Sam Biderman
Sam Biderman's family story began with immigrant relatives who came to the United States around 1890, arriving through New York and Galveston, which he noted was once an important port of immigration. His father was deeply religious and had worked in the umbrella business before a split with a relative led the family from Galveston to Houston. Sam was born in Houston during a malaria epidemic, an experience his mother recalled with a story about outliving the doctor who predicted her death. When Sam was one year old, the family moved to Dallas and settled in the North Dallas Jewish settlement. His mother kept a kosher home until her death in 1940, and his father lived on until about 1935 when he retired.
In Dallas, Sam's father first made his living driving a covered wagon out into the countryside, mainly in Collin County, selling dry goods to farmers and bartering for chickens and eggs that he then sold to produce houses. Known affectionately as Little Joe by the farmers, he built close relationships with rural customers who even attended family weddings. As a boy of about ten or twelve, Sam rode the family's horses bareback across town to the blacksmith to have them shod. Later his father gave up country peddling for health and religious reasons and sold vegetables from a wagon, rising before dawn to reach the market. Sam recalled attending a speech by President Theodore Roosevelt in Dallas as a young boy.
As an adult, Sam became an architect and lent his skills to the Jewish community, including helping repair the roof of the Shearith Israel synagogue on Jackson Street after a storm, work he did for free. He was involved in a succession of Jewish clubs, from the Young Israel Club to the T.O.O. Club and finally the Young Men's Hebrew Association. He designed a gymnasium for the YMHA and helped arrange office space for the Jewish Federation, explaining how the Federation came to occupy its building. Sam reflected candidly on the divisions between Reform and Orthodox Jews and on the changes brought by Rabbi Lefkowitz, and he spoke of the many Jewish merchants of early Dallas and the community's evolving religious life.
Full Transcript
come over in this country in about the year 1890 and they start migrating on over to here three years two or three years later he brought my mother over here and they finally landed in New York and then they went down to Galveston now I'm not sure whether she come in from New York or Galveston. Galveston at that time was also a port of immigration. Very few people know that, you see. And they were, my younger brother and my, my younger uncle and my father were very close and very religious. My father was very religious. And And at that time, they were in the umbrella business.
They made umbrellas. People wore umbrellas. And so one Saturday morning, my father got his tallis and his books and so forth and was ready to go to show. And at that time, a customer come in and needed some work done on an umbrella. my younger brother asked my my younger uncle asked my father to hold the umbrella and he said no he couldn't hold it because it was sharp as he and so he started to leave so he says well don't leave right now I wanted to talk with you and the younger uncle finally fixed the umbrella and then after he had talked to my father, they had split partnerships and my younger brother went up to New York City and my father stayed in Galveston with all his religious stuff over there.
My younger brother wasn't quite so religious. And so from then on, they moved from Galveston. Well, they moved, well, I don't know how long they stayed in Galveston, because I probably wasn born then But they moved from Galveston to Houston and I was born in Houston Texas see And at that time they had a malaria fever epidemic in Houston see and I remember my mother stating that my father was often very attentive to my father and my mother noticed it very much and she said, well, why are you so attentive, see? Oh, he said, the doctor said that you were going to die and she says, you go tell the doctor that I'll outlive him, see?
and so the doctor did die and she did outlive him. And so they come on and moved to Dallas when I was a year old. They come from Houston and lived to Dallas when I was a year old. One year, honey. And then naturally they would go into a Jewish settlement and from there on they went to find out where the Jews lived and they finally wound up in North Dallas. Well, North Dallas actually was from McKinney Avenue back. Instead of Cedar Springs, it was McKinney back. Of course, I didn't know any different. I thought, well, that was a proper place to live and the custom of living then was just right.
and my mother was very, very religious, and she kept a kosher house until she passed away. She passed away in 1940. We... I'll stop it for a minute. After living in that area where all the Jews were I was a youngster and I remembered that I lived on Cedar Spring and there was a little community house close by which I had already mentioned before I, Sidney Lynn, Sidney Rubenstein and I were very close friends then and we were all about the same age and we weren't old enough to go to any public school. Then I've already mentioned that my oldest sister, that I mentioned that had worked at Sanger Brothers then had bought a house on Horton Street, and we moved on to Dallas, to where they called the cities then, see.
In talking with my wife, she had made a mention up over here that even in the Reformed Jews, there was a rift between the rich Reformers and their poor reforms. And the Temple of Beauvoir was strictly made for the rich, Reformed Jews until Uncle Lefkowitz came there. And the poor, Reformed Jews sat on one side of the temple and the rich reforms sat on the other side. And they displayed all their glory and jewelry and this, that, and the other. and Nakhlethuis saw that and he saw that that wasn't a place for a display of jewelry that was a place for worship and so he lectured them before he gave his sermon and after his sermon he got them all together and told them to get in the Middle Island and introduced themselves to each other and said this is a place for home for prayer up over and from then on the Reformed temple started growing again when they broke up the rift between the two classes.
I already told you why there is a rift I mean why there was a rift between them And it took Hitler to break them up I just hated to say that but it history And, well, and I've already told him about my practice in architecture that I went back into the work. How about that? Well, one of my cousins here was Jake Winnemann. I never mentioned him before. Jake Winnemann was a member of the firm of Florin Winnemann. A lot of the people will remember him. And he and his wife made workers in the Sheriff's Israel synagogue. And the synagogue at that time was on Jackson Street.
And there was a storm at one time and it blew off part of the roof. And I was practicing architecture there. And so my cousin Jake asked me to go up there to help him out and get an estimate made and get the roof repaired. And of course that was all done for free. and then the other work that I've done for free has already been previously mentioned and so I really don't know any more that I can tell you about the Jewish community except that I believe that I didn't tell them before about how I got into the service of the Jewish Federation. And really the way I got into it, We have the social affairs amongst the Jews at that time were only when the Jewish boys decided they They wanted dance.
They employed a hall and an orchestra, and they sold tickets, and they sometimes come out on the right-hand side or left-hand side. It didn't make much difference, And they had a dance at that time. And so they... The... A Jewish couple here, I don't know their name. Marsh Ferrick knows their name of this Jewish couple. They live in Beaumont now. had decided to step in to have a little Jewish social worker around here. And so we formed a club called the YIC, the Young Israel Club. And we got as many members as we could, and we had meetings at different parties' houses. and sometimes we'd have a box lunch up over here and a meeting over somebody else's house.
We even had a meeting over my mother's house. We lived on 3622 Colonial Avenue then. And we had a big front lawn then and they had a box lunch affair there. and then later on the YIC club had dissolved or disappeared I don't know exactly what happened but the younger boys that went to the YIC started the T-double-O club what did YIC and T-double-O stand? YIC meant for young Israel The YIC meant for T-O-O was the only ones. Some of the members at that time, I remember very distinctly, were said, now this club is primarily for social only. We don want to do any work for charity or this that and the other see And at that time Max Klaver was a member and Max Klaver later was very strong and said well now we got a T old club over We ought to be able to do some Jewish work up over here and help the Jewish community, see.
And so we even had that rift in our own club, see. And then the T-double-O club disappeared. And the YMHA started, Young Men's Hebrew Association. And some of the same members that were started way back in the YICs and the T-double-O become in the YMHA, see. And so, well, at that time, the Elks Club had moved away from their present location on Park Avenue. And so, but before they had moved away, the Orthodox Jews had decided that they should have a social club of their own that were in competition of the, what club is it they call up over here, the Reform Club, the other club up over here.
The Council of Jewish Women? Huh? Was it a Council of Jewish Women? The Women's Club? No, the Men's Club. And they had a big building on Irby Street at that time. Columbian Clubs. Columbian Clubs, they would go in combination with the Columbian Club up over, or would be parallel to the Columbian Club, not really in combination with them. And so I was a member of that club. And some of the older members over here, like Yannickson, they called themselves the Parkview Club. And they had, of the old time members, and fair and Utais and a number of fellows I don remember all of their names and anyhow it run along for about a year or so and they found out that they were having a hard time running it and it wasn't actually paying because it wasn't supported like it should be.
Then the YMHA says, well, if they can't support their club, says, we'll take the thing over. They'll give the thing over to us. And so they deeded it over to the YMHA. And so well, the YMHA Was that the building now? Yeah. And so the YMHA up over there, they didn't have any money either. And so we went out and raised the money. And I told them that I would, well, that they didn't have a gymnasium. One of the things they wanted was a gymnasium. And I would take them. And so I said, well, I'll take care of that up over there, and I'll give them all the services that they need.
So I made plans for the gymnasium that was built in the bank. I had a lot of static then. I remember because it was built out of frame and steel and there wasn't any brickwork there. And I remember Mr. Ablin, the old man that passed away, says he didn't understand how they could build a gymnasium out of wood. and then after he saw it he complimented it very highly and we we carried on the YMHA for a while and we found out that the expense of running the YMHA and the members that they had there didn't pay them either so I told them what a meeting of We have the Jewish Federation of War, and they need office space.
Why not pull in the office and pull in on the end, see, and give them the whole business, let them have the whole building and all, see. And so they had moved in, and I had remodeled a place for an office for them And they had taken in there and that the reason the Jewish Federation is at that location and so but they give the YMHA privileges to use the gym and other parts of the building that they didn't use the and that's part I think from then on, I think you know the rest of the history of the Federation. The Federation, of course, is a big concern.
They've done a lot of good work. They've served a lot of needed people. I don't know. They've probably even served my family. I don't know. I was too young to know. and I know they help numerous people and just what the organization is now and how big they are and exactly what they all do is probably in their biologues and books and so forth is something that they would never show anybody and I could never find out any how I wanted to. And I think that's about all I can tell you now. I want to tell you I don't want to be bragging about myself anymore.
I don't think you wanted me to be doing bragging about myself. I just want to know what I knew about this place here. Well, now, I can go a little further over there, except this is over here, that I didn't get to be the architect of this place over here. Some other architects have remodeled this place. There's two or three architects that have done it. Some of them have done a very excellent job, and I think basically they, from what I can understand they built this building in according to what finances they had and so I wouldn't dare criticize anything that they had unless they had asked me to and nobody has asked me to so I'm keeping my mouth shut.
You said something last time about your dad with the covered wagon and how he went out in his covered wagon in dry goods oh yeah we lost that part oh yeah yeah well yeah well my father when he first come over here we had a sister-in-law that was the Winnemans and the Winnemans were a big family and one of the boys drove a covered wagon out into the country to sell dry goods and to the farmers they they worked mainly in Collin County then after my father got here then of course and actually he had to make a living for his folks so they took him on out once or twice on the route and they show him how how they were doing it and pretty soon he got a big covered wagon with a big canvas top and two big white horses you know and he drove on out and he got himself a route out in the country and he carried dry goods out there and he bought his dry goods I remember now from Bearwall Brothers.
Bearwalls were here at that time they sold retail and wholesale and Sanger Brothers sold retail and wholesale and so he was pretty well familiar with the people there at Sanger Brothers and Bearwall Brothers and the customers, the farmers over there, really didn't have any money to pay for their merchandise. Their merchandise was mainly dress goods, that is, both goods. They used to do their own sewing and make their own dresses and clothes, and so they carried some shoes and other accessories for them. and then they would barter with him over there and they would give him chicken and eggs for the good, see and so he come back with a whole wagon load of chicken and eggs and well, what he's going to have to do with it he has to sell it to the produce houses so this Sidney Rubenstein father that I mention over here run one of the produce houses now whether I don know whether they sold anything to Ablin or not I think Ablin may have had one of them too see and he sold that stuff to them up over and he always coming back in on the weekend and then Monday he'd go back out again and stay out there for the whole week and and now Now, in, well, my father, well, the party that showed my father how to do this thing was Joe Winneman.
Joe Winneman was a big, fat fellow, see, and my father was streamlined and small, see, and the farmers nicknamed them Big Joe and Little Joe. And Papa was Little Joe all the time, see. And so even when my sister Rose got married, we had to send them a wedding invitation and the farmers even come to the wedding at 607 Harkin Street where we lived there, see. And thank God, they even spent a night with us. And we had a four-room house, and our family was big, and we were sleeping in practically all rooms. And they brought their family up over, and they were all sleeping on the floor and every other place.
It was just sort of a community affair, and it didn't make any difference to them. And President Theodore Roosevelt come to Dulles and made a speech behind the Oriental Hotel, which is now the Baker Hotel. There was a big lot behind there. And these farmers come in to hear that speech that Theodore Roosevelt was going to make. And, of course, my father and mother had a go-to, and I went with them, see. And I was a young fellow, and I couldn't see nothing. And I remember distinctly up over, one of the farmers picked me up and put me on his shoulder before, and I was sitting high up in the air and I had a bird view of everything that was going on It was going on And then at a later date he decided that he wanted to quit this going out to the country of Bovary.
He wasn't living the religious life that he wanted to live because he had told my mother that he'd only drink milk drink milk and stuff like that when he was out in the field. And, of course, that wasn't too good for a man's health, not enough protein in him. And so he eventually come back here, and he started to peddle vegetables. He saw a vegetable wagon, and he picked himself up around, and he would take and get up at three or four o'clock in the morning and they'd go to the market. The market was on Pearl Street down, well, the market originally was on Ellum Street, right here on Ellum Street.
They had a market on Ellum Street at that time. The time was small. Then they finally moved to Pearl Street. and he would hitch up his horse in the coldest weather, whether ice or snow was on the ground or not. There is times in Texas that we do have bad weather. There is times when it was very cold. He never wore a glove in his life. His hands were just as rugged as they could be and it was just as warm as toast all the time. I really found out later why his hands were that way. My doctor told me that his hands were that way because he was active and he was getting good circulation.
And so that didn't bother him. And the reason he had lived so long that he had done not strenuous work, but he had done work that kept him going all along and kept him in good shape. We, well he carried vegetables until he finally had to give it up and then he retired And he, my mother died in 1940. I think my father retired in about 1935, see. And he would... Pardon me a minute. Hold it. Well, when my father drove this carpet wagon to out in the field, I was a small boy, a young fellow, probably 10 or 12 years old, we had these two big horses and they had to be shot every once in a while.
They called it shod, you see. And at that time, we had to take them to a blacksmith and we took them to Rechofsky. Rechofsky's had a blacksmith shop on Akerton Patterson Street. and I had a and I had a I rode horseback on one of them bareback horseback on one of them and led the other horse across town to Rich Hopsky's uh box of his shop and they shod the horses and then I don't know how they paid him but anyhow I from there on I carried the horses on on back on back and that's one of the things that I did. But my father up over there, after he died, of course, we had to give up housekeeping and so forth.
And he had some Jewish families around here would take him in, board him, board and room him, see. And he would live in one of them a certain length of period over there, and then he would probably do something. say something that they didn't like and they call us to tell them to get him out and we'd had to get another family for him and finally the some lady I don't know who she was but I remember her calling me she wanted me to make plans for an old folks home and so I want to make the saw as an architect and I was the right fella to do it and I said well so I can do that over where so but it costs money to make plans and so forth I said who's gonna pay for it oh she said you have to do it for nothing and so I said well so they What about the, oh boy, the Jewish merchants here in Dallas?
The Jewish merchants observed generally all the Jewish merchants, even the big ones, Sangazee, and the big companies, with the exception of very few of them, on Deep Vellum observed the Jewish holidays. Some Jews on Deep Vellum didn't observe the holidays because they didn't want to lose the trade. And they asked them why they didn't want to lose the trade, because it cost them money. And I remember my father asked them why they didn't do it. He said, because they cost them money. He said, well, Sanger Brothers cost them more money to stay open and walk, to be closed one day, and then you and him, they were closed.
Were all, most of the merchants Jewish, the large stores like Tach's and Sanger's? Yeah, Tach Gettinger was closed, Demon Marker was Jewish, A. Harrison Company was Jewish, did I say Teich's? Teich's was Jewish. What about Rolls? They were the main big stores, see you. There was another one, a Dolphins. And then uh Neiman Marcus started with a ladies uh dress shop on Conor Elm and I think it was Elm and Porges Street Murphy Elm and Murphy? Yes. Elm and Murphy, the small, the dress shop selling high class merchandise. Started from, started from there. and they kept branching out and branching out to where it really was a woman's store remember Neiman Marcus originally was a woman's store and they finally branched it out to taking men's clothes and now they even sell you an elephant if you wanted well now were all these members of the synagogues where they were Neiman's at that time reform were they all all the members of who?
were they more orthodox at that time or were they also members of temple even then? well now the members of the temple and the members of the orthodox over I couldn't tell you what percentage were which I understand up over here that very that a whole lot of the orthodox Jews went to the reformed Jews when Rabbi Lethwich opened the doors for them to come in. Was there any particular reason? Well, I think one of the reasons were because there was response reading in English and and this, that, and the other. And there was very few of them that could carry on in Hebrew all the way through like the old timers were.
Now, my mother used to, I used to go take my mother to the synagogue up over there. And during the holidays, she would stay there all day. And I said, well, honey, I can't even read a word. She said, I don't want you to read a word. I just want you to stay here, see. And she would cry like a baby, you know. She would read and cry and cry and read and read and cry. And she would get there early in the morning and stay there late at night. She was strictly, oh, well, I could read it all or not. It didn make any difference to her just so I was near her It doesn mean that because I haven parted through on it and I not a Jew I a Jew all the way through That's interesting.
Well, I know this up over here, that I have heard the Temple manual members say that by God, they can't hardly go to Temple no more. There's so many, oh, black Jews are coming in. They're going to have to push the walls out. Why did they not do it before Lefkowitz came? Because he's the only rabbi that- They had Rabbi Greenstein there. Rabbi Greenstein there was a- Greenberg. Greenberg was a very straight, down-the-line, reformed rabbi, I see. And he was there lying up over. And they finally-I don't know how they got rid of him, but nothing else. It was before my time, but- I don't know.
Either I was about eight or nine. But I know that they had him there. and there was a, there was just two, there was just two different sects there altogether. Well, then does that mean that some of the people that were in the farm temple were more traditional than some of the others? Was that it? Well, I don't think they knew anything about their Jewish religion until Dr. Leckwith came in. I'll tell you another thing that my mother says. in order for the Jews to get together they have to schmeiss them. What is that? Beat them? Whip them. When the Lord leans out of it they have to punish them and when they're punished when the World War I was on all the Jews were together because their son and our son were there too, see.
And in the World War II, even Sam Jr. was out there, and he met up with a national boy, some boy. His mother lived here in Dulles, see? I played poker with her. Huh? I played poker with her. Yeah, see, see. And so they all and when there was an emergency they were all Jews There wasn any line But just as soon as the emergency stopped You haven't got that on, huh? Just as soon as that emergency stopped, then most of them went differently. But now I think they're all getting more together. And as I understand it now, that the Temple of Manuel now never had baumitzrus, and they never had the things that the Orthodox Jews have, the Temple of Manuel or the Reformed Jews, let's say that, have gone down, have varied it.
I also have not gone out, but have revised their religion to take in other religions that were exactly their line, see, and to show them their teaching, see. And then I don't know of any, but there was, well, there was some Reform Jews have quit the Reform religion to come to the temple. And you're often, though. And come to the Orthodoxy. And one of them was Emil Kornblath. Did he grow up in Temple? No, he was a Reformed. Yeah, he was a Reformed. A Sunday school teacher, too. Yeah, yeah, he was a Reformed Jew. But he didn't like what they were doing. Now, Emil Kornblath.
Well, he married an Orthodox girl. Oh, that's girl, see. He didn't like what they were, something that they were doing or something, see. And so he went over to the orthodoxy. I don't know. Sometimes children bring you back and forward. I gave my children their chance to go to both. And they went to one, and then they decided they wanted to go to the other one. And so we went to the other one. So anything they wanted to do, I didn't push them either way. Now you'll notice that Morris Appalachian, his family comes from a real honest to God strictly Jewish family. And I remember they would take and kill geese and food and so forth and they would kosher And he being in the proletary business, he would put them in that cold storage vault, and they would get them out when they needed them, see.
And he was the president of the Tifrit Israel Congregation. Now, he has now his 50th anniversary. Now, he didn't go to the conservative to have his party. He went to the Temple of Emmanuel. Now, he jumped from the deepest Orthodox, bypassed the conservative, and heads up. But now we also find that a lot of the Jews belong to both temples, both the temple and the Orthodox. So I don't know that's to be a, what number does that, but I know that is a fact that some of them do. They belong to both on count of children. They. Foul and also belong to both. Yeah, yeah.
And some of the Jews quit the Jewish religion, too. And they become Catholics or Presbyterians or this, that, and the other. I do not care to name who I know. I don't know. And some of the Gentiles become Jews. Yeah, it was 50-50. And I remember... I remember... I married a Gentile. Ellen Augustine son married a Gentile Ellen Ratna and this girl took up the Jewish faith Do you find where some of the parents have been Jewish and they gone they converted do you find that they come back to Judaism? Have you found that? Oh, uh-oh. In any case? That I, since I hadn't been in that bracket of Bover, I don't know.
But I do know of some of the Jews that have gone out of the Jewish religion and have come Gentiles, and they have never come back. And the reason they did that is because they, if the Gentiles knew that they were Jews, they couldn't do any business with them. I didn't know anybody, but maybe they're strange. You know who he is. I know he is. Yeah, well, you know. Well, then you mentioned the Christian scientists that came back. You mentioned the Christian scientists that came back to Judaism. Yeah, some of the Christians will come back, yeah. But I don't know whether the Christians stay all together.
Now, right over here, now right here in this home, there is Gentiles living in this home. They've got homes in there. They've got rented in there. They did what? Gentile women and Gentile, and a Gentile woman living in here, and there's a And there's a Jewish man with married a Gentile wife living in here. Horowitz. Yeah, and so, and so I made a statement up over here, regardless this is a public place over here even if a fellow was black they would have to take him in Yes she came over here one day and she told me she says you know I Gentile and I been married to my husband 62 62 no 62 years And she says, that's the longest any Gentile's been with a Jew.
I said, well, you're wrong. I said, I have a cousin that's married to a Gentile and he's been married either 63 or 64 years. Are the kids Jewish or are they Gentile? do they practice judyism i don't imagine they're gentile because uh he wasn't very strict or went to any he was he was i tell you you know him my hair they call him monk i've heard of him uh what monk's her that's my first cousin his daddy and my daddy are brothers and he married a girl her name was Lil Woods and they met in a he played the trombone he had a band in Cycle Park and he played the trombone and she played the piano and that was a public dance hall and everybody went to it on certain nights Jews and Gentiles even just
to go there to listen to the music here in dallas yeah right across from the city park on irby street and they used to have a city band that used to come down there and play every night on irby street yeah that was not city park i used to be the used to be the main place around here but but now it's a hippie place what the honest little girl then tell me if you go there at nighttime you go i will get your head Well people are scared of the living They embrace Ambassador Hotel now It was a fancy place at one time Yeah
at one time Park Hotel Now, now, I don't know whether you've got to take all this or not. Maybe you have. It don't make much difference. We haven't said anything that isn't true. We haven't said anything that, well, we don't regret saying the pulver. We wouldn't predict going out and publish it, but I think that what you should do, a pulver, you should take it all together. Whoever edits the pulver, put it in the smooth language pulver, that would be rentable. Whenever a Jewish boy got engaged or wanted to get married, he always bought his rings from Clarence Winoman because he can get a better buy out of Clarence Winoman than he could from anybody else.
Clark Winnaman at that time. Mr. Clark there was a juror, and he would go along with the boys, and if the boy would come engaged and they didn't have a dime, he would get a ring anyhow, and he would let the boy pay the ring out as whenever he could. And so, so that's something good about him anyhow.