Intending to return home, she instead met her husband about six months after arriving and married him. He had served in the Navy, held an undergraduate degree, and worked in the medical supply field. The couple lived in Queens, then in Ithaca, New York, and later on Long Island before deciding to open a business of their own. After researching different areas, they chose Dallas and moved there at the end of 1955 with two young children so her husband could open a medical supply business. Later her parents and younger brothers also immigrated to the United States.
In Dallas Renee first worked alongside her husband in their business, then pursued the education she could never have imagined in England, beginning at Eastfield Community College and going on to earn a bachelor's and master's degree at SMU and a PhD at Texas Woman's University. With her husband's encouragement she became deeply involved in Jewish community life, including the National Council of Jewish Women, the Jewish Federation, Jewish Family Service, and the Jewish Community Center. She endured the loss of her oldest son and her sister, but found her happiest years raising her family in Dallas. Her father became a devoted volunteer and interpreter for Russian immigrants through Jewish Family Service. Widowed after the death of her husband Paul, she later remarried. Her surviving sons are active in community life, civil rights, and support for Israel, and she is proud of her seven grandchildren.
Full Transcript
let we're going to talk first about your involvement with the Jewish Community some of the organizations or activities so tell me a little bit about what you're doing with the Jewish Community I just chaired an event for Israel bonds it's women women's division Israeli bonds has been a big part of what you like to be involved in I would I would say that anything on behalf of Israel has been very important in my life in my life in the lives of my children and most of my friends all of my friends and how have you found the Jewish Community here in Dallas how's it grown
over the years it has been an immense growth it's been unbelievably good to me and uh one of the other reasons I enjoy being involved is because I feel I have so much to pay back uh to our community that has been wonderful friendly uh very pro Israel very Pro uh my Jewish values our Jewish values and it's been very rewarding to me to be able to pay back to community it's a very good feeling okay well let's go back now you know we noticed that lovely accent so we're going to go back to 1929 and we're going to London England yes now you were
it was the really the heavy depression in the United States of course you were born in London did that affect your family too I don't think it affected my family because my family frankly were my parents were immigrants to England one came from Russia one came from my mother came from Poland and uh they were both working people when they met and uh my father was a tailor and so uh it did not affect financially uh we were not on a not even on let's say A medium income level very strong in many other ways tell me about your grandparents do you remember them at
all I do remember my mother's parents uh because when my mother came to England she was a young child and came with her parents and her siblings so uh I remember them very very well yeah yeah they spoke very little English they spoke uh I learned at a very young age to speak yish because that was the only language they really were comfortable with and um uh that's how we grew up but we were more affected a whole family our whole Jewish Community was more affected by the second world war than we were by depression right which was not too soon after right well you
you were a young girl when the war broke out yes what was it like in London I can't quite say what it was like in what I can say is that all elementary age children were evacuated out of London in 1939 prior to the war so they were taking precautions before the war even uh a few months months before the war in 39 yes all children were taken out of London how how did you how did you leave your parents very difficult was very difficult my younger brother and I were elementary school children um it was compulsory to to go and we were not we
were not happy with the place we were taken to uh um now now the par your parents and the adults stayed why were they staying the the parents stayed because the first priority was to move children out so it wasn't a question of who stayed and who didn't and besides by that time my eldest brother was already at 19 not quite 19 was already drafted into the army most of the men of that age were already gone were already in the Army uh my father who was older had served briefly in the first world war because he was a tailor he was drafted into a
uniform Factory and so that was part of his reason for having to remain because uh the plant was in London and um anyhow it was it was very hard not only to be separated from our parents but because it was truly a culture shock for us we were brought up in um I guess you would say cement jungle um it we we lived in the what was considered the Northeast part of London and um it was mostly apartment dwellings or flats as was called and um going to the country where the people they were very good nice people most of them really didn't want to
take in children they were obligated they were oblig ated to take evacuees into if they had room but the people we um we were boted with um looking back were a youngish couple they didn't seem to be young to us at the time but uh had no children of their own and they were very kind but we were raised in a kosher home and we couldn't eat some of the food that was given to us I mean we're happy in some other ways the our school was a little country Schoolhouse and uh very different to the big school we had gone to in in London
I think it was after 6 weeks or maybe 3 months or something parents could bring their children back to London M did have the right to do that so we kept I kept writing my younger brother was only five and kept writing to my parents that that um if they didn't come to pick us up we were going to walk home which of course didn't happen eventually my father came and picked us up and now now were you you and your siblings all together my one brother yeah okay one younger brother you had a total of five siblings was everybody born already now no uh
I was in the middle I was the youngest of four and the oldest of three so the my younger my older siblings one was already in the Army one was one was still who was around 14 15 and uh and my sister was 8 years older than me and she was working and she became a an A8 warden in London still stayed the family lived in arid shelters every night my young EST brother was born at in 1940 uh I didn't I didn't know I didn't even suspect that my mother was expecting a child when she had to get have her five and 10-year-old children
be evacuated it was um in July 1940 by then we were back in London we were back in London and um some months after that the our family moved from London to Oxford right and that's where we live for the rest of my time in England now were you did you go to high school in Oxford I went to high school in Oxford okay after high school now what were your plans I graduated at 16 mhm uh my original plans were to become a nurse MH uh I was dissuaded and so instead I had training to become a medical secretary and worked um had a
couple of really good jobs uh in Oxford um I think most of my jobs were good because most older people were not available for they Everybody by them was either in the service or working in a service related position when were you starting to make the decision to come to the United States I my older sister who was 8 years older than me Married An American soldier in England who she met and uh probably around 43 44 and she married him in 45 and came to the states uh on the last troop ship coming what was his mission in the Army I know he was
based in England my sister's husand went through the North Africa Italy campaign the same same campaign that my brother went through in the British army but they were based in England right right so um when he came back or in between maybe is when they met I'm not sure it was probably around 1944 they were married in 45 as he was getting out of the army and coming home so 5 years later I decided I wanted to come she was expecting her first child and I wanted to come to visit my sister so I came on a oneyear Visa and was absolutely going home going
back I had my passage I had my well I could have picked up my job again I um my parents of course family was still there and about 6 months after I arrived I happened to meet my husband now where were you where were you at this in Brooklyn where my sister lived my sister lived in Brooklyn yeah what did your parents think of uh of you guys moving to the United States they were very happy for us to do it they felt it would be a better life they um were not able to get visas to come at the time I came uh so
but when I came they they and I thought I was coming back home it wasn't going to be a permanent thing for me to live in the US once I after I got married uh my sister and I managed to between us get uh and mostly she make arrangements because by then she was able to be an American citizen and she was able to get visas for my parents to come so they immigrated about a year after more than a year after after I was married yeah what about your other siblings did they come too eventually or the two younger brothers came the two older
the older my oldest brother was still in the service my second brother had married um someone in England and um had come out of the Navy by then and was um settling down in England but also had thoughts of coming to the US MH uh he never actually did he did at one point but didn't work out when you got married what career did your husband get into what were you doing did you get into a career you become a stay-at-home mom what was what were you guys doing no I was already working in a big medical facility in New York when I met my
husband and um by coincidence he my my husband had um had already been in the Navy had been out of the Navy had um he had an undergraduate degree in Premed had decided not to go into medicine or Dentistry which he had considered at one point and was actually on the job training with a small medical supply company MH and it's not how I met him but um it turned out that he was selling to the medical center that I was working for that was another coincidence after I met him that we and we were interested in the same um area of work and business
what was the United States like to you compared to England it had to be somewhat of a little bit of a culture change much much different much much different in 1949 um England was still under an austerity program uh a lot of things were still rationed a lot of things were still get um there would have been no likelihood for me to ever go to college uh or any of my siblings uh which the opportunity opened for me later in in the US um it was it was a completely different world there was either low social and high there was no middle class no middle
class at all so opportunities for going from here to there was very although many in my family did brid it you have three children where were they born I had four children I lost my oldest son and my second son was born in who's now the oldest son was born in ethica New York and my the third and fourth were born in Dallas you're from England your husband's from New York and now all of a sudden you're coming to Dallas what what what prompted it was not all of a sudden when my husband and I even first started talking marriage we knew we weren't going
to settle in New York um when he finished his on the job training he his first real job was with a pharmaceutical company a big pharmaceutical company called ah robins and the robins company were very good to us and transferred us wherever we wanted to go so we first went from New York to we live had lived in Queens in flashing and queens for a year and a half and then we moved to EA New York where I child was born and then um uh it was frankly too cold so we asked for a transfer back to the New York area and we moved back
to Long Island and still the same company and then um after three moves my husband decided that it was time for him to open a business of his own so he researched different areas and decided that Dallas would be the place to come to so we moved here at the end of 1955 with two infants a two and a three-year-old uh so that he could so that he could open his medical supply business here for the first several years I worked with my husband in in our business but then I was able to further my own career thanks to my your husband Dallas and us
I was able to further my education at the age of 40 I started undergraduate and have a dream I never could have had in England uh I might have had the dream it never it never would could have happened so um it's one of the other things I'm very grateful for that I was able to start and go through um several levels from where didd you go to college had I had to start out with with English 101 I I first went to Eastfield Community College because SMU I did I had no documentation to show that I ever went to a high school so I
had to prove myself for two years before I could be accepted at SMU I went to SMU for bachelor's and Masters and then went on to tww for PhD and um it's been some of the most fulfilling things I've been able to do I was able to do that after my oldest son um who passed away the same year he started the year he graduated from high high school and started college with the year that I started college what was D like when you got here it was um small town compared to where we had lived before it's only smaller than New York or London
and uh it was wonderful it was wonderful the people were very friendly in business and people people we became friends with um did the Jewish Community embrace you guys absolutely absolutely not only the Jewish Community but all of the Jewish people in the medical supply were very very um open um friendly more than friendly yes we we knew no one here uh with my husband's encouragement I almost immediately became very involved in a couple of Jewish uh organizations the National Council Jewish women for instance and um and that involvement has stayed with me since the beginning I'm still involved with all of the uh Jewish
Federation of Jewish Family Service um which one of the projects gives you the most joy in terms of the organization that I think does the most good I would say Jewish Family Service in terms of the organization that has been the most um let's say joy in terms of involvement has been the Jewish Comm Community Center I was involved in it from the time it first moved into before it even moved into this facility and way way way back and um and and my children have been very active not only going to preschool and and camp and all of those things but have had held
board positions on the board on our Federation on um Jewish Family Service my my sons have held positions on most of the Jewish organizations my dad came here to Dallas after my mother passed away they were living in New York close to my my sister who unfortunately passed away 1966 and my parents remained living in that area and my two younger brothers by then were married and living in New York the New York area and anyway he came here and um lived with us for a short time and then decided he really wanted to be he was really pretty isolated living with us because he
never drove he never had a car never drove and um since both my husband and I were working became involved here at the JCC started to come over and play cards with different people and then he met these Russian immigrants who had just come and were going to be living in a Housing Development um lowcost housing and he decided that's where he wanted to go to live and um he became not only a friend and interpreter to the immigrants and was awarded lots of award WS from Jewish Family Service that he would go with them if they had doctor appointments business appointments whatever work appointments
he would go with he became a big volunteer with Jewish Family Service in that capacity so he he moved into a hard lived in a hard uh from the time it was first open until he died in 1988 he also was in and out of Golden Acres and during that time that he was either at a hard or Golden Acres he was interviewed whoever interviewed him probably wasn't around anymore to transcribe it so there were several different mistakes his name was spelled incorrectly it's spelled lman l i c c HT m a n but it actually was lman l t c h m a n
bringing it up to Dallas said I lost a daughter to leukemia in 1966 that was my oldest sister and then said another daughter married an American Soldier which was not true that was my my oldest sister married American Soldier moved here and um and then and it said bringing her youngest sister with her well she didn't bring me with her I came 5 years later then it says that same year the Lans meaning my father and mother and my two younger brothers along with the two sons moved to New York City well it was the following year was not the same year that I moved
they came in 51 there a picture at the time of the transfer of the Torah from have Shalom to Golden that he became very very involved in the in the Jewish community in your lifetime you've lived through so many momentous events obviously World War II which was difficult on your family growing up um here a president was assassinated was there something that really stood out that affected you well certainly Kennedy's assassination not only affected me affected my children um very strongly I mean they were very young but um one of my sons who is a political activist right now uh remembers clearly and he was
probably 78 years old when Kennedy I think from then on he became very very active and um had a huge effect on on this now your husband Paul passed away you remarried a gentleman by the name of Ruben yes um what was the happiest time in your life the happiest time in my life was when we lived together as uh I'm talking about my husband and I with our children in Dallas we were still pretty much and we still are a very tight family unit but I think those years were the happiest we were building and uh our children were bu building and getting into
their careers and so on and your children you mentioned the one child was a political activist what are the other your other two kids I mean he's more than a political activist the kenned part definitely inspired him in that direction but he has um he's an attorney and he um has been behind a lot of some of the wonderful things that we we do now have an enjoy in Dallas and your children what did they get into they're also very productive in in that area um my oldest son David has been also very involved in community very involved with Israel lived in Israel for two
year Well for a year after graduating from high school went to Israel to on kibutz and work uh came back and went back for another year and um eventually went back for graduate school and has been very a very pro-israel activist as has all three of them um my youngest son also doesn't live in Dallas he lives in Baltimore and he also has been very involved very involved in his community uh and anything that has to do with Israel uh or civil civil rights uh all three of them I would say are very strong advocates for civil rights um David um my oldest son David
who lived in Israel for so long has um was instrumental in uh forming a congregation that he now Bel that I belong to he belongs to now he was the first president of an Torah a congregation that's in PLO my BS have been very very involved in the growth seven grandkids and when you think your lifetime how you were raised and all you've been through and how kids today um all the advantages they have what advice does Grandma have for the next generation Do Your Own Thing know where you want to go and follow your dreams you did a great job