Ruth & Wally Cowan
Ruth and Wally Cowan were both born in 1924 in New Jersey, Wally in Hoboken and Ruth in Union City. Ruth's father was a builder and carpenter who learned his trade young and worked with a relative, described as running one of the first Jewish construction companies in the United States, before starting his own repair business in New York City. Her mother came to America as a girl with her own mother and four sisters after their father never arrived on the boat, and the family was helped by an enterprising uncle. Wally's father owned an electrical contracting store in Hoboken and served as a Lionel Train agent, where young Wally helped wait on customers. Both families felt the weight of the Depression, with Ruth's family forced to leave their home and move to North Bergen.
Ruth and Wally met in Hebrew school at age ten but attended rival high schools. They reconnected as young adults, in part through a mutual friend, and grew close at synagogue services. Wally enlisted in the Air Force during World War II, trained for about a year, and at nineteen was flying B-17 bombers over Germany as a first pilot responsible for a crew of ten. He completed 37 missions, and on one flight, after losing an engine and falling behind his group, a P-51 pilot stayed alongside to protect him until reaching the English Channel. Decades later the Cowans reconnected with his radio operator, who lived in Fort Worth. After the war Wally used the GI Bill to finish his degree at New York University, then graduated from Harvard Law School, and the couple married in 1947.
Wally worked for a New York law firm as a tax attorney for 44 years. Ruth, a physical therapist who graduated from Syracuse University in 1944 after a pre-med program and work heading a blood bank, entered the profession as it was expanding to meet the needs of wounded veterans and polio survivors. She founded and led rehabilitation programs, including a post-mastectomy program and a swimming program for people with disabilities begun in 1976 that still continues, earning her a National MS Society award. She was president of the National Council of Jewish Women and of the American Jewish Committee in her area, following her mother's example of service. The Cowans came to the Dallas area after Wally's serious heart illness, drawn by a daughter living there. They raised three children, and have grandchildren and great-grandchildren, taking pride that their family has carried on Jewish life.
They loved the outdoors and traveled the world together throughout their long marriage.
Full Transcript
okay we're with Wally and Ruth Cowan both born in 1924 both in New Jersey while you were born in Hoboken and Ruth Union City Ruth let's start with you what do you remember you were just a little girl in Union City not too much really there's nothing that I can even say I mean I just know what I looked like some pictures that's a rat sort of the two of you meet this young kids how old are young kids well what did you mean we met in Hebrew school and I was at the time I guess 10 that's the same so we went to baby
so they're a while then you might say yeah yeah what did what did your folks do for a little bit my father was a builder and mostly repair work so he had learn he still had work when he's 11 years old and he learned carpentry and everything else and then went to work in New York for company call IB mill a construction which was one of the first Jewish construction companies in the United States this is my mother's uncle and so he learned more there and then after a while he started his own business and he was doing repair work for buildings in New York
like 16 Court Street in New York City was a building that he kept in good shape that was really one of his main clients but he did a lot of repair work without having any education at all you know they keep with the third grade maybe now you know this is you guys were born both in 1924 right around the depression you know how it affected your family yeah I know because it was 1931 and my family we my father had built some buildings right union city actually houses and we live in one of those and during that time we had to leave and rent
some place a little north in another town called North Bergen that that I remember that impacted me because I knew I was going to a different school but my parents were you know they never said listen we're poor or anything of that sort my father my brother was probably impacted the worst because he would wanted to go to college and my parents said to him you know we really can't my father said I really can't afford it but he went and he did a lot of work on the side and took jobs as waiter there's something like that and he actually went through one and
I do have a letter that he wrote to my father asking my father for some money it was toward the last year of his college and I have a letter which my father wrote back saying dear Sonny I'm sorry I can't help you like I can't have any money for you so I bet so though that's what I know yeah yeah well you know how the depression might have affected your family what did your dad do for a living my dad had a store and Hoboken and he was an electric contractor he wired houses and others he had whatever licenses he needed for that profession
job they also were a license to Lionel Train oh he had a shop in Hoboken 201 Washington Street but but it was an important that was important with the Lionel trains because it was they were an agent Lionel trains people the month of December yeah was focused on the store and I was helping out from a pretty young age I would spend time in the store waiting on customers smiling and doing whatever oh good boy should do was tell me about your grandparents and your dad son on my dad's on my father lost his mother he was less than three years old and his father
remarried and here this little three year old boy was running around the apartment or whatever they lived and the mother Rose was interested in becoming pregnant and didn't become pregnant immediately and sort of blamed it on my father because you thought maybe the father that the husband was being taken away from his purpose of producing a child because of his own three-year-old so she asked that the three year I'll be taken away so he was sent to some relative some farm in New York State and then they throw created I don't know when he actually went back to be a member of the family but
that's what happened and because I remember them on my mother's side the father was coming over on the boat separately after my mother and her mother and their four sisters they were five all together the other four sisters came with the mother and the father never showed up we have no idea what happened all kinds of stories you know what you is this what year 1911 so he never showed up so they came to this country with nobody fortunately my mother had a knock off this I be Noah individual who very enterprising Li started this business and became fairly wealthy and was able to help
them and he so he set up with like a little store an outdoor store and they sold cigarettes and things like that 39th Street in New York City and that's the way they sort of made a little living the mother was not was never really got over this the fact that her husband never showed and was not really that act of an individual my mother sorta took over cuz she was the oldest daughter and that's what happened they were helped with the uncle in this way and was eventually they all grew up there were two high schools in Union City he went to one I
went to the other and we were rivals certain on Thanksgiving Day now you knew him since you were ten years old yeah what did you guys start dating well what happened he he finished earlier than I did heavier earlier and he was already working he had work a long part of his life his parents we're not wealthy they lived in an apartment now six floors up no telephone etc etc and he was standing on the corner after he finished working at peerless relief every day he was standing on the corner way for a trolley car to go he would go to college at night he
got a scholarship to go to college he took an exam he didn't even know where he was going and it turned out that that college was a was a Catholic college of the night school called Hudson College of st. Peters which was you know still exists so he was going in Jersey City every day waiting for trolley car and I would pass them every day coming home from high school I would pass them every day never said hello because people would think that you're trying to start a relationship so you couldn't say hello and one day after passing him I don't know how many times one day I said to myself you know what you don't have to worry about saying hello you have a boyfriend in high school don't worry they're not gonna think anything when you already have a boyfriend so one day I
said well he put O to his friend Robert Lowenstein and guess who said a lot of me today we should just spoke to Robert yesterday so Robert set up called up my mother my mother knew everybody was friendly everybody knew her she woke alone burgling Avenue the main street of Union City everybody knew her and so Robert called up my mother and said missus statesman I'd like to bring my friend over I some afternoon when is a good time so he set it up with her brought him along I came home from high school day and they were on they were in my kitchen the
two of them with my mother so that was sort of a reintroduction and then we went to services his mother was a religious woman the parents were not they did not have a kosher home etc but the grandmother was very interested in his going Hebrew school and laying tefillin etc and said brought in the set and he promised his grandmother that he would wait fill in every morning which he does to this day and she yeah and he she was a very special lady anyway she went to show with the uncle and so one time we were there for high holiday services and a friend
of mine came over to me and said Ruthie you gotta do me a favor I said what favor she said I have a date with Norman Shula and I have the feeling that he's fast and I saw I don't want to go out with him alone would you and Wally come with us then I don't have to worry I do my friend a favor right so I come up and I said what do you do Betty better than a favor I need that story Lawrence anchor I guess that was maybe I guess we were 17 at a time yeah now shortly thereafter right after high
school I taken world war ii broke out what are you guys thinking your kids he's gonna be going he enlisted and he wanted to be in the Air Force and yes his mother and his mother said okay what could you say so since he was had to prepare for a lot of different tests if he wanted to be in the Air Force she started grading carrots for him so that he would get a lot of vitamin A which would help him pass the test and he passed and he decided he wanted to be a pilot and took about a year of training for him to
become the pilot and at the age of 19 he was flying and flying over Germany as a first pilot of b-17 what was your scariest woman out there I was in charge of the airport I had a crew personally of 10 people and they took one of the crewmen award during my first year as a first power and it was a big responsibility I was not only responsible for the airplane but for the lives of my my crewmen while we were at war and every day my job was to take the plane and bomb a city behind and then bring the crew back and I
was 19 years old I did my job very good good people looking after me and nobody on my crew has ever wounded injured every mission we came home with holes in the play that was never a question there are two kinds of attacks that he was subject to one was fighter planes from Germany and the other was anti-aircraft fire the anti-aircraft fire the sky was always black around the plane as you were going down the target runner the plane would always come back with holes and there was never a question how many missions did you fly 37 37 I should tell you that the b-17
was why it was considered a very essential aircraft in the war because its sides were built so that it was resistant it got holes in it but the holes never got any farther than the outside his engine right in front of him third number three engine was hit and died so that he didn't have one engine there were four engines of the plane so this is one out and it was when he was coming back from a mission and ordinarily you're supposed to stick together there were 12 planes in a group and you have to stick together and that's protection because of the loss of
the one engine he was not able to keep up with the group therefore he was going much more slowly and became a target one plane alone message me coming so that was dangerous but out of nowhere a p-51 came alongside him and talked to him and said I'm so on so I'm gonna stay with you as long as I can until I run out of fuel and I don't probably take you to the English Channel I'll stay with you until they and that's what protected him did he ever happen to have contact with those people anytime after the war just by chance we found out
and then continued the relationship his radio operator turned out lived in Fort Worth my daughter at the time lived in Dallas Texas so when we found that out not too many years ago we called him up and said we intend to come to Dallas oh and so it's alright so we'd love to meet up with you with cetera and we have had a relationship since oh I think it's about nine to ten years now there was the radio operator and his brother on his plane how did you stay in contact with him during the war I was writing to not only him but a lot
of different guys who were overseas and that was considered the thing to do in other words this was the way they they felt that the guys who could be in contact with home speak to people from the home writing and it would take their minds off whatever the war and it was a it was a very very important thing no you guys didn't get married until after the world oh okay Wally comes home what happens well for one thing he had gained a lot a lot of way she was like over almost 200 pounds and my mother without my knowing it invited him to Passover
after he was home and it was a big surprise to me but he was and I always look the guys ankles and the ankles was war but that turned me off that's that was when I so I'm really almost for the first time after he came home but but he was assigned after he finished overseas he was assigned to various places here in the States he was teaching what were you teaching what kind of flying was it cool I forgot instrument flying he was teaching instrument flying different installations here in the States and he was I'm 17 he was having a good good time I
mean you know he started to drink and stuff like that wish he hadn't fine it so how'd you straighten him out well he just saw straighten himself out what did you guys get married in 1947 first he had he the GI Bill was a a tremendous thing not only for him but for lots and lots and lots of veterans it's a wonderful thing he had to finish college he had only finished like one and a half years so he went back to school and is it interesting story he was going I told you about the school that he was going to in Jersey City and
in the middle of a semester the Monsignor came into the class and said we can't run this school anymore because we don't have enough people students is but this is a school very close by who said they were willing to take you know I'm gonna tell you how to get there take a bus to Journal Square taking Journal Square take a this train and you'll land in H Street New York City and right there there's a school called New York our city so on that basis he was able to transfer to New York University because of his school shutting down and he graduated in winter
after the war he was able to go to school on the GI Bill during the day so he finished and you know a short time I'm a physical therapist by profession and I finished college summer of 44 I went more rapidly I went to summers so I would finish undergraduate and then I worked for a year I did a lot of laboratory work it's medical I graduated the Syracuse University and I took a pre-med program and then I worked for a year as head of a blood bank etcetera etcetera he graduated from he graduated NYU and he said to me then he had been working
as an accountant rookie for many different places in that fire New Jersey was a big embroidery business and he had been working as a bookkeeper an accountant for many of these embroidery places the work he did after school so he said you know why I don't want to be an accountant I would like to go to law school if that's all right with you I said you look you have the opportunity I mean it's wonderful why not so he applied to two schools he knew he wanted to go to a school where he would try to get a job because of going to that school
he so he applied to to law schools one was Columbian what was Harvard Columbia was he was using a at the time a pre-law test and Harvard was done because of the fact that he had been mostly business in some liberal arts not reversed he didn't pass that pre-law test at Columbia Harvard they didn't have it they didn't trust that test yet they thought that it was not a good enough example of what you might do in law school after you took that test so he got into Harvard and graduated from Harvard club loud it's very good student and the meantime we don't know we
had already we had already met NIDA commander from NYU and then could latter from Harvard Law so back to me I the profession of physical therapy just began in that period of 19 46 45 46 because of the war people were guys who had spinal cord injuries state of mind because they use sofa but if someone for the open wound and they had previous Wars I didn't have that therefore they died but here all of these veterans work then were paraplegics so that was one reason they needed physical therapy they needed rehabilitation the other reason was polio epidemic 44 45 46 of 51 polio epidemics
and they needed people to work yeah so my sister saw an advertisement in the newspaper a little clipping that said that if you're interested in study and trying to pass an exam to get a scholarship for the National Foundation you couldn't fly so she brought my attention to that I wrote them I got a scholarship to study physical therapy it was really something that as it turned out it was very very not only important but that it fit very well into my personality and you know being able to help people talk to people in person the person and stimulate them motivate them well we went
first thing we did is go up to go to school and there were two choices what to stay in a hotel with a an electric heater a period sort of a seedy place not I can't in Cambridge very close to school or go thirty-six miles away in the boondocks attached to Fort Devens Massachusetts where they had hospital corridors chopped up and made into living quarters and we chose the latter it was outdoors we loved the outdoors it was cold it required daily driving the hem got married so he would he had a group of guys that he went to school with every day every day
a different car and he learned a lot during those one reveal rides because one more cool to yet say who the people were well me one was law school the others were one was majoring in classical Greek and Latin pichi pichi right and there was a guy who was a majoring in economics sort of PhD and then there was a guy who was at the Harvard Business School and then there was one a law student no the law student like you I learned more in that car pool than I did in class that said because these guys were all top of the class guys and
and very outspoken so where did you become an attorney and one day he was going to New York firms and he was he went to this firm called strokin strokin man which was very old law firm I don't know if you ever heard of stroke woolens anyway from Poughkeepsie and one of the sons Alan struck Saul stroke was his father who was the head of this of this clothing manufacturing very famous drug ones and Alan became an attorney and started this firm and laveyan was somebody that he went into partnership with whose former name was Levine he became a Unitarian anyway he went to this
firm downtown New York and he went in and this lady said oh don't bother taking out any of your the materials we're not hiring and you know sorry don't even leave your stuff because we're not hiring now so he started walking back you know through their big car and onto the elevator and here's just and he looks up and he sees another lady and he walks over to his I just came out from the meeting with the hiring partner and we are hiring somebody who has a tax background if you qualify why don't you come now and get interviewed so he took his stuff and
we go so there's a lot of accounting that he had he certainly was qualified as a you know as a tax attorney what does it turns out he that's not what he did he was hired and he worked there forty four years what brought you to Dallas he had a a a heart episode in New Jersey with bird watchers and we were in Cape May New Jersey bird-watching and the middle of the night he got up on the that I can't breathe so he had cardiac failure congestive heart failure at school so he we had he's on a long a long period of rehabilitation getting
better they had to stick this terrible monstrosity down his throat to keep him breathing and you have to get rid of that in six days otherwise you have to wear it for the rest of your life which is no life anyway very fortunate he landed in Atlantic City which is a Regional Hospital very very good hospital and the respiratory therapist is said I'm going to take a chance after the sixth day I'm gonna try to remove this hopefully he'll breathe on his own and that's what happened they were freed on his own which was very fortuitous and then was slowly slowly slowly we built him
up went from one rehab place to the other every time getting closer to home well my daughter was living I want we have three cases we mentioned one daughter living in here my son lives in Israel my I'm very unfortunately my oldest daughter who herself as a physician got multiple sclerosis so she was couldn't be of no help and the one from Dallas kept on visiting and then she said you know I just can't do this anymore she has her own business eyes are all family cetera et cetera a very active yeah her name is Cole get now you had one brother one sister he
was an only child did he get along with your brother and sister yeah my my brother liked him very very much my brother's eight years older than my sister thirteen years older so my sister was sort of you know almost like the nighttime buyer actually but sort of a different generation when he got along very well with my brother-in-law my sister's husband not very many people got along with him why me that was girl she's still smiling we love the outdoors we've been all over the world on trips love each other right and so we've we've really been very very fortunate that way made a
good living got a bunch of good children a bunch of great grandchildren our 13 and number including I'm doing great my whole life and great got a wonderful relationship we do everything together without magnificent children great children etc etc well you have the three kids ten grandkids three great grandkids what advice you have for the next generation livid good advice I think have a little more commitment no way you are it means that you that you put yourself in a situation and say what number what matter is it that I'm here now and you live accordingly try to make a difference and I think that
gives you meaning it gives your whole life meaning it may be sort of an a grand Iceman but not really it just puts you more that your life has made it possibly made a difference otherwise you are living mad if you're having live matters okay very I can't tell you how many different look like I can't tell you how many different organizations now with the president of I was very active in the National Council Jewish woman which my mother also was a member of way way back in their early days it's an organization which has always made a difference in the community in which they
are I was president of that organization but also they do a lot of community service the particular section I belong to had 19 different social service groups with that went out to the community and did stuff one of these two of these I was involved in and actually because of my physical therapy I was able to provide special activities for for them to be involved in one was called post mastectomy program it was a program where women who had had the removal of rest and remember very early they would remove the entire breast which meant that a person was very debilitated in terms of arm
movements and so we started this program which was a rehab program for women came free of charge got my services as a physical therapist free of charge and had also the ability to go into the water and have help myself and other people helping them in the water which was part of the rehab process plus a psychologist who met with them weekly to talk out their problems mentally emotionally etc that lasted as long as the community needed it till they started their own groups we did that for like 15 years in Bergen County plus impact did I Hudson County and other joining counties and the
second program was called swimming first we called the swimming for the handicapped and that was for MS people I think nothing to do with the fact that my daughter had MS I'd started much before and that was four we went together with the MS Society of the area and provided socialization they went into the water if they swim they could swim or we did exercises or whatever they needed we had 35 volunteers coming almost well I would say at least 20 of them would come every week and they would socialize they would do the exercises with these individuals that program is still going today we
started it in 1976 and I am proud to say that I have people who have taken over for me physical therapists there and I have people who really run the program and we received many commendations I got a big award at the National MS Society just two years ago and it's a still running program and the original people's children are now being volunteers in the program after they they finish their careers and retire they come in and our volunteers in that program plus plus I was president of AJC American Jewish Committee that it for my area and those are the two main groups but I
was very also on the National National Committee's for AJC and NC JW I been I'm gonna fill every sense today's all of our lives both of us attend study groups etc etc and you know I've been very very active in Judaism and my kids proud to say that every one of my kids married Jewish so for my grandkids marry Jewish I know how to pick whole wife you