Sol Wald

Full Transcript

today is Friday January the 14th 2011 my name is Clint Reisner I will be conducting this interview our subject of the interview is mr. Saul wall and the place of the interview is at the JCC Jewish Community Center of Dallas and mr. wall I am going to let you begin with your reading of it I would like to preface this entire situation by giving a bit of an insight as to how where and why and under what circumstances I happen to be ensconced on this planet and I'm going to read from the very beginning of my autobiography fact is stranger than fiction the story of my life the statement that is often made by people under the most trying of circumstances and sometimes when facing the ultimate devout demise is that their entire life flashes before their eyes since I have been either blessed or cursed with what has

been considered a better-than-average memory I find myself with the ability almost perpetually to recall the past most of the time in vivid color and surround sound although this condition certainly keeps me from being bored it nevertheless does call me to sometimes wonder if perhaps my circumstances are more trying that I perceive them to be or it is is it that my ultimate demise is nearer nearer that I would want it to be either way food-for-thought can be disconcerting now that they're above hopefully pertinent information has been made available for all to see and to absorb in varying degrees of perplexity I will try to recall

to condense to put into words on the printed page the interesting and sometimes unbelievable portions of a yellow brick road that is more than 90 years long this journey could start with hope it was a dark and dreary night because it was in fact a dark and dreary night and a very cold night of thought it was winter it was Moscow it was Russia it was March 19 1920 and it was soon after the Revolution and almost everyone was revolting if I have been given a choice I would have at least chosen another place if not another time the Communists were in power so obviously

there was very little food or heat or transportation actually the only reason for having been born into these conditions is that my mother was there my parents and my sister who was eight-years over the night we're living in a furnished apartment that there was about three blocks from the Kremlin in Moscow now the stage is all set for my arrival my mother tells my father that it is time to go to the hospital for delivery as she leaves my sister faint with a neighbor my father goes to fight a horse-drawn sled a taxi which takes about an hour to locate and to die rent to

the apartment at this point one was note that the telephone was not used to call for a yellow cab although there was actually a telephone in the hall of the apartment house there would have been no way to call the driver who would have been standing somewhere on a street next to his horse and warming his hands over a steel drum with fire in his belly the fire in the driver's belly was due to vodka and if it were possible to call for transportation or anywhere else for that matter the telephone would have been out of order anyway when the three of us entered the

dimly lit cold hospital my parents were informed that there could not have been a worse time for a delivery says there was no heat in the hospital my parents were told that although my mother's life could be sustained under heavy quilts a newborn would not survive the bitter cold below freezing temperature in the hospital without heat they were told that Heath could be provided if water coal was brought to the hospital to burn in the delivery room firmus says the hospital had run out of all fuel what was being experienced was the communist law of supply and demand the Communists demanded that all of the

supply went to the Communist Party what to do obviously my father had no wood or cold and there was no place to get these items especially at midnight without elaborating on a good story let it suffice that on a dark and very cold night some resident of Moscow who lived close to the hospital who lost his ward fence if caught stealing offence that punishment would have been death by firing squad as you have guessed the wood burned and I was born that night my parents gave me life twice I survived and the rest is as they say history that is classic Thank You mr. wall now we're going to proceed with the interview and first we're going to talk about your family your parents where when were you born how did you happen to settle in Dallas what did your parents do for a living mr.

wall what was it what did you what did your parents do for a living oh this is your family tell me about your family your parents where when were you born and how did you happen to settle in Dallas and what did your parents do for a living well I have informed you of my very earliest time on earth at that point there was no recognition between the United States and Russia so there was no legal way to get to the United States my father who was extremely vocal in his hate for communism was not a very welcome person in communist Russia he was before

we left Russia he was arrested for his views he was taken to the infamous Moscow prison called booty Rica he was tortured he was beaten this was supposed to be an interrogation and we thought we would never see my father again and it was a wonderful feeling to have him brought back to us even though the conditions for his return were a little stringent he was pissed off like a sec of potatoes off a flatbed truck the following morning at least we had him back with so plans were being made to leave Russia in one way or another it was either that or the firing

squad enlisting the aid of a high-ranking Communist official who wanted to defect he is the one who devised the plan that if my parents families in the United States would deposit a sum of money with his relatives on the outskirts of Berlin Germany he after leaving Russia penniless because they never allow him to take any money on a government trip that he would be taking when he would be advised that the package from America had arrived he would be able to get us a visitor's visa to Cuba which would be as close as he could get us to the United States that's how we happen

to wind up in Havana and we probably would have remained there if my father hadn't become very ill in Havana the Cuban doctors didn't have a clue as to what to do for him he was close to death and it was imperative that he were somehow would be able to get to the United States for treatment meeting some people through newly formed friends in Cuba were put in touch with a certain Central American Council who had a little business going on the side smuggling people into the United States he got us into the United States the reason we came to Dallas is because although there

were relatives of my parents in New York in Atlanta in New Orleans all of these places were ruled out for one reason or another some of them because they were port cities and the government was always looking for both jumpers so it was safer to be inland and since one of my mother's brothers was living in Dallas with his wife and daughter Dallas was chosen as our place so this how we wound up in Dallas and the next question I believe was what did my parents do for a living in Russia Oh in Russia yes oh well that's very interesting because having been what the

Communists classified as a guru II which is a self-employed money-making individual which is outlawed from the beginning he had to make a living for his family but he wasn't allowed to work anymore because of his former status well he had to make a living somehow so he devised a business it's odd to report that two of the most desirable items that he could get to sell in Moscow were unbelievably lighter Flint's which were not available and so he need us now these items were chosen because they were very small and very light and they could be imported as a piece of mail from Germany and

from Poland and he was certainly not allowed to import anything oh this was a crime and these items had to be delivered to the to his clientele in Moscow and the form of delivery reads like a fairy tale his transportation was a bicycle and he was an expert cyclist from his very early years my sister by them was seven eight nine years old when this enterprise was going on and she had a big beautiful dog which doesn't sound like an interesting fact but he develops into something quite interesting my father used to make his deliveries to his clientele by bicycle my sister would write on

the reel and luggage carrier of the bicycle she carried her dog always because the doll was the cash register the warehouse for the items that he was selling was the pillow on which she was sitting on the luggage carrier on the bicycle and she was well trained for delivery purposes and she was a very bright child all the way through her later years she had a wonderful mind she was trained and she was trained to be a deterrent to possible arrest and conviction because the money that was collected by the sale of these goods that he now had an opening in the back and the

money would be carried in the in the doll's torso and Fay was supposed to cry loudly and scream if anybody even touched her doll which would have been the way a child would react if a stranger grabbed the dog this one for several years until it became impossible to continue without being found out so that was the early beginning of it after that when that enterprise came to an end one of the reasons it came to an end is because my dad was beginning to attract attention with these daily rides on the bicycle always with the child in the back and he put a bunch

of hooks around the Kent luggage carrier and hung a bunch of home items like pots plants frying plants that kind of thing as if he was moving to some other location to not raise the specter of possibly being arrested with merchandise it was quite an institution the fact is and I'm sure that people who hear this biography might even recognize the name of Sergey Koussevitzky who was and still is after his death a well-known figure in worldwide music he was a conductor he left Moscow he left Russia under the guise of a world tour to spread communist music the world over all he wanted was

to get out of Russia he never came back he was allowed to actually own an apartment a very modern apartment by the standards of the day my father who would by then a mess quite a bit of money with his underground operation bought his apartment we moved in to a fantastic apartment on the govision CPD who look which was the terminology for a side street just off Disgaea moolissa which was the main artery in that area and that's where we lived from the time right after my birth until I was nine years old and we left God forsaken communist Russia so what was your neighborhood

like in Moscow which neighborhood in the apartment oh it was fantastic I to this day I don't quite understand how he wasn't apprehended for even buying their apartment now what was my daddy involved in after the bicycle operation he met a gentleman who was a chemist the chemist was forced under the terminology of hired by the communist government to develop a chemical in used in the production of peace goods wool wool material a very caustic chemical product that was used in the manufacture of wool material for the purposes of cleaning the fiber from which it was made and the communist government was paying him for

his work in this cave like factory no heat dirt floor and he knowing that my dad needed to be involved in something that would they would they could make a living out of he hired my father as an assistant chemist in his operation the father had no knowledge at all of chemistry but the government needed the services of this friend of my father's they didn't question my father's inability to be self functioning in this endeavor and they actually produced a lot of good chemicals and both of them used to burn up the clothing with this constant exposure to the caustic elements of the chemist of

the chemicals and that's what we were involved in my family was involved in until the day we lived so you lived in a nice neighborhood of Moscow there for the last nine years yes the apartment was fantastic it was on the third floor of this apartment building central steam heat a tremendous attic where people actually were able to hang their laundry for drying purposes sometimes they were brought into the house like steel sheets because they froze in the attic and had to be thought out of after they were brought into their apartment that was not much of a handicap by comparison let's get back to

Moscow as a child what did you do for amusement there those nine years the children especially my age group children of all ages as a matter of fact were outside summer winter spring and fall because at that point it was considered mandatory the children were out in the fresh air as much as possible there was a churchyard a block and a half away that had a tremendous churchyard and it was constantly full of kids all sorts of games some of them were stupid enough to lick a metal post with their with their tongue and they would immediately become permanently attached they would have to be

separated by dripping warm water to separate them from from metal post as many times as they were told not to they always wanted to experiment so that that was the entertainment of course during the summers who always left Moscow and went usually through the Black Sea the Crimea for two or three months there was a wonderful vacation I for one enjoyed every minute of it what's the next question this was regarding amusement so you know went to a lot of movies very early movies of course concerts concerts every everyone is aware of the Bolshoi Theatre the word Bolshoi merely means big so the big theater

in Moscow yes we had been there on some occasions the entertainment that we enjoyed the most is the proximity of family which obviously will lost that portion of it my father had brought his sister brother-in-law and their four children to Moscow from Poland and they were a wonderful group of people we enjoyed each other's company honestly and we had my father's father there my grandfather and it was heartbreaking to leave those family members when we had to leave Russia entertainment by and large with what you made for yourself I just had a flashback I had several friends about my age in in Moscow and our

entertainment was stopped short by the police department there because there was a great big wooden fence across the street from our apartment and we decided that by the use of magnifying glasses and involving the Rays of the Sun who could burn anything with water - into the fence and I suppose these days people would call it graffiti but we pretty well burned the heck out of that fence over appearance that's entertainment excellent you know the entertainment of course ice-skating I was thinking of that more as sport than his entertainment but it certainly qualifies yes I became a pretty good skater by time I was nine

years old and darn good at skiing and one of my favorite endeavors in the cold of winter that beautiful cathedral that everybody is aware of in Moscow that was built by Eve on Grozny when he was the the Czar of Russia which as a sidebar is probably known by a lot of people that he used a German orchid for that construction and that no sooner than that beautiful cathedral was completed he had the architects eyes removed so he would never be able to know where oh there are wonderful people so you became a very good ice skater then yes a matter of fact that led

to my instructor skating at the Dallas Ice Arena when it opened in 1941 mr. wall let's go to the area of Education tell me about your experiences in school in Russia where activities your interest your grade school your high school what did you do after high school or college where when and what did you study I can sum that up rather easily in the first place my education education was constantly interrupted sometimes children in this country might lose a half a grade or be set back temporarily and because of a change in schools because of a change of cities and states my changes were not only curriculum they were changes in culture language and everything else it was like taking

a fish out of water and dropping it into something else and every time I changed locales I lost the great I thought I would be an old man before that out of grammar school because I lost over ego in the first place in Russia school started at age seven at six I was a year behind before I ever got started then I lost a year in Havana I lost a year in the United States and it was hard to make all that up now in Russia in grade school what was it like I was curious lunches consisted of mostly potatoes dark I did not see

a piece of white bread until I was nine years old and that was in Riga Latvia on the way away from Russia because all the bread I ever saw was dark bread and in school fed Russian pumpernickel which was full of sawdust as a filler had to constantly pick pieces of wood splintering out from between teeth but their belief was that says wood comes from a plant it ought to be edible so we had quite a bit of that and cabbage soup was a staple but it was more water than anything else it was always pink because they put it a little bit of tomatoes

in it and it was not a balanced diet that's for sure I was always thankful for my mother's wonderful cooking ability so you left Russia when you were in about the second grade right yes second or third grade what did you go to high school well in the first place when we came to Dallas oh and I must inject this bit we went through hell as illegal aliens in the United States for fourteen years were afraid to be found out were in constant fear of deportation what years worth us 31 through 45 there was 14 years of pure misery one will finally got our first

automobile in 1937 which was they used 1935 Ford and I was the only driver in the family I was absolutely in constant fear of going through a stop sign possibly running a red light or what's even worse being involved in the fender bender which would take a police investigation and that this is really an oddity in my life I was Warhol in deathly fear of being in the company of any law enforcement individual being always fearful of being found out for 14 years and what was the business I wound up in police supply and equipment okay so where it was the most enjoyable business I

could have ever been okay now back to your high school years did you go to high school in the United States yes Forest Avenue High School Dallas touch okay and what units were those 35 through 39 35 to 39 and you graduated from high school graduated from high school and when you graduated from high school and did you do after graduation couldn't wait to get a job that would pay me something from which I could subsidize my family's livelihood the first the first word I thought was going to be a steady job at that point was with a wonderful institution called Lionel reports and manufacturing

company and I am still friendly very friendly with descendants of the people that work for in in 1939 that job almost didn't last longer than just one week I thought it was being hired and in a permanent capacity and I was informed at the end of my first week that all I was hired for us to unload freight cars and they were all unloaded by the end of that week and my job was over and it was just a wonderful thing that Maurice polikov who was the local manager of Lyon other parts overheard this conversation between the office manager and me and came to my

rescue he told Charlie that that is not the way to hire people give them the impression that they were being hired as on a permanent job and terminate him after a week he turned to me and he said you're not going anywhere you did too good a job the first week and I was with them for quite a great regarding your childhood did you have any Jewish affiliations did your family blown to the synagogue and Russia or was that permitted under the communist regime and we weren't and we wouldn't have but my grandfather my father's father who decided to become quite religious in his later

years they did allow one sin ACOG in Moscow to be open and that was not because they wanted to be benefactors it was because that way they could keep an eye on the Jews when they came and went and came for holidays and my mother father sister night for several years attended pouring services at the synagogue and when my father suggested to my grandfather one evening at our house that perhaps he oughta curtail his daily visits because doesn't he realize that he's being watched and as a matter of fact he helped bake much as for Passover I think a lot of his feelings for Judaism

and his involvement in the synagogue was in spite of he felt that he's going to do what he wants to do and as he put it in Russian of course to hell with them and that was his existence what's next did your family celebrate Jewish holidays in the home what did your family celebrate Jewish holidays Italy also we faced the satyrs sure okay Purim absolutely and Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur of course I did not ever get too deeply involved but for for what this may be worth my children were fourth generation members of careth Israel and I am no longer a member of feareth

Israel and I don't want to get into the whys and wherefores but it all stems from the way my wife's funeral went in in 2008 so I am both sorry and glad for my former Association and my termination of that but as a child in Russia you did not have a have the opportunity to attend a Hebrew school or Sun disk there was no Hebrew school to attend as well no sunday school go down I said did you ever attend to Hebrew school here in Dallas yes I did for a short period of time let's talk about that for a minute there was a guiding

light in Dallas his name was Levine I'm sure you've heard of him and I attended Hebrew school there used to ride the school bus got picked up at my house at 34:12 wind Elkin Street in South Dallas and brought back I'll never forget the driver he was a black gentleman by the name of Willie the kids loved him there was a very close relationship with the driver and it was interesting while it lasted so during those are early years in Dallas did you live in the area around Forest Avenue in high school I lived a block away from colonial Hill School which was my grammar

school I think my elementary school I I lived most of the time when I was going to high school with there most of the tank on one Dale King Street which is about 18 20 blocks from Forest Avenue high school and when you left Russia you went to Cuba how long did you live in kids too and after you was a short time very short time it would have been a lot longer if it wasn't for my dad's illness I see now in Dallas you attended colonial right middle school there was no okay and I'm fed immediately into force was it difficult for you to

learn English or did you learn the language rather rapidly I learned Spanish quicker than I did English interesting it seemed to get into my ears and brain rather quickly and as you can probably tell I'm not having much problem speaking English now and it came rather easily languages or something I enjoy and appreciate did you go to college no I didn't know okay in high school Forest Avenue high school was had a large Jewish population at that time right it was word had a large Jewish population yeah it was about probably a third was Jewish that's that's interesting now when did you become fluent in

English an elementary school at Colonial okay did you have to study English like English as a Second Language or was it English immersion so it was English immersion yes I had to Oh interesting item I had no one to talk to at first at Colonial I spoke no long language that anybody who spoke and I saw a boy about my age on the school ground and he looked Latino I walked over to him and said something to him in Spanish he immediately answered me in Spanish and I felt gee whiz I've got somebody to talk to and within 15-20 minutes I was called into the

principal's office the principal was BW glasgow and between sign language a little bit of english and told a voice and everything else I was able to understand what he was trying to tell me that if I was ever caught speaking anything but English on school property I would be expelled and I would have to bring my mother or father to his office to see if I could be reinstated now that's the difference between then and now the last thing I remember hearing about D is D is that they're 26 different languages spoken there at any time now in your home which language did you speak

Russian are you this as a child when I left Russia my language was Russian I understood very little Yiddish when we came to Cuba my maternal grandmother and one of my mother's sisters they were waiting for us in Havana my grandmother in the terminology of one of my very old old friends was a going concern very great woman by time we got there and they lived in New Orleans at that time she had rented an apartment for us in Havana at a gently seis Lemuria and the reason she rented that apartment there were eight units in that apartment and three of them were occupied by

Jewish families and she figured that would be a big help to my family well lo and behold without former previous knowledge of Yiddish I started speech speaking Yiddish evidently it was hidden somewhere in the back because I had heard it all my life that was a big help so it's a good thing languages have come rather easily earlier you talked to you gave us information regarding your work experiences what you did after high school with this job I would like to ask you I would like for us to dwell on that more now can you tell me about some of that work and projects that

have been most memorable to you in Dallas I believe you owned your own business right mr. wall yes my father in his usual wisdom approached me after I got out of the service and went back to the job I had well I was involved in my dad's business from day one because I was always doing something there but he approached me on this basis he said why do you choose to work for somebody else I said because our business your business can't support both of us he said well would you consider the fact that with your help it probably could he said why don't you give it a try he says you can always go elsewhere and this is this is the

way we started and before I knew what it was a 24-hour adage done which most of the time I appreciated tremendously really got involved really enjoyed it and was very successful in it with your dad's business the one that he started yes and that was what was your dad's face I'm glad you asked when my father started that business in 1935 the years of the depression absolutely smothering depression before that he was working for my two uncles my mother's brothers they were concessionaires they operated concessions in hotels nightclubs or over 50% of the United States and my father disliked it tremendously just wasn't anything that

interested in but it was it was a must anyway one of the women who worked for my uncle's I won't use any less names here her name was Edna Edna made the suggestion she she knew that my dad didn't like that business anyway and her father she thought had a business he was in the railroad salvage business do you know what that is almost all merchandise is being shipped by real shipments billions of dollars in shipments it's constantly real delivered ok and whatever was broken whichever shipment was damaged in shipment the railroads didn't just pay for what was damaged in the shipment they paid for

the whole shipment then they sold the entire shipment that had a damage in it to people in the railroad salvage business they in turn throw away the bad had some of it repair that was repairable and attempted to sell what was left her father didn't have a business he had a pickup truck and eat every day he would go down to the railroad yards where he was well known he would buy the damaged goods pennies on the dollar sometimes it was a total loss and then he felt that he had to sell everything on the truck that day because he hadn't had to have an

empty truck to go but the next morning so he discussed it with my father and my father suggested that he needs a place where to take the stuff to you see this gentleman's clientele was much smarter than he was because most of the people that he would take his pickup truck full of goods to try to sell it to him depending on what the merchandise was most of them would say well I haven't taken in any money today yet why don't you come at five o'clock this evening and by then maybe I will have enough money to buy what you've got well they had it

all figured out by five o'clock he had to sell it for whatever he could get out of it in order to have an empty truck the next morning okay so so let's get back to how you did you come to how did you fit into this business with the railroad with the railroads over the business lasted three weeks let's talk about your business I just have let's get back to because my father and I caught his partner okay stealing at night what was brought in dueling today how that was the end of it how did you transition from your father's business to your own business

in Dallas how did you come up with this ideal how did you well it was transitional believe me okay from that the railroad Salvage which lasted three weeks my dad had no connection for for railroad Salvage he decided due to the area that he was in that perhaps worse perhaps or clothing might be a good item and some of our people in Dallas of our faith who were wholesalers distributors of work clothes decided to come to his age and they said we'll support you will give you credit that's how I got into that business which really didn't amount to much it I really got involved

in it when we decided to put her in a department for men's formalwear and we became Dallas's largest rental house for men's formalwear tuxedos right tuxedos cutaways tails every item when here was that son nineteen forty-seven percent and you became the largest in Dallas yes and I didn't like it was it was that business was in a neighborhood as far as I was concerned we made enough money out of that to be able to go into what I wanted to go into ok and what did you want going for these supplies and equipment that was my chosen field and we supplied in various degrees of

course everybody from local departments satellite departments all the way through the federal government and what year did you go into the police supply business a lot whoa we went into vet in a limited way along with our former world business and it transitioned from one into the other until in 1977 1972 we decided to just clean house and get rid of all our formal aware and devote our time totally - police supplies and equipment were you the first in Dallas to have a police sublime no-load business okay well tell us about your police supplying this isn't in 72 okay I don't know where to start

and that's on for me the fact is I think our location had an awful lot to do with it we're around the corner and a half a block away from the Dallas Police Department I'm empty right well we're on Elm Street at that point the police department was at the old city hall on Main Street and we were constantly seeing police personnel got acquainted with a lot of them and a lot of the law enforcement people dropped information on the elec you know if you had this that another would certainly be buying it here well that was all I needed this is what I wanted

this is what I developed I went so far as to be deeply involved in design research [Music] as an example I designed a particular holster for the Dallas Police Department that was sold the Department 2600 of them I designed a badge case for the industry that is still being very profitably sold by a lot of people all over this end of the woods a badge case that was adopted by everybody was sold over 10,000 units of those and sometimes I find it hard to believe that we also sold ammunition to the Red River ammunition plant I told you right at the beginning that truth is

stranger than fiction and it is and I have the proof and how long were you in the police supply business I'm sure were some of the business in 1987 and I'm sure you had some very memorable times oh absolutely it's something I wouldn't take anything for let's elaborate about some of those memorable times well in the first place I rode with units of the Dallas Police Department Richardson Police Department as a matter of fact I was sort of an invited visitor everywhere at all times when I moved into addison after I had retired within days I had a phone call from the department and they

said we understand you're living in our city now so what are you doing I said nothing and they said well that's going to come to an end right now so I got involved with helping them form citizens on patrol in Addison and I became very active in that until our current chief of police and Addison came in and decided to disband it because it wasn't his idea to get it started so when I went to see him immediately after he disbanded the citizens on Patrol I said all I want to know from you is why and he said well so you know it never was

my deal it was my predecessors deal I said so in other words anything that didn't come from you isn't worth having I said does that pretty well some it up he said oh yeah we'll just about I said a goodbye I turn around I walked out I haven't been there since so that's the way the cookie crumbles doesn't mos def oh well during the time that I was in a police supply business and my dad by the way passed away in 62 so this really took off and flourished and grew and homeland afterwards that he would have been so happy and so proud to see

where it went I also did firearms repair for 50 years and a little bit of an odd situation everyone has heard of Smith & Wesson I am a graduate of the Smith & Wesson police armor school there Academy and on the day that I appeared there for my involvement there as a student the director of the Academy met me in the hall and he says so it is you isn't it I visited there many times he says I saw your name on the roster and I couldn't imagine why are you here he said you've been doing this for 50 years why not I said I

came to find out if I was doing it right and that got written up on her minions for another news of ever all right great you know what was interesting we are going to pause for a minute and I'm going to insert another cassette see I told you you would take forever let's continue we're talking about memorable events in your business career which has been very very interesting would you like to elaborate about anything else that was remarkable and memorable in your police supply business yes there are several other things that come to mind for instance everyone is now familiar with bulletproof vests we sold

the city of Dallas there first thousand bulletproof vests that sounds like somebody making a lot of money out of bulletproof vests and the fact remains that the thousand vests in order to get a foot in the door with that product and it was by anyone's standards that best in the business so did we sold it at a loss and I convinced my supplier that we should do that and he should suffer part of the looks because once you get in to a department with a fantastic product that seventh that saves lives you don't need to make a profit especially on you first sale to the

department and they were so impressed with what we sold them that they had me write the specs for that particular product which I saw certain shortcomings even in this fantastic product that we were able to improve on and this was a constant four years over constantly getting more and more more orders and when you are dealing with the departments such as Dallas that the small departments as satellite departments you know they looked at Dallas because they have the ability that manpower and all that to pick and choose and investigate and if it's good enough for Dallas it's good enough for us so that led to

a lot of sales because of that and I really enjoy that business now it has led to certain opinions that I have formed and it has led to certain desires on my part and I'm going to pass them on to anyone who might read or listen I believe that it is very important for anyone to try to associate with as many people younger than themselves as they can because if you associate with no one other than people hero raise you're older that is going to be ultimately a detriment and this is what kept me in touch with all the young rookie officers and from then

on this is not 2011 I've been retired 24 years I am still in touch with my four customers some of them who started being a customer of ours when they became Explorer scouts by way of the Boy Scout movement some of them were his youngest 14 years old and I still hear from them I still see them I still meet them for lunch they break me their kids to show off and now their grandchildren and this is the greatest thing that could happen to me what a remarkable career you've had mr. love this is phenomenal I'm sure you've been active in civic organizations and some Jewish organizations as an adult would you like to elaborate on those for a few minutes I can't think of any other than my mouth involvement with municipalities on the basis of supply and demand that I would care to even talk about what about Jewish organizations the only one that I've had a long term relationship with is Jewish War veterans of the United States and I still have a member of been a member for 66 years I am a life member and it really hurts me to see this organization dwindling and it's

dwindling because we're not getting fresh blood into it we need younger membership and we're trying our darndest but not succeed though you're Jewish were that connect before World War two as a matter of fact we are having an installation banquet lunch for the 23rd of this month installing new a new commander and a new crew for the next year and I think this helped tremendously the commander will be the youngest rule of heading years let's go to the area of your immediate family family information regarding your family how did you meet your wife how did I meet my ways and whatever and we're listening this

is everything you mentioned to me becomes interesting the fact is a probably first saw when she was about six years old because when we lived at 1713 Cooper in South Dallas for a very short period of time is a horrible house her grandmother lived on Colonial and their backyard sort of met our side yard at the alley that was between us but I actually met her and became aware of her primarily became aware of her because of her outstanding beauty and she became my wife and she was my wife for 62 what a half years and I suffer the loss on a daily basis I

met her at a Saturday night tempo dance at Temple Emmanuel in what year was this 1944 as a matter of fact at that time we lived in 1901 South Boulevard the temple being at 1900 South Boulevard we were right across the street for the temple oh and what you might find interesting hi Pearlstein a member of jwp because I got him into it we've been friends now for 71 years and he and I were double dating that night in 1944 and I said why don't we go across the street and see what's going on at the temple they always had a temple dance on Saturday

nights surely at that time was going to SMU and that's how it all begin and Shirley and I have three wonderful kids and one of them lives in New Hampshire she's married to a rabbi Edward Friedman I have oh what Janice is the eldest of the three then Dave lives in Carrollton and he is a computer person through and through he is working for a company now for many many years where he designs computer systems for them and then there's Edwin Edwin has always been more interested in theater than anything else and he's back into that now after having been with several companies over the

years and decided to leave all that and back into theater and he is in the suburb of Chicago and that's where he is to this day oh and one grandson okay that the motor have his one grandchild he teaches music and is an entertainer in great demand in Charleston South Carolina and what is his name his name is Aaron Michael levy and my daughter Genesis owner on her way right now from my house to his house even as we speak she left this morning she was supposed to leave on Wednesday but she has to go through Atlanta to get there interstate 20 was snowbound so

she had to wait until this morning so she could get there one year what you married I forgot to ask you the year I was remarried get in June 45 and your new life's name was Shirley right your wife's name sherrard sh e RR a rd okay first name Shirley Shirley Sherrod okay and you had a wonderful marriage yes sir did you belong to a synagogue for a number of years yes she was a third generation is your third room and our kids were the fourth interesting and you still have contacts with the Jewish community with Jewish world as as we're witnessing right now I'm

gonna ask you some concluding questions who are your role models are your role models as you were growing up in Dallas and Dallas business I know your business was very active during the Kennedy years who were this elaborate on some of your role models the people that you have a mired and respected my role models were so many my father for one when I went to work for lion other parts Lori Paula coughs father Sam Polikoff who was quite up in years at that time he decided I was the best employee they had so he had to sort of appropriate me wherever he needed me

and on occasion I would be his driver when his arthritis bothered him so that he wasn't secure in driving himself and he was a wonderful gentleman with a varied background and one with his name again Sam polikov and his son Joey for whom I worked after there was no more Lyon auto parts because the ownership of Lyon auto parts was actually in Chicago Lyon auto parts and manufacturing company they decided to close the Dallas operation and Joey Polikoff was in the bearing rebuilding business and I worked for him and that was not a very long standing I he's the one that kept me from volunteering

for the military service because he kept saying give me another couple of weeks I can't get you replaced indispensable right well he thought so and while I was trying my darkness to separate myself from monarch varying company so that I could go into the service because in my estimation I did not want to be drafted that would have been a stigmatic for me so he kept stalling and stalling until I got my draft notice and when I got my draft notice I went to see a very high-ranking military person in this area and asked him a very blunt question after telling him the background for

my feelings I said can you get my draft notice rescinded and I will volunteer the same day he said yes I probably can but I won't I said in the reason being he says I've been in military service for all these many years like 30 and he says I'm going to give you the best advice I can offer don't ever volunteer for a goddamn thing he says you know no matter what happens to you it's not going to be your fault if you didn't ask for it to start with he said but you'll always blame yourself for volunteering if something happens to you because you're

run he says let nature take its course I'm not gonna do it we're at the point of concluding our interview but there's one question I want to ask you and I'm sure I know the answer already what are you most proud of in life what am I most proud I'm very proud of the fact that evidently I have made some excellent choices through the years I chose the right parents to start with I chose the right wife evidently I chose the right children I chose the right business ultimately I actually chose having this interview what else could I possibly hope for Thank You mr. wall you have brought some photos of your family your family's history and I would like to focus in on those photos and if you will you can stand or you can point and I will focus the camera so we can include these in your interview so this is what we're going to add as the final part of your valuable interview today and I'm going to focus this so I can goodbye closer yeah okay let's bring it in a little closer okay this item here would you like to liber8 this this is my Russian birth certificate dated the 19th day of March 1920 in Moscow Russia

let's go up to the top one here the top one is Hana and shale green vote so you can see our name originally was that it was changed for obvious reasons to ward one we got to this country and this is my father's mother and father in Russia my father was born in novogrudok Russia okay let's go to this one Rebecca and Mitchell blesser my mother's mother and father were born in Poland and lived in warsaw until they came to the United States and this band right there is my father and mother's wedding picture in Warsaw when the Czar of Russia in 1905 ordered all

Jews out of major cities in Russia and they were given a choice actually they could either leave on their own or be shipped off in cattle cars to the Russian border and dumped so obviously they made the choice of leaving on their own okay and that's where they met that's where they married and that's one of my sister who was eight years older than I was born and this picture right there of my mother and father is when my mother was pregnant with my sister now this is this is a picture of me when I was about a year year and a half late 1921

so I was about a year old okay this is the picture of you when you were a year old in 1921 right okay this this was in Moscow Oh in Moscow when you were a year old 19 21 21 this is when I was approximately three years old and as a sidebar to that my mother refused to have my hair cut in until my father one day took me to the park by the way of the barbershop and I never saw my mother as angry about anything as she was about my haircut but we all survived that okay and did Alan this lady right here

was Martha Ivanova she was my caretaker until nineteen trying to set a date over they were left in 29 but 1926 Oh digressing a bit we attended a very very cold procession in 1924 when Lenin died and he was it on display in the temporary mausoleum in Red Square and my father was asked why does he want to go to and stand in line for hours to view the body of bloody minute linen and he said the biggest reason is to make damn sure he's dead a hint that's how much he liked him he says and aside from that I am sure it would be

good to be seen at the funeral so that that was his relationship with Lenin now right here I mentioned earlier that we used to take some vacations yes the Crimea okay that was and by the way that it was a borrowed dog and that was on the beach on the Black Sea 24 okay was that in Odessa no actually it was in Cimiez okay all right let's go to this one here well let's go to this was on the Caspian Sea vacation this was on the Black Sea and this was in 1926 after I had my hair shaved because of scarlet fever and this is

my father's father lately with my grandfather in 1927 that's that's pregnant a setback it's to die I want to get this maybe you need some more dip no no I'm just okay now this is much better I mean focus okay tell me who these people are now which I tell me who these people right here mm-hmm my grandfather say on shale green vote my sister faith my mother Vanya okay this is all okay and my father Aaron Aaron this one and on that one that was taken in Havana Cuba a beautiful garden spot owned by cerveza tropicale the brewery that supplied most of the beers

working for Havana that was 1930 how interesting let's go back to your birth certificate one more time please totally in Russian and would you please put let me focus this it's a red sauce Russian birth certificate 1929 g20 now put to your name on the birth certificate and I would like to focus in on it okay point to your name on the person name on the certificate yes right here and for a little kid I sure had a long name at that time I mean focusing on that okay okay you did have a long name Salam born I don't of each green world now you

know where they are all of it comes from know if you translate it into English it would be Solomon the son of Aaron Grimm oh I see okay Thank You mr. wallets I want to ask you one other question and please have a seat and we will end our interview is there anything you would want to add at this point there is either nothing or so much that I wouldn't know where to start this actually could become endless so I think that for the sake of what would my tier obviously call brevity we might end it now on a high note and thank you so much though for giving us the opportunity to have an oral history well I want to thank you for giving me this opportunity I'm glad to have been able to do that after years of planning and I hope I've satisfied your expectations most definitely and thank you again but even as we say in the Russian movie path even very much thank you you