Full Transcript
I'm Nancy Youngerman. Today is January 2, 2012, and I'll be interviewing Sid Stahl and Ruth Andrus as the videotographer. And I'm going to start with asking Sid about his family and if he was born here, and if not, where, and his family, and if not, here, where? Yes, I was born here in Dallas. Born in South Dallas, August 28, 1933, And I had an older brother, younger brother, younger sister. My mother and dad grew up here. My younger brother passed away several years ago, but as did my parents, my older brother and younger sister still live here. And your parents? My parents, Louis and Sarah Stahl.
Dad was born in Poland. The mother was born in Lithuania. They immigrated to the United States, dad initially to New York, and then came to Dallas because an uncle was living here. Mother came here because of relatives here as well, a brother that was living here. They met at night school learning to speak English, and their English teacher ended up being a matchmaker, and that's how they met and married. And quite a few years later, when I was born in 1933, they were married in 1924. What did they do? What did your father do for a living? My dad was in the grocery business. Started off literally selling pickles off of a truck.
And then over the years ended up developing and owning and operating an institutional grocery business I want to say institutional by that means selling to schools and colleges and institutions as opposed to retail grocery or to grocery stores And my old brother went into business with my dad, and I was supposed to, but things worked out. Unfortunately for Dad, he had a very bad year, one year, and I remember very well he was saying to me, son, maybe you ought to consider something other than going into the grocery business. And were it not for that, I probably never would have become a lawyer. Unfortunately, I'm becoming a lawyer.
Interesting. Where did you live? I lived in South Atlas, Wendell Street. And then they were going to Colonial Hill Elementary. Would have gone to what was then, of course, having high school. But in 1946, a family moved to Holland Park. So I went to Holland Park High School, through High School, and then SMU for both undergraduate school and law school. What did you do after high school? You went straight to college? There wasn't a service that you went into? No, I did go into the service. I spent two unhappy years in the Air Force, but it was after law school I was able to receive a deferment and not have to go into the service until after I graduated law school.
And happily for me, I was after Korea and before Vietnam, so no one was killing each other at the time that I was in the service. Spent two frustrating years at Lackland Air Force Base in San Antonio. When did you get married? Got married first time between my second and third year And that's when Mary and Judy showed me. At that time, that would have been 1955, I think. And that marriage lasted about 20 25 years Well that a victory in itself Yes absolutely Your Jewish affiliations during childhood do you belong to a synagogue How were you involved? We belong to Sheriff Israel. And I think at one point, even before Sheriff Israel, I think it was to Ferith Israel, And my armistole was at Deferreth Israel in South Dallas.
And then subsequent to that, I think, is when the family became affiliated with Sheriff Israel and remained affiliated. And Dad was very, very active. At the time, the Sheriff Israel developed its current hold on Douglas in North Dallas. and dad was very, very involved in building a committee and fundraising for that. And still may attain the membership there. But now also affiliated with Temple of Mag. Well, I spent most of my time at Temple of Mag. At Temple of Mag. Were you connected with AZA or organizations? Yes. Jewish organizations? I was very active in AZA and was a regional officer, district president, national officer, and was very active in that throughout the high school years and into the early college years, and together with Arnold Sweet, we created a new ACA chapter here in Dallas as well.
And that was a very, very active and meaningful experience for me. I didn't realize Arnold Sweet went to SME if you might test it again. Yes, went to SME. your working career, have you been involved with anything besides being a lawyer, an attorney? And I'm kind of, this is a leading question, because I know you have. And I thinking right now of city council Yes I going to probably give you a longer answer than what you really looking for No no no no But I have been active in the Jewish community, particularly the Jewish community center and the Jewish Federation, and through that with the CRC, the Community Relations Council of the Federation.
At the time, that Julius Sheps was the chairman of the Community Relations Council, and he got me very involved, and I just had a world of respect for him. And coincidentally, that was at a period of time when the whole nation was experiencing a lot of racial tensions and racial riots. Detroit, Watts, Newark, other places we were concerned about that here. And that led to, to make a very, very long story short, it led to the creation of the Human Relations Commission here in Dallas to try to improve race relations, intergroup relations between Anglo and black and Hispanic communities would prevent Dallas from experiencing the race riots that some of the other cities had.
That's what really got me involved in the larger community, which then led to being on the park board and the president of the park board of the city council for a couple of terms. Did you experience any anti-Semitism ever? Yes, but only when I was very elementary school age, when I used to be beat up regularly or chased home from school. Is that up? Oh, sure. Yeah, absolutely. I don't think I could walk to school in the morning I always had to run home because I was always chased home, sometimes caught. It was not a fun time. In the wrong way. That's right. And also going to SMU.
SMU did not experience any discrimination at all. Quite the contrary. It was just the opposite. It was a very open and a member of Jewish fraternity and still tried to maintain strong Jewish connections. Happily free of any kind of discrimination. Where did you meet your first wife and your second wife? How did you meet? My first wife, Judy, we met through different kinds of social and set of type of activities. And she lived in San Antonio and had been educated at the University of Texas in Austin. And we met and married and had two wonderful children, Dory and Kathy. and that marriage lasted for about 25 years, and we were divorced in 1974, if I don't remember correctly.
And several years later, I had, as a result of my activities with the Community Relations Commission, I had been invited to participate in a program at Channel 13 KE RATV They were sponsoring a town hall program I was invited to be with a committee that was going to try to organize a town hall program that would bring together not so many civic leaders, but rank-and-file community leaders and community to talk about how Anglos and African Americans and Hispanics can improve race relations in Dallas. And Jim Lehrer and Lee Cullen were the two people who were putting this program together and organized a committee of a dozen people, and I happened to be one.
One other person on the committee happened to be Susan, who I met Mary. Susan had been very active and involved in the staff member for the Goals for Dallas program. And it was in that capacity that she was invited also to be on this child health program, the child health routine. And that's how we met and became acquaintances several years later, married. Who were or are your role models growing up and even now? Well Julius Schatz was most definitely one of the main role models growing up in Dallas and particularly at that point in time when I had already finished college and was trying to really get settled in life and in the community and raise a family And I would say that he was probably the number one role model.
Is there anything you'd like to add or conclude with this interview? You've got an interest in life. Well, I have. I've been blessed. I've been blessed in many, many ways. But my only regret is that it seems like maybe it's because I'm out of the mainstream now where I feel like I am, that the community has grown so much, and the Jewish community in Dallas has grown so much. And I feel that we're probably not as close. As a community? As a community. We're too big now. We're too large. There are so many synagogues, so many temples, and everything that it's really hard to maintain the kind of relationships that happened for so many years But I think that normal and natural and that OK There nothing wrong with it at all Temple Emanuel is like a community itself And so I think that's where you get that sense of community.
But I don't think we can reach it in that way. Exactly. And I still maintain membership at Sheriff Israel, but spend more time at Temple Emanuel. I don't know. Some committees there and all. But you go to services more regularly there. but I still feel like when I walk into, was there a couple of Friday nights ago, and who are all these people? There's a small group that I know, and that's probably maybe 20% of the most, and there are 8% of the people there I don't know. Your children live here? Yes. Lucky you. Yes, very lucky. And grandchildren? Grandchildren, three grandchildren. The oldest is freshman at the University of Texas in Austin, Will, and his younger brother Charlie is junior, president of his class at St.
Mark's, and my granddaughter, Sarah, who will be 16 in about a week, is just life by life. She's precious. Well, thank you. Thank you very much. Thank you very much. Ruth, do you have anything you want to ask? Yeah.
