Stuart Meyer
Stuart Meyer was born prematurely at Florence Nightingale in Dallas and grew up in Oak Cliff with an older brother and sister. His parents, Abe Meyer and Rose Einhorn, were both born in Dallas. His mother's Orthodox family lived in South Dallas, where the Jewish community was tightly knit and everyone looked after one another. The family kept a strong Jewish life, visiting his mother's relatives on Saturdays and his father's on Sundays, gathering around the radio and enjoying his grandparents' stories. His grandparents on his mother's side, the Einhorns, had immigrated after meeting in Turkey, and his grandmother, a seamstress from Odessa, spoke several languages and knew Hebrew well.
Stuart attended Rosemont school, junior high, and Sunset High School in Oak Cliff, then graduated from the University of Oklahoma. Returning to Dallas, he settled in North Dallas to be near the Jewish community and entered the family grocery business. The business had begun with his grandfather selling produce from a cart, grew into a store in Deep Ellum called M and M Grocery, and eventually became Cliff Food, with as many as four stores at one time. His father was a pioneer in the independent grocery trade and served as president of an affiliated grocers group. Stuart and his brother sold the business in 1992, after which he worked in a bank, in market companies, and for a law firm for his final ten years.
Stuart's first wife, whom he met in college and married in 1965, died in 1976, and his family rallied to help raise his young daughter Debbie. He later met Harriet after a memorial service, and they married in Rabbi Klein's study at Temple Emanu-El with about fifty relatives present. His father, Abe Meyer, was civic-minded, serving on the Dallas City Council alongside Mayor Johnson, George Allen, and Anita Martinez, and helping found Golden Acres and lead the Hebrew Free Loan. Stuart remembers Rabbi Olin and Rabbi Klein, his confirmation at the temple's new campus, and High Holiday services held at Fair Park while the new building was under construction. His daughter and granddaughter remain active at Temple Emanu-El, carrying on the family's tradition.
Full Transcript
our interview today is with Stuart Meyer this is March 22nd and 19 I'm sorry 2017 and Stuart you are such an interesting person I wonder whether you just begin by telling us a little bit about yourself and your background okay I was born in Dallas at Florence Nightingale and I was actually one two months early and I was and that was in an incubator overnight but my mother said back then the incubators would make kids blind so they took me out I didn't even wait five pounds but he has so they took me home I have an older brother and sister and we lived in
Oak Cliff and I grew up there but we had a very Jewish family life my mother's brother and two sisters lived in South Dallas and we used to go every weekend on Saturday we would go to my mother's family on Sunday we would go to my father's family and we always had family gatherings of the weekends my parents were actually both born in Dallas what was their always your the name their names if Abe Meyer was my father my mother was Rose Einhorn and my mother said where she grew up was like a little get there were four blocks and South Dallas that and there
everybody was Jewish they all took care of each other and they all knew each other and my mother's family was very religious they were Orthodox and my grandfather used to Dopp in every morning and they had walked to the remaining Shore and which remain Issus sure there was main issue in South Dallas what streets okay so we went there when I was little for services and the women would sit in the balcony and the kids we would go down in the basement and play and the men were very serious about the surface I mean it was very very religious but when my parents got married
my father was reformed so they went to Temple and at first my mother felt like it was a church because she was so used to the Orthodox way but then she got used to it and she was perfectly happy at Temple the surfaces weren't as long anything what kind of family what happened during your family gatherings with well we've all just visit and we would did and no say you'd sit around the radio wouldn't listen to the radio TV wasn't even a rental I was about seven or maybe it was that we didn't have one and we would always have fun just visiting with each
other my grandparents would tell the stories and it was really a lot of fun and we all knew each other and we all cared about each other and I know a treat on Sunday we would stop at the watermelon stands in South Dallas and he code watermelon slices that was a treat they were a quarter of a watermelon amazing wasn't it we're days the one is close to Fair Park right that were and then sometimes on Saturday we would go to the lagoon the lagoon there and we would have picnics because there wasn't air conditioning so you went to what grade school oh I meant
to Rosemont and Oak Cliff and then I went to grind or junior high and sunset high school okay so you stayed clear through your eyes right and then when I went to college I graduated from oh you and when I came back I lived in North Dallas because I wanted to be among the Jewish community which we were Norcliffe because my father's business was there and it was just easier for him what business was that it was cliff food grocery store it started out in Deep Ellum it was called M&M grocery and there's Meyer and Meyer and before that my father would help his father
my grandfather they had a produce cart they didn't have much money but they had a produce cart and they would sell produce from the cart and my mother worked as a secretary for mr. Reynolds opinion one of them I don't know which one but she was his secretary say that name again Ramos Finland oh this the department's doing right but after she got made my father didn't want her to work but she helped him she had a savings account that she'd saved up and she helped him open up the grocery business with her savings account and we found that out later we did not know this I mean she was a quite voice behind a lot of things that we did not know extraordinary but but so typical of many women under that gentleman right and she well in the
mothers in those days they were really mothers they I mean she stayed home and made everything by hand she did everything such a it's typical and yet it sounds atypical for us today right right well even in later years my father had a heart condition he had rheumatic fever when he was young and the valve pulled away from the heart well he knew 20 years before he died at the age of 68 that he he had a heart problem so my mother cooked everything by hand with no salt she'd made him bread she would make him mustard she made everything by hand and the doctor
said she actually gave him 20 years by the way she cooked amazing amazing and it wasn't strictly due to keeping the salt out of Brian right that's a that sleepest heart that's a lesson for a lot of us it sounds like you had a very stable actually very happy life we did we did our parents were very good examples and they were very good parents they they weren't that strict but yet if they told us to do something we did it back in those days you didn't talk back to your parents isn't that very heavy that is terrific how did you decide to go to
oh you well a half of the Jewish kids went are you in those days half went to Texas and so I just went over you Stuart what kind of profession did you pay well I came back to the family business it was just kind of expected and you did it in those days and then in 1992 my brother and I sought the business it was getting too much and we were getting we weren't oh but you know it was getting too much so I worked in a bank and then I worked in markets companies and I worked for a law firm the last ten years
there working so you kept on working you're retired now right okay and then you had your daughter they weren't married and had Europe right my first wife died in 1976 we got married in 65 was she a Dallas person no we met in college and she was from Oklahoma City and her parents were in the clothing business they had Emer brothers which was a department store in Oklahoma City so after we tonight we had her and then she got hotchkins and lived about a year and when she died my knellman see that's another way my family all pitched in my mother would take care of
my daughter on the weekends and because I work and then I didn't they wanted me to leave a friends on Saturday night my sister and sister-in-law would take my daughter one night a week for dinner so that you know I would have to be every night home with her wonderful isn't that wonderful it was she was truly raised by a village right and actually my brother and sister are still very close we talk all the time and it's good that some families aren't fortunate that way but we are I think you were raised that way right so that you became friends bright rather than only
but when you're little it's not so much yeah that's really so you were in the still in the grocery business when you and Harriet met right right and that was I know I know this yeah yeah we met well it was it was after the memorial service Yom Kippur mister and we met we were standing there not nobody's introducing us and so I asked actually my sister's mother-in-law was very good friends with Harriet's mother so I asked her who Harriet was and she told me she said she's going to California if you want to take her out you better call her soon so I did
and it looked at this time you were attracted to her but it was also time for you to drive me well I didn't date for a while and then after six months everybody kept saying you're young you need to go out and start a new life and I just didn't click with other women I went out with so and that's very romantic it is so you all married and a Harriet said that your daughter Debbie was oh shut up to her immediately and actually when we got married Debbie was holding hands with us the three of us when we got married and Rabbi Klein's study
because Harriet doesn't like a big fuss of everything didn't want to really a big wedding so we got married in the study but we had our aunts and uncles it was 50 of us about that sort of Club in a crowded rabbi collide study but and then there was her section afterwards that is lovely lovely but what you brought some things to show us right it's like very much - all right well this was my father's when he was on the City Council ah and so I thought I would bring that what's that in the would you say the 40 said no notice in the
60s the sixties yeah he was on the City Council with mayor Johnson huh and actually he came after Teddy Harris who was Jewish and Joe Earl Coleman I think Joe Coleman darlin yeah he was on the canceled he was Jewish and at the time there were three minorities on the camps of my father George Allen and Anita Martinez and you know it was funny and but he was very civic-minded but yet he was president Hebrew free loan and and here is from golden acres the 25th year of the home of the Jewish agent he was actually one of the founding members which I didn't know
what I was looking through this the other day I found this so and how wonderful that you saved it yeah sorry I was going through some of my mother's stuff that we're in boxes and and you know you don't really go through them all right away but sometimes you go through and you forget what cinnamon I'm so glad we had the privilege of interviewing you almost thank you history is so important well and my parents when they met my father actually had a date with my mother's sister and her grandmother said to my mother you should go out with him so my mother survived you
know no but they think that because he was nine months younger and her my mother thought Oh in those days you know I bet they ended up getting married and they went out on dates on the streetcars they would go downtown Dallas and they were living in the South jela's sh-- a palisade when they got married they lived on Peabody I think almost everybody little people or forest or South Boulevard and my mother was born I'm late on leap year date February the 29th and she said when she was young they would give from a free movie to on the 29th of February every four
years oh that's amazing and put words there and all of their names to get can you name them all together so we can well it was a Mayan Rose I Norman I don't mind more I know well there's a Norton family right there still yeah no no well there they'll Janice Einhorn while it's the only one left with like our name but my grandfather was in the grocery business also Einhorn and he was a painter and my grandparents met in Turkey turkey Turkey they were trying to come to America my bubby was my vessel Russia he was from Bucharest Romania and my Bubbe was a
seamstress and they met because his sister worked with my Bubbe and they wanted to get married but she was 16 and he was six years old he was twenty-two and her mother said you can't get married till you get to America well when they came to America they got married but my and my Bubbe spoke several different languages she was very educated but and she knew Hebrew and she said when they would have services the other women would get around her because a lot of them didn't know Hebrew and they would sit up in the balcony in the remaini Shore that is amazing what a
wonderful story too and how fortunate that they were able to get to the United States all right well now my bubbies mother was alright heard a covets she became stoned but her main name was wall and the walls delicate as were her cousins and they sponsored them to come here oh sure and that's how they got here that's a very well-known family here because but we have that big family although my Bubbe was an only child then you know and I do have a cute story my grandfather from my father's side went to Chicago for a grocer's convention where my grandfather iron horn did not
know where his brother was in America because in those days communication wasn't great and he knew his sister lived in New York well my father's father was talking to a guy at the grocer's convention and he told him his name was Einhorn he said well my daughter-in-law was a nine horn her father was Morris he said well that's my brother oh so he came back and told my grandfather well he took the train from Dallas to Chicago to see his brother that's the only time they saw each other in America oh my but you know it was just a chance meeting but they did not
know where they were about how old were they when they were grown because my parents were already married they were older probably in their 50s that's amazing saying and they never saw each other after that no cuz my grandfather died at 62 what a story and but you know back in those days communication just wasn't great but we did have a great family life and the family was always close this is your story is exactly the classic for the Dallas Jewish Historical Society I mean this could be set up as what everybody dreams of and of an interview that is just sensational and you're carrying
it on are your children involved in the community also well my daughter is her son not so much but you know but our daughter is that's good and you are still temple Emmanuel is right and our daughter goes to the temple and her daughter was just spot just but and she married a Dallas native who his his father was born here and what was that means family Harris was his father's name and I believe I knew him yes and Earl is her husband oh yeah and Debbie went to Israel for data and she'd been actually at a bad time when they were stabbing people over
there and we were kind of concerned but she said that Israeli people treated them they drove them up everywhere they didn't let them walk you know yes yes my daughter's there right now so well this is an amazing and wonderful story and I see you have more so well I just have some pictures here's of me and I was my father and I when oh we have our Model T we had a Model T let me get a close-up of that oh look at that oh my look at that wonderful and then therefore this was my cousin and Goodman she was married to Fred time
and then she was sweetheart of Brandeis a CA and this was when I was Bo nominee the first time this was a refurb wait'll and you were the nominee I was nominee that know you were a nom okay the next year the next year I was at the bar look at that you words a bow oh what a handsome dude and you know what you still are look at even a man has kept his looks a fine-looking guy I'll tell you that's terrific thank you what year was that Oh 16 64 perfect and then this was it one of our family guys Sunday dinners with
the family about when was that taken oh gosh this was some no I was probably three or four and where are you and on that item right there you know you look this is a family look at all of those children about the same age all of us cousins are still in Dallas oh that is remarkable and a wonderful symbol of everybody dressed up in those days it's leaking this I mean this has nothing to do with George but I remember we had the tornado in Dallas in 1959 and this was the picture was in Life Magazine and you kept it good for you that
really should be preserved it's a fabulous yeah these are just pictures you know from the family look at that yes Oh whoever who is that my other sister me yeah yeah and look at that and then the skirt the skirt this is my mother and grandparents and my brother and sister made perfect and that's all I know cliff well this was actually on Pennsylvania okay southjet laughs Alison this was my confirmation Oh we were I was in the second confirmation class at Temple the sex I mean it the new campus the new temple and then of course this was my father it was just different
now wait a minute show me that father's picture again oh you look so much like him when you were Bo look at the look at the similarity let me get that closer similarity there great thank you he was very active and then he got some kind of honor from the joke rule that he'd worked on something when he was on the City Council oh my yes look at that Joe cool and they named a lake after him yeah very interesting and then this was our one of our grocery stores in Ohio let me get a close-up of that that's fabulous how many grocery stores we
had four at one time and then eventually got down to one and then it was just too much well the grocery business change hard yeah and then this was the store when we upped our major stores ah look that's a big store there was a big store my father was kind of a pioneer in this time he was head of president affiliated and he brought a lot of stuff to the grocery business but that was before all the big name stores and those wonderful independent stores right Rach i'ma see this is a picture him when he was elected with with mayor Johnson no look it's
certainly in mayor Johnson I wish I hope it's light enough that we can see that mayor Johnson is on the right and your dad is and another city council yeah fabulous picture and that's really you know I mean this one they have of the Texas they already have this picture this is my parent my father's family huh they live where little Mexico is the Jewish families lived there first sugar and that's red but that they have this picture because I've seen it in less Oh fabulous and then this of course is my grandfather and my uncle Harold Goodman all of the stores that is wonderful
history thank you this is just great and then actually even though we were the only Jewish family there was a big Jewish working population because Maurice Rubin ran the Texas army-navy store there was a guy opto Chris had a jewelry store Harry Haberman had one they were all emerald cliff right there on Jefferson now there was the Irwin ghost ghost ghost rich I guess an average room they had stores so there were a lot of them and clustered in Oakland right there but they didn't live there they just work there but you lived there we live there right and were you in that beautiful rolling
hills place in Oakland well we lived near the Stevens Park Golf Course which was a beautiful area and behind us was a Jewish family and Leland Harry Miller he had a jewelry store downtown Dallas Miller brothers and you know that they were real nice well tell us you you had what seems to be such a really happy family life and very Jewishly oriented and do you have any kind of particular memories of the more than you shared or do you have any advice for people who are coming into Dallas now well they should get involved with the Jewish community because families are not big like
we have we still have a fairly big family and other things like the holidays we used to always spend them together I remember being at Dora's house for Passover and it was no air-conditioned and it's a long table in the room and we were all sweating away we managed though and we have some fans right and and I remember my Bubbe and mother cooking gefilte fish homemade and they would make hamantaschen and they cook with moths you know now my mother didn't cook with mouths because my father she knew not to they're my buddies both cook for smiles and it was really delicious food you
can just imagine all the arteries closing it up but well my mother's father died of a stroke and I'm sure the smalls didn't did were there any things that were dramatic in your family did anybody die early whether your wife did it your first one idea of course and what I love is your story of the family coming together when you first arrived well both of my grandfather's died at 62 but in those years that was not considered young to me it's but back then it was not but it sounds like a very warm type of a home that you had and family who was
bright and everybody married Jewish did anybody marry out of not an our generation back then you did not date non-jewish girls and my you know the girls didn't like non-jewish boys not today yes that is true and so what are you doing in your retired life well I spend a lot of time with my wife I go to the gym and we go places and do things I would like to volunteer but there's physical conditions that I really shouldn't be around a lot of sick people well hey you can come and learn interview we have room for you here I I understand that but there's
always room for volunteers you don't have to be at the hospital yeah okay for sure and and hobbies did you start with any type of hobbies as a young boy I'm really the only thing I did was collect coins which this Jewish guy that worked for us bill Clayman he didn't have any family he gave me a bunch of old coins which eyes started your colon right right and he used to take me he was our accountant he used to take me to forget us off from Cemetery because he was the caretaker I guess or whatever they had he was responsible for the simpler we
used to go out there is a sign road I think it's where it is oh my that was one of the earliest Orthodox thank God right well he used to take me out there to the cemetery because he was headed ascend and we would look at the simmer you see that everything was sort of Rockies I wonder what's happened to it do you think that anybody's keeping it up I don't know when our old my son-in-law girl's uncle died Jean rice they had buried him there and it seemed fine I had a hard time finding it I know we're sure this was this I know
we're temples is but I did not you know same road I hadn't been there in years I that was out of my realm - yeah that's very interesting that I do remember the temple day of the fair of the agamous ah from sheriff Israel all I remember is orthodoxes to Faris Israel and a good result him but now there are there's a lot of them all right there's one right by my daughter's house so you know and it's that's a different world it is and I'm doing my best to try to start interviewing they're all so well it's interesting because in our family we have
reformed not religious to Orthodox it's the whole realm and mutually respectful of us oh yeah yeah you have to be well that's true whether you're in a family or not they show respect I respect everybody's beliefs whatever they want to do well you sound like a person who has grown with the times oh yeah you have to change with the times but we were never taught to be prejudiced in any way we never used words that other people used we never thought that way we were always taught by my mother and grandmother the people our people and my father always said regardless everybody puts on
their pants one leg at a time it doesn't matter what they are but that's what my father used to say and actually when my father was on the City Council he sometimes would come downstairs and butts at groceries for the customers and they said well why would a councilman but he'd like to be with him ordinary the people that he represented wait you said he would come downstairs yeah well we have an office upstairs oh okay okay I didn't know whether he was living him don't know no no no but my grandparents growing up my mother that said they did have a grocery store in
front of the house and then they live behind but then they moved to a house that been back in those days their Bubbe lived with them and our baby lived with us at the time and with my aunt at the time there weren't nursing we didn't well they eventually had to put her in a nursing home but that's because she would wander off or she would turn on we had they had gas heaters in the bathroom she would turn it on it was because of security and say freeze sure sure well those are emergencies you have to deal yeah they did not want to I
know and that that was a time where it was an accepted thing for older people to live with their children well and our grandmother was like a second mother she was yes she was always there yeah of course and your communication stayed steady and relevant yeah and she was very wise not that she graduated high school or anything because she got married to 16 but she was very smart now who was it who spoke seven that she was the one she's the one tell us about that she just learned all these languages because when she was growing up in a disarray she didn't go to
the public school she went to she was an only child her mother one her to be very educated and where was that in Odessa Russia Odessa well that was a center of a large city Amman okay so she was very talented in languages do you remember what they were I don't remember but that's okay but I know she would speak Yiddish to my mother when our friends were there and and you know it would be kind of embarrassed funny that you said that because I came from a very foreign background and Yiddish was a little embarrassing well now my mother growing up my her brother
was older they spoke Yiddish at home and when he went to school he didn't speak English and they didn't understand yourself that they taught the rest of the kids how does speak English because they learn you know that and my mother would another funny story when she went to school the back then they've been started at seven and they wanted her to go to school six because you know so they sent her to school so they asked her how old she was she said well I'm seven and schooling six at home so they sent her home very smart kid and did now you came from
the generation that was college educated right was Marie's the first generation yeah our pants went high some graduate at high school of course yeah but they didn't go to my mother wanted to be a Spanish teacher but they couldn't afford to send her to college and yet you really didn't know that you were poor no well my mother said when the Depression hit it didn't faze them because they had no they didn't have any money before the didn't change a thing at least they were in the Groves you didn't go hungry that is very true and she said really when she was young that were
horse and buggies here in Dallas horse and buggies yes and unpaved streets mm-hmm so she must dream it well of course she remembers when the first cars came out and you showed us the picture of the models here right so but ya know she well she was born in 1912 so they weren't cars I guess already but they didn't have one well right right and my Bubbe never drove neither one him about these drugs of course not women - they weren't the men were the forward do you ever think my mother learned very you know when she was learning at age 16 I guess this
is so interesting now you mentioned the rabbi Klein that you were and Harriet were married in rabbi Klein study so rabbi Olin was here all along him well I when I was 5 years old they had consecration I guess for temple and I think rabbi Klein that was just might have been his first year at Temple rabbi Olin was already there I remember rabbi Olin and I remember rabbi Owens saying if anybody talks to you about religion you can always say Judaism's right for me and whatever you are is right for you that is fine then I remember rabbi Olin saying that that's really interesting
that you would have remembered that but because that's the kind of philosophy that reformed units of Ellis have always felt right I'll talk to you later about have you ever heard any of these sermons and oh yes I used to be just but he gave fiery sermons in timing and rabbi time was everybody's friend and rabbi but Olin was the good sermon yes sir I'm inclined Dave okay sermons but but Olin was really the yeah shall we one that's right and brilliant we really have to write well Klein was brilliant in a different way but he was everybody's rabbi even if they didn't go to
Temple if they went to sheriff's or Affairs everybody knew rabbi Klein he was everybody's right life well that's interesting I had never heard that before yeah because I know people said oh yeah they all liked rabbi Klein they all knew him and he knew everybody so you've been there through a lot of the changing of the guard oh yeah and I think the temple but it's already had its hundredth anniversary hasn't it could be on my sure getting there if it hasn't I thought I have forgotten but yeah but I was we went to hire Hall before temple was completed you know for Sunday school
where higher all of this and you we would have Sunday School classes really and also the High Holidays would be different remember it that the Fair Park at the loser only music all and it was one service that was when olan olan was it yes yes but that was while the new temple was being built because they didn't have room at the old temple right that was 1954 and 55 and it was really nice because they had a good time now it's either - earlier - that's right you have wonderful memories but that's terrific and your chili I know Debbie is here's your daughter Debbie
his interest and she goes to Temple also right I've just had a daughter who was right and our son was bar Mitzvahed there oh but you were not varmint no women when I was that age half of the class was in Bar Mitzvah no it wasn't a reform thing no now my brother who was six years older was Bar Mitzvah oh how did that happen then that he was and you weren't I guess he my mother maybe wanted it but I didn't want it so they didn't push it yeah and it wasn't a big deal no but now they all are but when our daughter
was growing up girls weren't necessarily Bachmann's but now they almost are that is very true it's amazing how things change maybe it's a metaphor for how the world is changing now when we go to services we're kind of lost a temple even because there's so much singing in Hebrew and we were used to the old way I agree do you go to the monthly or a union prayer book no we don't go like we should we go from your site for our parents and different things we should go more but we don't as much as we should well it's there's no about it you know
you go with you if you want to there's nobody counting which is one of the joys but yes if you go once a month to the services they do the union prayer book right which we're more at home with it's just because we were brought up that way that's right that's right I used to know the prayers without reading him because we had to say you pray or something over for so long and when they had the new prayer they saying prayer grant us peace for example we're going to say it the way we were raised right just been revised a little bit right I
don't particularly mind so much change do you oh I don't mind the change it's just I'm not is I don't know what's going on as much as I did when it was like it was yeah which is fine yes yes you're you're good you're a modern man to be able to accept the change well when we went for Harriet's mother my father's Europe site in February and they had a little bit of a service with that you know with them saying the names and then they had a concert which was fine afterwards I mean it was lively but you know that's okay banned from Eastern
Europe that sang Israeli songs of Eastern Europe songs and it was fine I think that it was entertaining Oh was that the klezmer group I think it was yeah they were very good you know so we were entertained but yet you know you do go for the year site and it is meaningful to hear the names call them because they lived through us as long as we're alive their memory is alive once the last person that knew them is gone they're gone that's you've just put the finger your finger on why the Dallas Jewish Historical Society was formed in the first place and why I
happen to think it's work is very important it is important we should remember every Jewish person that was alive and you have given a brilliant interview thank you thank you so much it's been such a pleasure and whenever you think of any other stories for us that you want to keep down because now this recording is going to be on our website you'll have copy of it of course but it will be on our website and in our vault and hopefully that your stories will live on well thank you yeah because the Jewish religion needs to live that's right thank you okay thank you