Rhea Fruhman
Rhea Fruhman traced her family's roots to Alexandria, Louisiana, where her grandfather settled after traveling to France, befriending a man named Saul Washa, and marrying Washa's sister. Her grandparents opened a large store in Alexandria and helped establish and care for the local temple. The extended family lived closely together, often on the same block, as one big happy family. Rhea attended school in Alexandria, where the children went to Catholic schools since Sunday schools were not yet available, and she continued through high school before her marriage.
She came to Dallas to visit relatives for the holidays, as her uncle was a doctor in the city and her aunt was her mother's sister. At a Saturday night party she first saw Leo Fruhman, and after an unforgettable first meeting the two married. The couple lived in Dallas, spent time in Tulsa, and later returned, with Rhea also spending periods in New York. They adopted a son, Leonard, and raised him alongside family, with relatives sending help to care for the baby since Rhea, by her own account, knew business more than childcare.
In Dallas, Rhea and Leo built a thriving handbag and accessories business, later known as Consolidated Handbag, operating first on Stemmons and then in the old Sage Building, which Rhea helped remodel with elegant offices. They traveled to Europe twice a year and across the United States buying merchandise, redistributing goods to department stores nationwide, including Dillard's. Rhea managed the finances and operations while Leo, the salesman, cultivated relationships with store owners. She was widely admired by her employees. A devoted member of Temple Emanu-El and other congregations, she was close with Rabbi Lefkowitz. Her son Leonard became a talented interior designer, musician, and supporter of the Dallas opera and symphony.
Full Transcript
So you were buying stocks as a way of your income as well as through the millinery. Is that what Louisa said? She sold baby bonds. Pardon me? Baby bonds way back then. She went to the bank and bought the stock on the credit. Texaco, different stocks on the credit. Quite a businesswoman. Yes. Well, we can't thank you enough. That was so wonderful. My father's father, he went to France, France. He met this wonderful young man. His name was Washa, Saul Washa. And they became very good friends. He met his sister and they got married. My grandfather. And then they came to Alexandria and they opened up a big store in Alexandria.
And my father and all his brothers and sisters lived there. The girls all went to Houston. Most of them went to Houston to live. But all of them, we had this block. My grandparents lived here. Ed and her brother had children, two boys. Around here, like two or three houses of mine. They all lived next door to each other. Yeah, but half their houses. You got it. You were all together on the block, like one big family. Big family. Big happy family. Yes. In the same block. Beautiful. And did you go to school in Alexandria? Yes. My children, my parents, my father went to the Catholic school.
And all his brothers and sisters went to Sunday school. They didn't have Sunday schools in those days in Alexandria. So they went to the Catholic schools. I'm not doing so very well. No you are I think you doing fine Was there a temple in Alexandria Yes there a temple there that she went to in Alexandria The temple yes My grandparents opened up at the temple And she sees that the temple is well taken care of. To this day. To this day. Beautiful. What's the name of the temple? Temple. We'll get it. We'll get it later. We'll get it later. She'll come back when I'll fill in the place as far as.
Okay. You're doing very well. And did you go to high school in Alexandria? I did through high school. I was supposed to graduate on the 16th day. Okay, on your birthday maybe? When you were 16? When you were 16? Yeah. Is that when you finished? No. Yeah, I didn't get finished. Okay, well then you finished doing it that far. I married Leo Fruin. And then you went on to become a big businesswoman, so it didn't matter. That was good. How did you meet your husband? Well, my uncle was a doctor here at his family. He had two boys and a girl. Well, my father, my aunt, my sister's, my aunt was my mother's sister.
And they invited me to come here for the holidays. And I came here, and I saw that Leo, we went to a party on a Saturday night. My cousin and another man on the backseat, and one other man got out of the car, and they went in to see that house, somebody's house, who comes up to the house but Leo. nobody introverted me to New York and he looked at me and I looked at him and when he left away I said to people, you are the most rudest people I've ever seen why shouldn't you introduce me to that young man oh Rosalyn says to me, Rosalyn was my person she says oh my mother will kill me if I tell her I didn't say to introduce you oh I don know you found a way to meet him You already met him That was love at first sight And where did after you got married where did you live Right here in Dallas.
We lived here for how long? A long time before we went to Tulsa. They lived in Dallas. Then they went to Tulsa for a while. And then they came back to Dallas. Then I went to New York and stayed there for a while. And I came back and stayed there. Do you remember where you lived in Dallas the first time? I'm not doing so good today. Well, that's all right. She will take whatever we say, and then she'll come back and we'll fill in the blanks. We'll come back later. Good, good. Why are you doing this? So we can have you in history just like you're in the book.
You'll be on a tape. Repeat that again. It's for the historical society, the Jewish historical society. They are trying to get different ones to be interviewed so that they have a better history of all the Jews in Dallas. Just like she wrote that book, we're doing the same thing, and we're going to have it on tape. We have you actually talking. She wrote down the words. Okay. Is that fun? It's lovely. Ben. I'll help her. I'm not doing so good today. I know. You're doing good. That's all right. Let's just keep going because we're doing pretty good. I'd say so. All right. Now, Rhea Faye and Leo came back to Dallas, and they were in the accessory business, handbags and so forth, and Leo's brother was in the hats and wig business.
And my girls worked for them. And anyhow, she and Leo would go to New York and go to Europe and all over, and they would buy all kinds of things, handbags, etc., and accessories, all kinds of accessories. They had a complete department of accessories They had a place down on Irving right on the highway Stemmins And then it was too small for them. So they took over the Sage Building, the old Sage Building. It was one big, huge thing. and Lenny and I worked together and I remodeled that building and put in some of the fanciest offices of anywheres in Dallas. We had paneled walls that were even prettier than these and we had a wall that would disappear and then there would be a conference table there and a bar.
and Will Fay has always been known as she was the backbone of the business she knew the business from A to Z and she was really the backbone of the business. Leo was kind of the salesman and he got them into Dillard's and into different stores where they were They had a big interest in Dillard's because those departments belonged to Ria Faye and Leo. And she was very friendly. And not only Dillard's, but all over they had places. Leo knew all Jewish people who owned the department stores. Sure. And they did own it. I did. Roman Marcus. Introduced him to Mr. Dillon. And as I say, Leo was the...
The outside. He knew business too, but he was the real salesman. But when it came down to the brass tacks of the business, that was Ria Fay. When it came to the dollars and cents and who's going to sign the check, that was Ria Fay. And who selected the merchandise? Yes. My husband. And he had five men. We eventually had five men who worked with my husbands. These men went all over the United States, every department store. That's why we were too. They had the handbag and accessory departments in all kinds of department stores all over the United States. And they were shipped out of here in Dallas.
The merchandise all came in here. It was redistributed from here. It was redistributed from here. The manufacturer sent it to here and they would redistribute it because they may want to send one of these or two of these and five of these. And that's how they did. That's the business that they did. And the name they went under was the Reaffaid? No, it was Consolidated Handbag. It eventually came over to Consolidated Handbag. I see. That was the big one right there. Does it still exist today? No. When did it close? Oh, I don't know. Maybe years. I don't know when you sold out. Well, a company from New York, a man came in and he liked what he saw.
And he was giving me a lot of things, and then he decided he would buy the business. Then we bought him, he did. He threw Leo out. He was very ugly to let Leo. And so I walked in one day, I said, let me tell you something. We, Leo, sent you that bill. It's business. But if he leaves the box out of their store, you've lost it. Oh, he says, I can wear it in any store. And he is a billionaire. Not a millionaire, but a billionaire. He said, I can get people up to your own sticks. I said, son, you go have a choice.
He went to every department store. He said, oh, that's Leon Riafay's. Oh, this is Leon Riafay. This is Riafay. He said, you can't have it. You can't. So, we knew. We lost it. I can fill in a lot of the blanks, like the dates and things like that, because I can get her a counter to tell me certain dates and so forth. Good. So you just need to give me blanks, and then we can help fill in. But you just keep talking with Ria Faye and if I interrupt too much that all right but Ria Faye likes me to help her And you went traveling everywhere to buy merchandise Can you tell us a little bit about it?
All over Europe. We went to Europe twice a year. Twice a year. We went to Europe every six months. And we went all over the United States here. And we could go to any department store and go where we went. They'd know who we were. But we walked into, we'd say, we'd like to see them for the boss. They said, sir, what is your name? Oh, Mr. Fruman, here. Oh, Mr. Fruman, Ms. Fruman, come on, come on in. We could go into any store in the United States. They ran the finest business. And they were so reputable that everybody wanted to do business with them.
Oh, yes. And Leo could sell you the coat he got on again. I had the finest organization of any man. I had five men. They had different places to do. Then I had a lot of girls. In fact, I had lunch and dinner the other night with Junior Jonesy. This was a little Mexican girl. I hired her one day. She comes into my office, my yard warehouse, and I said, Sarah, she was there on the floor. Two little babies were by her. that I could see it, whatever she would do with me. I looked at her, I said, what are you doing? Oh, she says, I'm just what you're doing.
I said, is that right? I said, how would you like to come to work for me? Oh, Mrs. Newman, I would love it. I said, you got yourself a job. I had a job, I had dinner with she and her husband two nights ago. She came to work for me. I had this, the most wonderful girlfriend. here a little town here this is who tell us about her tell us about her what did she do What did I do Honey I just I made everybody do their jobs And I came every morning. I had a man who lived here in our house. He and his wife, a colored man.
And they take me, she took me to the office at 11 o'clock. But I watched men go into the office at 10 o'clock. I walked into this man's office and gave me all the checks. He told me how much money was coming in that day, how much money went out every day. And then after that, five men and I went out to lunch every day. Quite a woman, yeah. These five men were divided into different areas in the warehouse, and sometimes she would send them out to different places. But she ruled the roost there, and I'm telling you, she saw to it, and there was never, never anybody that worked for her, and I was around there a lot, that didn't think the world of her.
Oh, I still do. I hadn't had to live. Really. It was just people that so loved her because the way she treated them and everything. And they did that throughout their whole business, all the way. And we could go into every department store in the city, in the country. My husband did. When they say, Mr. Fruitt is here, I'll tell you, oh, come on in. Oh, come on in. Miss Fruitt and Mr. Fruitt, come on in. There was Pilar. Oh, yeah. And most of the women worked in the accessories at the end of the thing. The men were back in the handbags. But my girls, they were in earrings and jewelry.
And umbrellas and stars. And you go in there and here would be the most expensive bags and here was here and I telling you those guys you go right down and right to what they wanted And I mean it showed in the stores That why she got the reputation that she got is because the operation was so well handled. Every detail, every little detail. And did your son grow up here in Dallas? Yes. I'm telling you about my boy. Where did you live then? Here? I adopted him. He was six months old when I got him. And he became a good brother to Ben Jr.
Right. My folks, when she got Leonard, my folks' parents, Ben and Eva, sent over a maid to take care of the little baby. She said she don't know how to take care of my baby. She only knew business. Ben Senior says she only knew business. She didn't know to take care of the baby. That's true. This little nurse that they sent her brother's sister. My sister's nurse. So that's how the rosenthal's closely were. Did you and your husband belong to Temple then? What's that? Did you and your husband belong to Temple? Of course. from the day we walked from the day I came to here was on a Saturday Sunday morning I went to Temple Emanuel and I went to Rabbi Olin Olin No, it was Lefkowitz and honey he was a good friend of mine and he introduced me to everybody he could think of in town to do with anybody and everybody we just did well in Dallas.
My uncle was adopted here. My mother had six, her father had six children. My grandmother and his wife died. He married my grandmother. And then he had six children, more, and so there were twelve children. And my grandmother killed all the twelve children. Because they were children when she died. Oh, honey, I had a wonderful life. I don't know. I'm not being a person. You're doing great. I think you're doing remarkable. I had a wonderful life. Where did Leonard go to school? Here. Here. Lenny went to school here at Hillcrest and so on? No, he went to Hillcrest. No, not Hillcrest, Preston. Right. He went to elementary school here, down here, and then later he went to high school, and then he went to study interior design in New York.
And he had a business here as a decorator? Oh, yes. It was? He had a very fine business here as a decorator. Oh, yes. And he was active in the symphony, and he was active in the opera, very active in the opera. He and Larry Kelly, who was the opera. Lawrence Kelly. Mm-hmm. Yeah. I did Lawrence Kelly's house, too. But anyhow, Leonard lived at one time on Ninth Street. and after one of the ballets or something, Janie can tell you more about that, but anyhow, Leonard entertained a lot. It was just wonderful. He was a wonderful, wonderful person. He also sang in the choir. Oh yes.
The Temple Manual Choir. He sang in the Temple Manual Choir. And he played three or four instruments Right He could play the piano and he could play the violin when he wanted to He did just about everything I mean he was very very talented And you've been very interested in Jewish groups and in Dowling Jewish groups. Yeah. Can you tell us something about that? I belong to Temple Emmanuel. I belong to Sheriff Israel. I belong to little Rabbi Rhodes. Temple of Shalom? No. Oh, I thought she was Rosalie. Rabbi Roden. Yes, Rabbi Roden's temple. They were all friends of mine. They still don't say any part.
And... Sheriff Israel, she's also a member of... Sheriff Israel. Oh, sure. And, yeah, what's the name of the one in Louisiana? Temple of... I'll get it for you somewhere that I know it very well my grandparents are native no you're doing great you're all right fine we're gonna fill in the blanks later when you thought about what you're doing who are your role models who did you want to be like when you thought about things. Did you have role models? I don't think I did. She was just a workaholic. A self-made woman. Well, there weren't a lot of women in business then, were there? There were, but I didn't.
That's what's unusual. Yes. I could go into any, to the property store. My husband, too, and I don't have to go into it.