Ross Segal
Ross Segal's family roots stretched from Europe to Canada to Texas. His father, Joel Segal, was born in Vancouver to parents who had emigrated from Russia into Canada, while his mother, Katie Seltzer Segal, was born in Dallas. His maternal grandparents, Morris and Lena Seltzer, came from Romania and Russia respectively and arrived in the United States through Galveston, drawn to Dallas by extended family already there, around 1905. His father and an uncle ran a dry goods store in Deep Ellum in the early 1940s before his father bought the New York Bakery and delicatessen in South Dallas.
Ross grew up in South Dallas neighborhoods, first on Harwood Street and later on Colonial, at a time when everyone on the street knew one another. He attended Colonial Hill grade school and took part in Hebrew school and Sunday school through the United Hebrew Schools of Dallas, with the synagogues clustered nearby and the JCC across from City Park where the Jewish children gathered. He was active in the Kadima Club, a youth group led by Jerry Segal that traveled around Texas and Louisiana performing folk dances and choir music for Hadassah and Zionist groups. After Forest High School, he studied at Texas A and M and then transferred to SMU, earning a general business degree.
Following military service in the early 1960s, Ross returned to help grow the family bakery, and the family later moved into the restaurant business, which he described as demanding long hours. In 1966 he married Judy Wallner, originally from Omaha, Nebraska, a University of Texas graduate and schoolteacher. They raised three daughters, Michelle, Melinda, and Melanie, and have six grandchildren. Now retired, Ross stays active as a crossing guard at a neighborhood elementary school and enjoys yard work. He remains connected to old classmates through monthly gatherings of Forest High alumni and reflects fondly on a close-knit era of family cousins clubs and a Jewish community where everyone knew one another.
Full Transcript
right now my name is joe reingle today is monday november 23rd and i'm here interviewing ross siegel and uh i would love to ask you some questions about your background about your life about your family so let's get started okay i'm ready all right tell us a little bit about what you know of your grandparents and your parents where they were from where they lived what they did for a living what their lives were like my parents were joel and katie seltzer siegel my dad was he was born in vancouver my mother was born in dallas texas my father was in business with his brother
they had a dry good store in deep elm in the early 40s and in the late 40s my dad bought the bakery and delicatessen new york bakery that was in south dallas that supplied bagels corned beef and the whole bib to the jewish community how did they make the decision to come here to dallas do you know have no idea um my father's uh parents uh came from russia into canada my dad was born in vancouver and don't know what got them to dallas my mother's side of the family my grandfather morris and lena seltzer lena wall sculpture he came from romania and she came
from russia they had extended family here that's what brought them to dallas they came in through galveston i was just going to ask you if you knew around what year that would be do you know about when they came i would say maybe 1905 okay and they chose to well that was smart for coming through galveston i guess in those days much easier i think and probably less crowded and better for them don't know you don't know the particulars so tell us a little bit about your childhood what neighborhood did you grow up in what kind of things did you like to do as a
child for amusement et cetera okay i was born in uh we lived on harwood street i know that our first residence that we lived on colonial uh grandparents lived on one delton uh you know it was a time when you could name everybody that lived in every house down the street it was just one family after another that everybody knew everybody i went to colonial hill grade school and i think colonial hill is still there i went to hebrew school and sunday school at uh herzl heichel tunnel torah and i i remember the bus always picking us up and taking us home and it was
the united hebrew schools of dallas uh you know south dallas at that time you know that there was the synagogues were clustered together it was a good asakum uh temple emmanuel to pharah israel and my grandparents we almost had a little small synagogue and it was called the remain issue uh because again a grandfather and all his cohorts and all of his family were from romania and i think the name of the synagogue was truly anxious fired and then of course there was always sheriff israel but it was a further walk away and it was across the street from city park and that's where the
jcc was and that's where all the jewish kids hung out what kind of things if anything were your parents and you involved in jewish organizations or activities or even civic activities at that point oh my father's brother was married to a deeney white deeney weinstein her brother was a very big he was big in the zionist organization i think he was president of it nationally and very involved in jewish organizations they her son we had a club called the kadima club and it was you know maybe 15 or 20 kids that met continually and we we traveled around entertaining uh hadassah groups in zionist organizations
uh around the uh texas and louisiana area uh it was led by jerry siegel and you know we had a choir and we did folk dances and uh i recall that that sounds wonderful i wish i had been around back then because i've studied the history of hadassah and i know that they had those kind of entertainers and things that's wonderful so take us through high school and then afterwards what did you do right after high school where did you go what did you do well i went to forest high school and of course you know that was the one predominantly in our neighborhood and
it's where went to texas a m in smu and uh then just uh went to work before you start your work career how did you i'm curious how did you make your decision of what college to go to did you just want to stay in texas oh i was kind of anti-fraternity at that time a m was a small school and was not uh there were no fraternities they had hillel on campus but that was uh but fraternities that they just didn't have them uh you either were in the core or you know you didn't go to a m were you in the court yes
okay and then you said you switched to smu yeah how did that happen romance was in the air and i had a girlfriend in dallas and i didn't like this long distance romancing uh-huh well is that the one you married we shouldn't mention it no no it was not okay all right and what did you study and then you were going to tell us about your work career after that i thought i wanted to be a an engineer and uh but math really wasn't my strong suit and so after that it just general business okay a general business degree and and what you said you
were going to tell you were talking about your work career after that yeah well when you get out of college you don't have any idea what you really want to do i had a relative that was kind of in the garment industry and i thought uh you know maybe i wanted to travel on the road but that didn't seem to well up through my 20s i worked with a fella by the name of nate levine and in dallas there were several nate levines and uh they always got him confused but the one that i was in was in the ladies ready to wear business and
uh in the when i'm in in the early 60s uh i got mobilized into uh the military and went on active duty and when i finally got out of the service uh the family business uh was we wanted to make it grow and so we started pushing uh the bakery business when i got out of the service that's what we did we were in the bakery where were you living at that time dallas texas no i mean exactly what what neighborhood what area were you in at that point oh when the everybody started moving out of south dallas my folks uh moved to uh the
white rock lake area and uh we lived around white rock and uh you know everybody else had moved out to university park north dallas and for me to socialize i had to do a lot of commuting uh you know to go out there but after uh i got married in a to judy uh walner in the uh in in 1966 and of course then you know we lived in the north dallas area how did you meet your wife how did that happen i was visiting one of my girlfriend's one a girlfriend and uh she came over with a cluster of girls to wish us a
happy birthday and i said my gosh i sure like the way she looks i think i'm going to pursue this i met her at another girl's birthday celebration so when and where were you married and then how did your family grow from there my wife judy was from omaha nebraska and she went to the university of texas and when she graduated she came to dallas and was a school teacher we got married in 1966 we have three daughters we have michelle we have melinda and melanie and each one of my daughters have two children and we have six grandchildren very good and they do they
all live in this area are they spread out well for many years we had everybody around us you know almost within a 10-minute drive to every one of our kids but about uh eight years ago my daughter melanie who was married to jeff wynn moved to hilton head south carolina so uh you know that's the ones that's far away and we don't get to see near as often as we'd like and melinda is married to jeffrey collinger dallas and my other daughter michelle is married to andrew silver he's originally from montreal but they live in dallas now what contacts have you maintained with the jewish
community through all these years and what are you active in now you know of course i'm retired because we went to forest high school we have a cluster of kids that we're not kids anymore but we until the colas virus we met once a month and it was always the last friday of the month at luby's on mockingbird lane and it uh oh yeah i will say that 10 years ago we still had 25 to 30 that would make it a point of getting there on friday for lunch and but over the years our numbers have dwindled and now if we can get 10 or
12 or 15 we have a big crowd and but we still stay in contact and these are uh it wasn't only jewish kid anybody could come that was from forest of that era it wasn't only boys we had girls would come of course not too many of the girls ever showed up but uh it's you know we just rehashed the old stories that's wonderful those are great memories can you tell us about some kind of work or a project that you've worked on that has been memorable and very worthwhile to you we were in the bakery business and then we were in the restaurant business
and the restaurant business is kind of like legalized slavery uh you can really put in 70 80 90 hours a week in those things and and that's uh that's where i did it was either raising a family or working and not too many opportunities for outside projects at one time i used to bowl a lot and used to play poker with the guys but as a family grew uh time times are different you just uh i didn't do much anything else other than just work and raise the family so now that you're retired have you picked up any new ideas or hobbies along the way
i think you know in our neighborhood we have an elementary school and i am a crossing guard at an elementary school just have you know i have to have something to do uh i have uh been very i'm very energetic and very active for my age and i cannot sit on the couch and watch television and i don't have many hobbies so i either like to work in the yard or ride the tractor trim the hedges plant flowers and again i at the school i get up in the morning early i have a reason to get up in the morning and i do it in
the afternoon and i'm a happy camper that's marvelous stay active so kelly speaking of active uh i know your family has grown so tell us where are your grandchildren who are they and where are okay uh my oldest belong to uh melanie and jeff nguyen that's alex and cameron nguyen and uh alex is she's my oldest grandchild she's 21 she goes to the university of charleston college college of charleston and uh my grandson uh cameron goes to university of central florida i have uh twin uh grandchildren with michelle and andrew silver and that's arielle and sammy silver and uh they're in the high school they're
in the uh eighth grade no they're in very convenient the freshman excuse me jeffrey and melinda collinger uh have clay and ryan collinger and uh clay is in high school and ryan is uh 8th grade my daughters i have twin daughters uh melanie and melinda are twins and i have a my daughter michelle has twins and that's andrew that's i'm sorry that is arielle and sammy or twins it runs in the family it's genetic huh okay also i have twin nieces from my brother stephen who lives in austin so you know we're like rabbits very good as far as you know do you have any
relatives that are still in europe that were left in europe or all of them are here my on my grandfather's side my grandfather comes from i think a family of five uh uh three of them are step brothers and sisters and he has uh an aunt that lives and uh has a sister that lived in paris other than that everybody came to the united states are you in touch with any of those relatives at all they have made some contacts i have some letters from them i don't know if they're still alive or not okay all right so since you're a native one of my
favorite questions to ask is what how has dallas changed from when you were a child till now what you see now i know there's been lots of changes but what do you see how is the city changed we're we're a metropolitan area now and uh you know dallas when i grew up was you know not the city that it is today i can remember when uh north park was built and central expressway ended in northwest highway and where it is and uh yeah you know it's got its pros and cons you know dallas is it's a magnificent place to live but it's gotten very very
large and i think that the quality of life is not what it used to be but you know you can't have everything right specifically how do you see the jewish community changing through the years it's different i mean you know everything i grew up when everybody knew me and i knew everybody and as i've gotten older we've had so many people move in from other parts of the country that you go to a function and you look around and you say who in the world or all of these people that i don't know who they are the community of course has gotten much longer larger
and um i i don't know i it's just different in in it to me it's not near as close as it used to be right i agree with that by the way ansha safar they found they know the exact location and our organization soon next year when we're able to hopefully we're going to be putting a historical marker there so they're going to have a ceremony that's going to be quite interesting so just to let you know we'll let you know about it because you know most people don't know what i'm talking about our organization does and we we relish the fact that we found
some wonderful markers in the historical places so thank you for sharing that um along your lifetime i'm sure you've had some people that you really look up to so tell us do you have any good role models that you can tell us about i i'm trying to you know you know of course you know i have people in my family that seemed like you know they were the glue and the foundation uh of keeping family together because when i grew up you know everything was togetherness and today you know everybody is so spread so far apart that this togetherness thing is past history and i
feel like i grew up in the best of times and i don't consider today's world the best of times uh i liked it a lot better uh 50 years ago than i like it today i had an uncle sammy seltzer that once the grandparents had passed away he tried very very hard to make sure that the family stayed together but once he passed away it seems as if nobody has you know taken that role of trying to keep everybody like it used to be [Music] um so tell us something that you feel you are the most proud of just an example oh yeah my my
grandchildren and my daughters i mean they are uh they're good people i'm you know and my grandkids are sharp as tax i mean you know sometimes i say gee whiz you know these kids are brilliant i mean some of these kids and you know when they apply themselves i mean you know when they make you know their grade part averages are over four points uh they i i feel look i look at them and i say she was these kids can do anything in the world that they want to do all they have to do is find out what they want to do because i
they've got the the capabilities of doing whatever they would like to do that's that is wonderful that's beautiful uh do you see them carrying on any particular traditions jewish traditions in the family anything you'd like them to carry on i mean they've all been born bot mitzvahed i i see you know some of them can read from the torah i mean you know you know they get up there and i'm amazed you know how they are because you know that's something that i never could do uh you know i it's something i didn't want to do again i thought i'd like to be able to
come back uh 25 or 30 years from now and look down or look and see you know what they're doing because you know you wonder what the values are of the kids the everything's changed so much you know they they wake up in the morning and they're on their telephones they they could be on them all day long you know i don't like what i see but you know that's because i'm older and raised in a different era and these kids can do things electronically that i don't even know what they're doing uh ditto i feel the same way and i'm younger so anyway is
there anything you'd like to add about your family that we haven't covered yet you know when i was growing up we had a family club and it was called the cousins club and this was from my mom and dad's generation these were all uh second generation are the first generations of american parents and you know i call them the all i called them the neiman marcus jews they were such a hurry to not speak yiddish uh to get into the american way of life that uh you know they just they were breaking traditions you know really fast they wanted to get americanized and my mother
and father's side of the family there must have been 20 couples that had and it was called the cousins club and you know they would on the weekends they they bought a clubhouse and it was out on a creek and the family gatherings were out there and so you know all the cousins uh you know we met on a continuous basis basis we knew who our cousins were we socialized with them and you know this lasted until we were into our early teens but uh you know they they slowly but surely you know they just started passing away and it dissolved and now i don't
know who some of my cousins are i have the same thing in new york i'm from here but my family's all in new york and they had a cousin's club and they did the exact same thing you're talking about so there's something about when you come over to this country you want to cling to your your roots and your family you know that's what it's all about if you could if you could get involved in something right now these days that you're not involved in yet can you think what it might be i i think the the the best thing going on in our country
right now are these food banks i cannot believe what i see when i see these lines of automobiles waiting uh you know for getting enough food to eat uh you know we're the most prosperous country in the world and yet we have lots of problems and you know i i would dedicate most of my time to food bank if i were physically able because i think it is something that uh it's probably the most worthwhile thing that we got going very good it is a good mitzvah well we're just about ending here and so is there anything else you'd like to add to the interview
no i you know i i've lived a a a a good life i'm i'm very happy my my family uh you know i'm gonna be 85 and you know look forward to more feeling good uh i like being around my family and uh as long as i can stay active they won't let me slow down that's good we're happy to hear that thank you so much for your time today i've certainly enjoyed interviewing you and be well take care and stay healthy oh thank you okay you