Sandy Kuntz
Sandy was born in 1933 in Butler, Pennsylvania, about 30 miles from Pittsburgh, during the Depression, and spent cherished time with her grandparents. She remembered her grandmother baking her own challah, making noodles and gefilte fish, and her grandfather, a farmer, who died of a bleeding ulcer around the start of the war. Her father, born in 1900, was raised along with his three sisters by his mother in West Leechburg after his father disappeared on a trip to Pittsburgh for grapes and was never found. Sandy grew up in New Brighton, Pennsylvania, where her parents ran a tavern until her father had to sell it for his health. She attended Penn State for two years and later trained as a medical secretary in Pittsburgh.
Sandy met Sydney at a swimming pool where young Jewish people gathered, and they married on January 26, 1958. Sydney, from Poland, had been conscripted into the Polish army at 17, captured by the Germans, and escaped, eventually making a harrowing journey through Budapest to Gibraltar, where he boarded the last American ship to reach New York. He lost his parents and most of his family in the Holocaust, surviving along with two brothers and two sisters out of thirteen children. Sydney became a kosher butcher in Ohio, where their three children were born. In 1975, seeking a Jewish community for their children and facing a declining butcher business, the family moved to Dallas after buying an ice cream franchise called Zips.
In Dallas, Sandy held various jobs, including work with Southwest Research and the Dallas County Democratic Party, where she served as a volunteer coordinator during Ann Richards's campaigns for governor. Her deepest pride, alongside her children, was her involvement at the Jewish Community Center. She served four years on the senior board, including as president, and six years on the JCC board, helping guide the organization through a difficult reorganization when it nearly closed. She volunteered for the bagel run, sales, and Israeli Independence Day events, and became a volunteer grandmother for the preschool. After Sydney passed away, the JCC remained a haven for her. She was honored with a senior plaque and a Leader of the Year award.
Full Transcript
tell me about your involvement with the Jewish community this is my pride and joy besides my kids when we moved to Dallas we live down on webb chapel and walnut hill and because the store was on northwest highway and my son was getting into the group with the wrong kids so I said to Sydney one day take him up to the JCC and get him involved in a za so he did and he was one of the founders of burger aza and which was great and then when Sydney was retired he started here at the j I was still working so I couldn't I couldn't
come up but once I retired I came up and I started exercising naturally and then one of the gals that I exercised with said to me after about a year why don't you run for the senior board message I don't even know anybody you know she's well you'd be a good person so I ran and I lost and so the next year Sydney with placards on each one of the tables on Thursday when we have our big net and vote for Sandy and i won so I was on the board for a few years and then then I became president and that year the following
year I became a member of the JCC board I was on the JCC board for six years and the senior board for four years because I changed the constitution of the senior board cuz it was I felt it was time for somebody else but well I was on the board even if I wasn't on the board I was active in all the activities I volunteered for the bagel run for we used to have a pant sale you know in Israeli Independence Day whatever there was I volunteered because I enjoy doing it and I also volunteer to become a grandmother for the preschool which I still
am and I don't know I just I like being here that and then when Sydney passed away yeah this was a this was a haven and I think that's what a lot of the seniors do they come here they have the lunch they meet with folks you know and go on the trips and whatever so and then so i retired from both the board both wards i was given two plaques which are the senior plaque and the leader of the year award and when you were serving either one thing that really stood out that you guys accomplished that you really are proud of ya when
i was on the JCC board was when we the JCC was about to close his doors and it was a tough time it really was and then i went through the reorganization period and now thank goodness we're on solid ground but those days were tough they were tough because we didn't know if the staff was going to get paid sandy yeah 1975 you move the Dallas but you're still a Pittsburgh Steeler fan absolutely how does that work in this town it tough especially if the cowboys are winning in my steelers aren't but since my steelers win most of the time there's no problem it's a
little bit easier for yes but if the Cowboys ever played the Steelers didn't I have a problem here dejay none of my friends care because most of them are not devout Cowboy fans yeah Utah boys what it's good yes I mean they're Fairweather friends yeah now you also went to the World Series when the Pittsburgh beat the Yankees in 1960 yes tell me about that it was great I was out I took my mother because my husband couldn't go and we had the seats up in the right field if you've ever been to Forbes Field it's great but anyway we're in the right field and
we look down we saw a roberto clemente and it was a sad day because we got clobbered but the next day is when mazeroski hit the home run so i didn't care so you were at Game six yeah we were a game six so they almost put a 10 when you were there I know but it wasn't to be but that's okay i went i had the scorecard and I guess during the time I moved and married and whatever it's gone I know and also I've to tell you we after we got married we took our kids to the baseball game we're still at Forbes
Field and that's when Gibson threw a no hitter from st. Louis from st. Louis yes and my kids were bored because there were no hits nothing but towards about the sixth inning everybody in the stands we're rooting for him to throw a no-hitter sure it was very unusual better anyway how was that went threw the no-hitter anyways grim the Pittsburgh fans were yes yes they really were Pittsburgh Pittsburgh fans are terrific and if you look all over the United States you'll find Pittsburgh fans waiting for the Pirates in the stairs hockey team too what year was having Bob Gibson through that no here oh gosh I had to be early 60s let's go back ok team 33 Butler Pennsylvania
yes long time ago yes happy birthday today thank you tell me about what life was like when you're just a little girl actually in Butler it was it was really great course that was the time of depression and my folks lived with my grandparents who I have to tell you were fantastic my Bubbe baked her own hallows made her own noodles made her own to tilt the fish she was really of all of us and my grandfather my Zeta made to fill in every day and since my mother was the oldest of her sisters I was the oldest grandchild and I just a favor of
course and it was nice we lived in a little town Cutler Pennsylvania which is near where it's about 30 miles out of Pittsburgh bring that away and it was nice and then as I grew up I would come back for the summers because there are a lot of kids on the street and we would all play and across the cross from my grandparents house was this vacant lot and we would play war games and all kinds of things and there was a little stream that we agree I mean it was a little time and it was great what did your grandfather do for a living
in a farm and he said sadly well he had a bleeding ulcer and that's what he died from and he died just at the beginning of the war and of course his his cattle net could have he could have done very well but he didn't he passed away yeah what about your grandparents on the other side I have great-great grandparents my father's mother raised three girls in my father by herself in West leechburg Pennsylvania which you can find it on the map she made a bootleg wine my grandfather one day drove into Pittsburgh to get grapes they never came back we don't know what what
happened to him we never know so my grandmother who had a tavern raised the three girls and my father by herself who is this oh gosh well my father was born in nineteen hundred the girls were all younger had three sisters so sometime in the early 1900s and yeah no trace no never no and it's amazing my grandmother was about 4 foot 8 and the tavern was located right over the right on the hill overlooking this big train terminal so every morning the people would stop and have their refreshments and go on to work and the same thing my parents had a tavern and it
was the same thing in new brighton pennsylvania where we lived it was they had a cavern it anyway it's very interesting about my grandparents now let me ask you did your folks I know you know when you had to get older of course understand what did you folks that i'll talk to you about the depression and what it was like for the family no they never did because my father worked for my grandfather and they lived they lived with my grandparents I really not sure what he did with the poor my grandfather I'm really not sure because you know for a year my parents we
looked and nobody knew they were married except their best friends so it was he lived somewhere and my mother lived with her folks anyway it was very unusual but they were married it they were married were they just afraid to tell everybody they got yes well because my mother was only 19 and my father was 10 years older and finally my grandmother found out and she had a rabbi marry them to make sure you know so but it was I and then after they really after they got married then they moved to New Brighton Pennsylvania where we I grew up your folks have that restaurant
tavern for a long time then yes they had it oh gosh I was in I went to college when they had to sell it because the doctor told my father either solid or die because of the heart because it they opened it up at seven o'clock in the morning and it went till two o'clock in the evening because Pennsylvania has blue laws which go to high school right in high school it was high school life like it was okay uh thinking back I probably could have done more but I enjoyed I enjoyed it I went to the games and you know and was active in
basketball and girls basketball which at that time was different the defense was here in the offense was here was divided by half Rho court oh wow yeah it was very different that girls basketball at that time before you went to high school World War two came out yeah when you were small child yes what was that like for the family it was I remember taking my little red wagon with my brother and taking newspapers to school and also I remember the stamps do we were on stamps everybody had stamps for you know your food gas Russia's ration yeah rationing stamps and my father was a
member of the Liquor Control Board and he could have made a lot of money but he didn't he says he's not going to do that because people would say Joe want to buy a couple cases of liquor and stored in your basement in low and my father wouldn't do that it was a very honest man and but it was very unusual I remember home from school we walked nobody wrote nobody's parents drove you to school you walked and I remember we just I stopped at the little grocery store on my way home for lunch mate and that and so I got my little bit of
lunch meat and whatever and you know neat and nobody we didn't drive our car I mean on Sunday we would drive to either one of my grandparents I mean that was it did you drive your car anywhere because you couldn't get the gas what did you get your first car after I got married after you were married already yes because when I worked after I graduated I worked in Pittsburgh as a medical secretary I went to Penn State for two years and then I came to Pittsburgh and went to what is now Point Park junior college but at that point it was called business training
college and I became a medical secretary technician so you Penn State for your first two years yes and then you transfer to to get your degree in and well medical secretary secretary okay so where did you meet your husband my friend rose and I drove up to New England states in the summertime and did all the things that Shakespeare and fisting festival and all those things and then we went to New York for a day now you're out of school already working yes I'm working and so we came home and that saturday we went out to the swimming pool where all the young Jewish people
would go right and so rose and I were sitting on our blanket just resting because we had driven from New York and this fella was blanket hopping and so he eventually he made it over to us and we visit we said yeah we're really tired you know whatever so he was on his way up to the Catskills so the following Saturday here comes this fellow again hopping along and this time so we visited and everything and he asked us out and on Saturday if you didn't have a date your own except saturday afternoon but I had a date so is no me I said if
you want a date call me so monday he called me three months later we were engaged in three months after that we were married so we actually met at the at the swimming pool now giving your folks background of getting married and not telling anybody they had to be very pleased that you were announcing this well actually they didn't know Sidney until until we were engaged I lived with his family in Pittsburgh I lived up on the third floor and paid fifteen dollars a week room and board you working the time I was working for three doctors on Forbes street in Pittsburgh and then I
work for one doctor cuz three doctors will kuya and one doctor was dr. Stanley Rosenblum and he was fantastic just terrific he would make house calls in the morning go to the hospital come to our office he had ours was the big office where I did x rays and lab work and everything then he had a small office on his street where he charged people three dollars I was working there and I lived with his family in squirrel hill and it was great because she was a caterer and so I had great meals in early but I took the bus to work and then when I started dating Sydney one time there was a bus strike in Pittsburgh he
left me one of his cars and I drove the car but I never had a car of my own until we got married Sydney comes from Poland yes and he was in the Polish army okay it was conscripted at a young age of 17 and they didn't have basic training like we do anyway so he was thrown into the service handed a rifle and a good pair of boots and went into battle and of course the polish army never went forward they only knew to go backwards I was captured by the Germans and he and one of his friends were in the same company and
so they were in like the boxcar it's a different box car than the Jews were in any way they came to an area where they recognized they were going to Germany and they recognized the area so somehow or another they got off out of there they had machine guns on every other car but they rolled into a ditch and they were ok and he went back to his hometown of Nova sonj and he was there for a few months because he had blond hair blue eyes and his name was couldn't so he could travel around a little bit but eventually the neighbors started talking so
he and his friend decided to go down to get out of there and one of his brothers here in the United States had papers for him in Jimmy in Switzerland but he couldn't go to Switzerland so he had to go to Gibraltar so they went night and day during the day they slept or hid and then they went during the day at night they traveled and when they got the Budapest there was a family that knew them and so what they did they were put into like a camp but it was like a not a prisoner of war camp at a relocation or whatever camp
and they got them out of there and got them papers to go on the train to go to Gibraltar so they got to Gibraltar eventually and the last American ship was leaving and so they were able to get on the ship and he hid down in the bottom where the coal furnaces and everything were captain said once you're on an American ship they can't do anything about it anyway so he gets to New York where he has a sister and he gets a job of some sort and he goes the night school to learn English so he stayed there until he knew his English then
he moved to Wert in west virginia where he had the brother and he worked in his brothers grocery store as a meat cutter net and once he was able to really communicate he joined the army the American army but they kept them here in the States because he had been a prisoner of war and they wouldn't send him back so he saw it and naturally he became a citizen of the United States but yoni was in the is in the Army for about a year or so because then the war was over for him and you know whatever but it was his story was really
something because he a grassy you know we're scared of it scared of everybody here was a young man then when he was in New York when he had walked down the street past a hotel where they had the doorman with the uniform he was afraid that he would be sent to jail or sent to somewhere I mean and many times when we personal married he would wake up with nightmares and he were talking to sleep in Polish so I couldn't understand them but it was it took a long time we couldn't see any movies concerning the war or anything I mean or any killing because
it brought back a lot T when he was home after was capturing everything his sister who had a little baby was walking down the street with him and the German captain grabbed a baby and hit it up against the wall he had many many stories of different atrocities that happened you know and when he came here to the United States nobody believed him it was uh it was that baby killed yes baby dying here seeing your baby being turned up against the wall being killed it was just there was nothing they could do no and this this guard Heyman had this dog who if when
they were walking on the street and the sidewalk if you didn't get off that he would SiC the dog on people I mean and these are all things that Sidney saw and the it loose family in the camps oh yeah oh yeah he lost his parents and all the aunts and uncles and everything the only ones he had left he had max and Maury two brothers and and he had Frida and Ray his two sisters out of 13 out of 13 kids and they were all here in the United States so that's why they were ok but everybody else in the family was gone I
say you're safe for all of them because there's nobody else and he kept saying why was I you know and I said well God had a reason for you maybe it was to meet me and have three kids and maybe our grandchildren will do something fantastic you don't know why there was a reason why you of all people were saved you know it's just one of those things you gotta believe when did you guys get married january twenty six nineteen fifty eight and then what would it what did sydney do he was a kosher butcher and stupid ohio he had his owners own store and
so where did you guys settle down and we're can which is across the river and then where were your children born they were born in still ohio the hospital there because our doctor was from Salerno and so what brought you to Dallas we bought a franchise an ice cream franchise called zips Zi peasy now how did you come up with that idea you leave he has his own butcher business and you buy an ice cream franchise in Dallas well what happened he was the only kosher butcher in a tri-state area and what happened the big stores the A&P and whatever came in with the mutt
TSA's and with the deli and and also the people got old and they moved to Florida and the young kids went away to college and with the grocery stores handling the delicatessen and the matzo zanette our business went downhill class effect I needed some place for my kids to go to school there was only Bethany which is a small school in West Virginia or wvu and I wanted them to go to someplace where there were Jews because I was active in the sisterhood in the pro end now all that so we wanted to go to Arizona but somebody already had the franchise so we pick
downs how long did you have that franchise four years and then because the shopping center went zoom downhill and then I work for Southwest Research I was the hired folks to do the research and different places or you know do the interviewing and things like that and did that for about six years and then I got laid off so I went down the unemployment office and thought for unemployment which I didn't collect very long because I got a job in the Dallas County Democratic Party office it was a time when Ann Richards was running for governor and I worked on that campaign and then when
she went to a second time I also what was that like all of a sudden working on a political campaign it was fun it really was I met so many people it was just we are the office at that time was in the Turley building on central I don't know we had people from you know South Dallas west allis east dallas north dallas and i met loads and loads of people and i really enjoyed it it was I had a great time because i was a volunteer coordinator I got the meet everybody and it just had a great time and was a great staff really
was in Richards she was terrific to us she was really great she knew everybody and she thanked everybody and and we knew she was an alcoholic and she went to the AAA meetings whenever she would say where's there a meeting you know and everything and she was terrific and I met her daughter Cecile and I walked the bridge when she was going after she was elected with her it was it was a great it was a great time working on their camp pain and when she was elected governor it had to be such euphoria it was it really was it was just you know and
the thing of it is we knew before the ballots were the final tally that she had won because of the early voting was the happiest time in your life when my kids were born now in Dallas what it Sidney get into well we had our we had our ice cream parlor and then he worked for cycle mississauga was a caterer but her husband had this used office furniture and so Sydney went to work for him and then he went over to somebody on harry hines who else they were sold office furniture because he was a tremendous salesman great salesman certain invention in your lifetime that
you really took notice of when it came out they went Wow how do we get along without this television I remember my father sitting in our living room with this little black and white TV and I'm saying little and he would have his little tray you know TV tray and that's where he would eat his dinner and he would watch captain video captain video was in space and I thought I mean we offered who is going to go to space and then you know then all of a sudden comes where we're traveling to space I mean I think the TV was the first thing in
my lifetime now the kids have a completely different thing but the TV I think there's something it just was amazing now in your lifetime you lived through so many momentous occasions World War two which of course you remember Kennedy assassination here in Dallas so good the moon landing the first time in 69 course the tragedy of 911 yeah was there something on the national scene that really stood out that affected you that went while I know exactly where I was would it happen the Kennedy assassination I knew exactly where I was I was I had Annette my first and we were in the living room
and I was watching TV of course with her and all of a sudden I saw Walter Cronkite and he said the president's been shot because that was the first right and so I called up Sidney right away and I said turn on your radio the president has been shot and for the next few days and then the funeral I don't know it just that just was burned in my image and I really did not like Dallas Texas I can assure you that it was it was not a pleasant thought about Dallas I mean the people of course weren't responsible but it was the stigma of
the assassination yeah and then you came to Dallas about nine years later everything's changed yes oh yes no and it's lovely i love here i have many many many friends and of course they're all from brooklyn or other parts of New York but anyway now you have in Sydney had two girls and a boy how they are they done my son is here okay with two little ones ten and six and my one daughter is in Atlanta she has a 2-1 in one each and they're both in college as a matter of fact my grandson goes to the University of Texas because all three of
my kids went to the University of Texas and my other daughter lives in Spokane Washington she has two girls and a boy she's married to a rabbi my kids are all good they all married within the faith I took my three granddaughters on a cruise last year out of Galveston well I never get to see them because they're all in college or here or there so I took my three granddaughters on the Galveston and pro week and we hit a ball what advice does grandma want to leave to those and grandkids in the next generation be healthy to be happy and lived by the Ten
Commandments you did a great job that would thanks for doing this thing it's my pleasure