Tillie Harmel
Tillie was born September 28, 1900, in Newark, New Jersey, the second of five children of Benjamin Harris, who was born in Hartford, Connecticut, and Ida Kleinman Harris, who was born in Russia and came to America as a young child. Her siblings were Nathan, Eli, Teddy, and Gladys. Her father worked for the telephone company in New Jersey, while the family also ran a small candy store where Tillie and the children helped and sold newspapers. Her mother's brother, Uncle Lou Kleinman, had settled in Dallas and built up a men's clothing business called the Globe, and it was he who eventually encouraged the family to move to Texas.
The family came to Dallas in 1913, and Tillie's father went to work for Uncle Lou. They lived in East Dallas neighborhoods rather than a Jewish district, and Tillie attended Dallas Bryan Street High School under principal Norman Crozier. Drawn to chemistry, which came easily to her, she enrolled in the Baylor University pharmacy school in 1917. When the school closed during World War One, she completed her studies at the St. Louis College of Pharmacy, graduating with highest honors and a gold medal though she was too young to receive a full degree. She worked as a pharmacist in Dallas for Mr. Ewer and Mr. Gray, later in an office for Mr. Zesmer, and spent time in New York with her grandfather.
In 1930 Tillie married Ted (Edward Esau) Harmel, who was born in Ireland and had lived in South Africa. Together they opened the Oak Lawn Pharmacy at Oak Lawn and Cedar Springs, where she was the pharmacist. Ted later ran a liquor business and, after an unexpected purchase, the couple moved to California to operate a drugstore. After Ted died in 1959, Tillie continued working in pharmacy in the San Fernando Valley before returning home to Dallas in 1972. Throughout her life she was devoted to Shearith Israel and served as sisterhood president, president of Hadassah, and a national board member of the National Council of Jewish Women. Without children of her own, she was known as a beloved aunt who helped hold her family together.
Full Transcript
This is Bernice Wallman interviewing Mrs. Tilly Harmel at her home at 10651 Steppington, apartment 1062 in Dallas, Texas. The date is May 6, 1991. This interview is sponsored by the Dallas Jewish Historical Society and the National Council of Jewish Women, Dallas Section. Ms. Harmel, it's so nice of you to let me come visit with you today. Let's just start by your giving me your full name and your occupation and how long you've been in Dallas. Do you want me to start? Tilly Harris Hartmell. We came to Dallas February 1913. And when were you born? I was born in Newark, New Jersey. Our whole family. My mother was born in Russia.
She came when she was maybe about five years old, and my father was born in Hartford, Connecticut. And what were their names? Your mother's names? Oh, my father was Benjamin Harris, and my mother was Ida Kleinman Harris. And she was born in Russia? Yeah, she was born in Russia, but they were married in New Jersey in 18... I've got her wedding invitation. I mean she was married October the 9th, 1989. And I see you still have her wedding invitation. Yeah that's right. And notice that it says Mr. and Mrs. Kleinman. He doesn't give my grandfather's name on the invitation. And why is that? I don't know.
Don't know? I forget this until quite late in life when my uncle Lewis Kleiman passed away and his son went through all his papers he found this and he gave it to Gladys my sister and she had copies made and sent to each one of us Now were you the youngest child? No, I was next to the oldest. I have a brother, Nathan, Nathan Walter Harris, and he was born 1899. Okay. I was born September the 28th, 1900. My goodness, 1900. So now I'm 90 years old, before I got 91. Well you certainly don't look 90 years old. No, nobody believes me. No, I don't know why they would.
Like I used to wear my hair with a bun on the top, and I met a woman the other day, and I'm supposed to have, I know a woman, she met me again, and she says, you know I didn't recognize you. You look so much younger. She says, you just wore your hair up, now your hair's cut off. Uh-huh. So that's that. Okay, so your brother Nathan was the oldest, and then the next child is you. Then I had a brother, Eli, that was born in 1902, February 1902, and Teddy was born March the 10th, 1907, and Gladys was born September the 27th, 1910. So there were five of us.
Yeah, quite a family. What was it like growing up? The only one that's left is my older brother and myself. What was it like growing up in that big family? Well, it was a little crowded. You know, we didn't have big homes. Yeah, you were born in where? We were all born in New Jersey. In Hartford? My father was born in Hartford. We were all born in New Jersey. Okay, so you stayed there until what age? 1930 we came to Dallas. And what brought your family to Dallas? That's what I expected. I haven had an uncle Louis Clydeman my mother brother My mother had a brother and a sister and she lost her mother when she was quite young And my grandfather married a niece Bertha Kleinden.
And Uncle Lou came to Dallas because there was a cousin in Fort Worth, and he was a young man, he had to make a name for himself, I presume. And my cousin, the stewardman in Fort Worth, invited him to come to Dallas. So he came to Dallas, and he would sell little gadgets or something and go from house to house and from Fort Worth to Dallas and back and forth, I presume, in those days. I could sell strainers and sell all sorts of little things. Housewares. Yeah, and after a bit, I suppose he was doing all right. He had his mother and father come down.
That my grandfather is Rabbi Michael Kleinman, and his wife was Bertha, and they had three sons and a daughter. They all came to Texas, to Dallas. And my uncle was now in the clothing business on Elm Street, the Globe, men's clothing. Okay. And he would come to New York to buy merchandise. And every time he'd come, he'd take the whole family and his wife's family, which were the Greensteins, to Coney Island. We'd have a big time. And after a spell, he saw that my father wasn't doing too well. We weren't wealthy people by any means. I think my mother used to save nine dollars a week out of my father's salary to put away for her children, the three children.
What was your father doing then? Do what? What was your father doing then for a living? What was Papa doing? I know he worked for the telephone company because my grandfather was a real politician and he was connected that my father father he was connected with I think it was the Republican Party and he would get all kinds of jobs. He had control of the Jewish group in New Jersey and he'd get in. He always used to say his hardest job was collecting his money. The telephone company wouldn't send it to him. He had to go after it. Oh, really? Mm-hmm. He worked for the telephone company for the city.
He worked for the city for the telephone company, and he used to watch all the lines that were put in. He had a, he was a supervisor for all the new lines that were put in. So his hard job was to collect, to collect, go and collect his money anyway. So my uncle decided that maybe we ought to come to Texas. So my father came to Texas and he worked for Uncle Lou in his clothing store. And we had a little candy store in New Jersey. It was downstairs, it was the candy store. There were three flights upstairs where we occupied. One was our living room, dining room, etc.
And then the third floor was sleeping quarters. My father was in Texas maybe about a year, I guess. I don't remember the exact date, but it was about a year. Who was taking care of the candy store? My mother. Oh, your mother ran the candy store? My mother, and we, and the children. So you ran the candy store? I sold newspapers over at a building across the street from it. When the people would come out, we'd sell newspapers over there, a penny a piece, I think. And we'd help my mother. And also an aunt, her sister, from New York, came and lived with us with her son.
She was Sarah Horner, and her son was Tommy Horner. Everybody in Dallas reached out. The boys all played baseball. They came to Dallas? No they didn't. No? Oh they didn't. They didn't come to Dallas with us. She stayed in New York for quite some time and we all came to Dallas. The first time I came to Dallas, however, my mother came to Dallas with three children, Nathan, myself, and Eli. So Eli was a baby, and she came to visit her family. Uncle Lou took her here, brought her here with, he had another friend of his that was shopping in New York, and he would, the three, the two men took care of the three children.
I said to my mother one time, how in the world you take care of us? Well, Uncle Lou and Mr., I think his name was Tobias, if I'm not mistaken. and Tobias is one of the old families here. And, but this time when we came, in 1913, we came on our own, and I was trying to remember how my two brothers went. I think he went, they went back with my father, because I know my mother, and Teddy and Gladys and I went together by train. To Dallas? To Dallas. Okay. to see Niagara Falls, and I stayed up all night looking out the window from the sleeper, to see if I could see Niagara Falls, which I never saw.
They must have come the southern route. Yeah, we did. Yeah. Well, we're supposed to have gone. By train we came some way or other and changed in St. Louis, but I was told we'd see Niagara Falls. Oh. working for the head. But the four of us, my mother and three kids slept in one sleeper Oh my. on the trip, one Pullman. But you know, we'd only buy the Pullman for the night, then we had to go get back into the chair cars for the day. Uh-huh. And I remember the conductor telling us, we came to a certain city, I don't even remember the name of it.
I said, well, we're not going there. We're going to Texas. See, we had to get out of the sleeper to go into the chair car because we weren paying that much travel fare Anyway so we came to Dallas Well do you remember what your attitude was about picking up and coming to Texas That was quite a trip in those days. Well, we were kids. It didn't make any difference. We were going someplace. Were you excited? It was exciting. Yeah. We were going someplace. Yeah. But when it was the matter of packing up things, my mother didn't want to take certain things with her. And my aunt says, Ida, you've got to take these because you're going to a new place.
Everything will be strange. And if you don't have your old things with you, you'll feel lost. So my aunts, they were my father's sisters. They packed up all the things. And dishes went into a huge barrel. But when we got to Dallas and we got into the barrel, there weren't any dishes. It was all pieces. Oh. Almost all that was gone. Everything broke. Very few, very few pieces were left. Anyway, that was all right. So I don't know where we lived for a few, I guess we stayed between my uncle and my grandmother, and then my uncle bought a, no we rented a house from Mr.
Goldberg, and Mr. Goldberg had owned his house and the house next door. Now where was it? And the house was on Caruth Street, behind where the Fairbount Hotel is today, and across the street from the Cumberland Health School, which is now an insurance company. They occupy that building, and I think the same school building is there. That was right off of Accord Street. And we lived there for quite some time. You okay? Mr. ... Mr. ... what did I say his name was? Goldberg. Goldberg. He had a horse and buggy with a fringe on top. And he had three daughters four daughters the oldest one we didn know and two sons all went to Sherrith Israel to Sunday School And he used to drive us to Sunday School in his horse and buggy However, before we went to Sherrath Israel, I went to Sunday School at Temple Emanuel.
When Temple Emanuel was on Irvey Street, and I think it was Powhatan or something. I don't remember the Powhatan, Pocahontas, one or the other. I think it was Powhatan, because Pocahontas I think was where the Jewish Community Center was. That was where the Jewish Community Center was, eventually. So I think it was on Powhatan, before they built their building on Harwood and South And South Boulevard. South Boulevard. South Boulevard. I went there. So you started Emmanuel. I went there because there wasn't a sheriff in this room. Who was the rabbi there then? A Green, Greenberg, or Green something rather. I don't quite remember. But I went there, and then when Uncle Lou got a rabbi for Sheriff Israel, which was Rabbi Epstein, then we left Temple.
I left Temple. I don't think my brothers went. Now you say Uncle Lou got a rabbi. You mean he was on a committee, or what? What do you mean by that? Oh yeah. He was on the, he was one of the Machers of Sheriff Israel. He had Mr. Sheps and Harry Siegel. Yeah, which Mr. Sheps was that? Joe Sheps. Joe Sheps? The old man. Joe Sheps, Mr. Siegel, and Louis, his name will come to me, I don't remember, Harry Siegel, later years Mr. Feldman, Jake, not Jake Feldman, his father, his father, Moses, that's right, and Aaron Kaplan, and Ike Zabloski all those fellows they were the committee They were the cornerstone of Sherrod room Of course there were a lot of other people I used to know everybody You go back to Sheriff Israel today you don know anybody All the old people had gone, children more or less left the city like Uncle Lou.
All of his kids were out of town. Sigmund lived in New York, Walter lived in Hot Springs, Sylvia lived in New York, Teresa Kleinman was the only one that sort of remained here. She stayed here. Yeah. Teresa, and then of course she married Jack Stanley, and then she traveled in different places. Today she's in California. So you settled down in Dallas, and your father worked with the Globe? Uncle Lou. With Uncle Lou, with the Globe. Yeah, at that time. What was it, a department store? No, just men's furnishings. Men's furnishings. Only men, everything. Yeah. He was between Irving and that little court between Akron and Irving Street, and the Old The Millville Theater was across the street, and the Palace Theater was up near the corner.
And do you remember anything about your school days? Where did you go to school? Oh, when I came to Dallas, see, in Newark we had nine grades for primary school, and then you go to high school. Right. didn't have a 9th grade here so they made me go to the 8th grade again and I went to Dallas High School which later became when they built a high school in Oak Cliff they had a high school and they built Forest Avenue High School. Then they called it Dallas Bryan Street High School. Oh, that were Crozier Tech, while later? Dallas Tech, yeah. Tech, yeah. And Nathan, my brother, went to high school, first grade.
We moved from Corinth Street, bought a home on Greenwood and Oak in East Dallas. We never lived in a church. I mean, in a Jewish neighborhood, never. However, I was born in a Jewish neighborhood. Spring Street, I was real Jewish. In New Jersey? In New Jersey. Yeah. But in Dallas, we lived in East Dallas. Was that on purpose? No, it was because we could buy a house, I think, for about $2,700. So you could buy a house for less money in other neighborhoods. Yeah, and my uncle lived on Cata Street off of Ackerd, which is, today, is downtown. Right. Well, we lived in Greywood and Oak, which today is really called downtown.
There were some streetcars with horse-driven streetcars before they got them full streetcars. So we walked to school. So I was, and this, my class was in a little building next to the high school building. So I had to go the half a year. See we came in February, the first of February. So I had to go to that school for half a year, and then I went to high school. And you went to Bryan then? Yeah, I graduated. Graduated. Mr. Crozier was our principal, Norman Crozier. Oh, is he the one they later named the school for? Oh, I didn't know that. You're telling me something.
Yeah. Then when I graduated, see we lived in East Dallas near Baylor University. We lived between Live Oak and Swiss Avenue and between Hall and Liberty. So that's near Baylor Hospital. That was near Baylor. Yeah. There we had some Jewish families. The Sussmans lived there. Harry Sussmans? Well, his father. Oh, his father. His grandfather. Okay. His grandfather, because Harry and Bill and what's the youngest son, Sussman, and a sister had one- Sarah? Three boys. Sarah Sarah Sarah Sussman She married a fellow whose name begins with an H Harry Harry What was his last name Sussman No Harry Harry was her oldest brother Sadie Sussman Harry and Bill and they had one more boy He's God.
All of us are God. So you had some Jewish families. They lived there, and there were several others, and the Anguresses lived on Ross Avenue, and the Hamans lived on Ross Avenue. Which Anguress? William? William Anguress? Was that the father's name? Yeah. Because they had about eight kids. Yeah. Bernard, Isidore, Isidore, Sadie and Leigh, Beatrice Angers, and our little girl. Edith Angers. Edith Angers, And what's the boy's name that lives here with it? He's married to Milton. Milton. The reason I know them all is that Shirley Angers Rubin is my sister-in-law. Frida is his daughter, is my sister-in-law. Oh, well, see, those children I really didn't know, because when I left here in too and moved to California.
Those kids all grew up. Sure. But when I came back from California and I was atop them grocery and I was walking out and somebody was walking behind me and said, you know, that looks like Tilly Harris. I turned around. I said, are you an Angrist? He was one of the younger Angus boys. Ephraim. It was Ephraim Angus. Oh yes, yes. That was in 72. Yeah. But where are we now? Well, you were in that neighborhood near Baylor Hospital, and there were some Jewish families there. Did the young people get together at all Well we all went to Sunday School Oh it the Sheriff Sheriff Israel Okay And we would walk We would walk Still no cars then?
Well, there were cars, but we didn't have one. Oh, you didn't have one. Okay. Not in those early days. It was a bit later. Well, that's quite a walk. Yeah. Well, we would walk. Well, the angers, we'd walk from Ross off and you all the way down. When it came Yontif we always walked. We never drove, so we'd meet each other and the Sussman boys used to come by for me on Friday nights or Saturday mornings to go to services. We'd walk together. Yeah. What was it like going to high school in Dallas in those days? Just ordinary. I used to go with my roller skates, and I put my skates under the thing.
I never became too friendly with anyone really at school. I went to school, didn't I? I did too, but I don't recall any real close friends at school. You weren't in any extracurricular activities at school? I just graduated. Just went to school. I just took Latin, and I took arithmetic, algebra, geometry. I was good in mathematics, but algebra, I was very good. When it came to geometry, I had another teacher, and I couldn't understand the teacher, so So my algebra teacher once says to me, Telly, how are you getting along? I said, you know, I'm not doing so well. I said, I don't understand what this fellow's telling me.
So I don't know whether he talked to the teacher or not, but I soon caught off in geography. So what did you do then when you graduated? That's what I was trying to tell you. at Baylor near Baylor and of course a lot of the doctors and the boys that were studying pharmacy were living around the neighborhood and we became friendly the boys my brothers and and these guys you know and myself These boys were having problems with their chemistry I said, chemistry is their heart and subject. I would help them with their chemistry. So I said to my mother, if chemistry is their heart and subject, and it's my easiest, maybe I'll study pharmacy.
Is that the only reason you decided to study pharmacy? So they wanted to know if there were any doctors in the family. I said, yeah, I have one cousin in New York who's a doctor. But I decided, I'll study pharmacy. These boys study pharmacy. Chemistry is so hard for them and I'm not having any problems with chemistry. Did you have any trouble getting me in? No. No? Okay. So I registered at Baylor University Pharmacy School, and that was in 1970. And there was one other girl in pharmacy, Schauffman. What was her name? I know what Ethel Stauffman, maybe it was her daughter. No, no, no.
She had a sister. She had two sisters. One was Naomi, and the other was married to a... Okay, Kelly. I can tell you tomorrow. It's not coming to me today. Maybe I'm talking. were Stoffman's and Tyler I know that is that the same family Joseph Stoffman was his brother of Prima Prima Stoffman Weinstein all right that's right okay so she went she went to pharmacy just two girls two women there was another woman from Snyder Texas in our class okay Well, the war came on 1917, 18. It's going to shut off in a minute, so don't get scared when it pops. Oh. Okay. The war came.
And they closed the pharmacy. So what am I going to do? Oh. I had an aunt. My aunt Sadie, my mother's sister, was living in St. Louis. And St. Louis had a pharmacy school, St. Louis College of Pharmacy. You mean Baylor College of Pharmacy closed during the war? Uh-huh. And they wanted me to go into dentistry. They had a dental department. Of course, they had the medical school continue, but the pharmacy, because all the boys had to go into service. They didn't have enough boys. So they wanted me to study dentistry. I said, I couldn't see myself sticking my hands in everybody's mouth. I said, uh-uh.
Where can I go to pharmacy? That wasn't the thing. So they told me St. Louis, and I had an aunt in St. Louis. So I wrote to the St. Louis College Pharmacy. I still have the letters that I got from the dean. He wanted me to send in all my records and my schooling. Okay. Yeah. And of course, in those days, pharmacy was only two years. Today, I think I think it's about 6 or 7. I don't know. Anyway, I got a degree in pharmacy, but they wouldn't give me a full degree because I wasn't old enough. I was only 19 and you had to be 21.
So I got a bachelor's degree and I never done anything about trying to get another degree. wasn't necessary anyway did you go an extra two years i just went one year there one year at baylor oh one year okay at st louis but they gave you a bachelor's and i got the degree with highest honors i got a gold medal and the gentleman who was president sitting next to me at the table when we had the banquet he was president of one of the big wholesale pharmacy businesses in St Louis and he also gave me a great big bouquet of carnations and there were three girls in the class and I got the carnation anyway he says you're the only one got
carnation I was only one that got flowers he says he says to me uh tilly you keep this all the time you'll never be broke uh-huh so i have a solid gold thing about this big with a little spatula on the top anyway was he right he says and if you would have looked behind you you would have seen another young man coming up closer but you always kept your head ahead so that's what I remember about that was he right about never being broke if you have a pharmacy degree no no if I keep this medal oh the medal if I keep the medal
I'll never be broke oh okay I can always cash it in for 25 hours oh okay or something like that okay I missed that point today you might got 100 for the gold that's in it I don't know you still have it I still have oh sure I wear it do you we're talking about pharmacy maybe I'll forget this but I never went back to St. Louis but St. Louis had a 125th anniversary the college the college is already closed from where I went there's someplace else I've got a great big, a lot of buildings and a lot of territory, etc. What's the name of it now, do you know?
The campus. It's still the same, St. Louis College of Pharmacy. Oh, okay. And I said to my niece, that's Gladys' daughter, Ida Ann Goldman Swy, I said, you know, I think I'd like to go to St. Louis. having a hundred twenty fifth anniversary this is why don't you go as this boy you go with me she says yes you'll go i told her when it's going to be she was working you know so she had to get off it was 70 years after i graduated that i went back what year was that that you went two years years ago 1989 Okay And of course they made a big fuss I told I wrote them and told them I like to come and I have to have somebody meet me at the at the airport and see that I was taken care of Anyway, Sunshine went with me, so I didn't particularly need that, but they were very careful.
They saw that somebody would take me wherever I wanted to go, and when we went to the dinner that night, I was called upon to talk. Were you really? Yeah. What was your subject? What did you talk about? Well, just the school. Well, just the school when I had to go two years, you have to go seven years, and it took me all these years to save enough money to come back. I called my niece Sunshine. She said, you know, if you call Aunt Tilly, she'll always have something to say. Were there any students that were in your class that were there? You were the only one?
seated at the table with the president and all the big members of the board, and there was another couple sitting there, and he was from the class of 1929. But there was nobody from my class. I kept up with two people from my class. One was a young man, while at school, he was still in the Navy at St. Louis, he'd wear his uniform for school because he was a member of the Navy, and another was a young lady who's now living in Washington, but I didn't keep up with him, so I really don't know. Okay, so you went to the reunion and you made a speech and sat with the President, did that ever make the Dallas paper?
No, but I received about a month or so later the magazine from the St. Louis College of Pharmacy and they, I'll show you a picture, on the back of the thing about this big they have a picture of me that was taken in that feed Uh It was really a good picture That nice It was really a good page You didn even make the Texas Jewish Post Oh no They must not have known about it I'm not one for publicity. You're very modest. With what I do, I do. Mm-hmm. I don't have to advertise, but I do it. And even today. What I give, I give.
I don't want you to put it down. She contributed this, she contributed that. That's my business. It's none of your business. You're very private. So I still feel the same way about it. Okay, so when you graduated pharmacy school, where did you go to work? I went to work for Mr. Viewer, and he had a drugstore on the corner of Young and Irving. In Dallas. In Dallas. Okay. was Butler Brothers. Oh yes. Butler Brothers. I opened the store. I had a little wagon. It wasn't even a wagon. I don't know what you call it. Anyway, it had a motor on it, four-wheel thing. It was this high from the ground, and you turn the wheel and you shoot out.
That's when I'd go to work. First I used to walk to work from Greenwood and Oak to Irving. And I'd open the store at 7 o'clock in the morning. How far was that? It was a good way. A couple of miles. Yeah, but we walked. In those days, you would have men outside of the store wanting to come in to get opium, narcotics down there. You could sell a Paragord, only one ounce. They had a sign and register. They may come in a second time during the day and sign another name, but if you recognize them you refuse to sell. But the first thing in the morning, I always gave it to them because you don't know what these people are going to do.
So that was, they buy beef iron and wine, all sorts of things. It was during, what you call it, prohibition. So there were What did you earn at your first pharmacy job? $125 a month. Oh, a month! A month. Okay. And I get paid twice a month. 67, 68 or something like that. That was a pretty good salary in those days, wasn't it? I don't know. I guess it was. What year was that? 19. 1919. That was a lot of money in those days. So you were a professional woman. And I had... Anybody in your family professional? No. Only one. Mm-hmm. Teddy, my brother Teddy went to college, but my other brothers didn't, and Gladys, of course, Gladys was a dancer.
She was? Oh yeah, she taught dancing. As a matter of fact, she would teach it from the JCC on Pocahontas and Eakin, or wherever that street is out there. Yeah. One day, a woman came in with a prescription, and she says, I want to have this filled. Where's the pharmacist? I says, I was a pharmacist. She looked at me. She took a prescription back. She says, I'll not have a woman fill my prescription. She walked out of the store. That was one incident. That was really the only incident that I had in pharmacy. Mm-hmm. Because nobody else gave me that problem. How long did you work there?
I worked there for several years, and then Mr. Ewer gave up the store or something, and he moved his pharmacy into the farmer's market on Pearl Street. Well, I wasn't going to work out on Pearl Street, but three blocks up on Irby Street was another pharmacy Mr Gray Gray pharmacy and I went to work for Mr Gray You know I can remember what happened after I left Gray How long were you there? I don't know either. I don't remember either how long I was there. I'm trying to think, but I don't remember. Then I worked for Mr. Sesler. He had shoe stores. And I worked in the office.
In the shoe store. Any particular reason you left pharmacy? Left the profession? I just go down there. Just get tired of it? Bored with it? No, I don't recall. Maybe you couldn't get a job? He still had it. His son took over the store. His son took it over. Maybe I couldn't get along with the son. So you worked in the office for Mr. Zestner? Oh, I think then I went to New York, And I lived with my grandfather a year. I don't know what I did. Did you work there? Did you work in New York? I didn't work in the pharmacy. I took the state board of San Gennotions down in Texas, and I knew the president of the board and I says to him, you know I can't take the state board, I'm not 21.
He says, Tilly, you come and take it. He says, don't say anything, don't tell it how old you are already. So I got, that's where I got my license. So you passed the board. Okay. Yeah. Okay. I was one of the few people that made a hundred on their chemistry. Mr. Cousins, I was trying to think of his name, Walter Cousins, he was the president. I was just, don't worry, Tilly, you just go ahead. They're not going to ask you how old you are. Okay. So you stayed in New York a year and then what did you do Came back to Dallas came back to Dallas My mother sister Sadie passed away and my mother had to take care of her son Milton Jack Lieberman was his name at that time And I figured I'd better go home.
Mama needs all that. When I left the drugstore, I went to New York. And then I wrote Mr. Cousins, I says, you know, they're not going to let me practice pharmacy. They don't reciprocate with Texas. Oh, your license. That was it. I was honored. Okay. says tell me you work in the front of the store because you'll make more money but I didn't work in the front my grandfather who was the maha he got me a job with the internal roughness service, and that was really something. You did nothing, and you got your check. I had nothing to do. A few papers they'd bring to me, but I had to do something or other with, and that was it.
What was your job supposed to be? I don't know. What was what? What were you supposed to be doing? I don't know. I don't know. You never saw a job description? I just got a job there, and I had certain papers that were given to me that I was supposed to correct or something around there. But anyway, that didn't take too long. Then I went back to Texas. But did you ever go into pharmacy again? No. Yes. Oh, you did? in 1930 I got married I worked for Zesper and AJ Smith was a friend of Zesper's and he told me that he's he's going to have a friend of his come over he wants me to meet he says I got a man for you I said, okay, because whatever I had, I didn't like.
You know I was a little independent sort of thing You mean you were dating some man you didn like I wanted somebody that knew more than I did They didn know more than I did I wasn't interested in them. There was nothing I could, nothing in common. Not that I was such a snobber. I don't think I was really a snob, but I had what I wanted. I wanted what I wanted, and that was it. So, I met his friend, Ted Harmel, Edward Esau Harmel, and he came from South Africa. Mr. Smith and he worked together in South Africa. They were friends in South Africa.
And, of course, my husband was born in Ireland. So, so was Mr. Smith. In 1930, I married. Wasn't Mr. Smith from Ireland, AJ? Yeah, but he lived in Africa too. So I was working for Zesmer at the time, and Smith got him a job at Zesmer's, and then Ted lived in one of the apartments. My mother had our house remodeled and built apartments upstairs so that we'd have a little income. my mother was one that was always ready to give somebody something and do things for people i think i take after her don't tell anybody your mother was yeah yeah so so love at first sight when you met uh ted was it love at first sight not specially not specially i don't learn who he was and what about, but he rented one of these apartments for my mother, so he was upstairs from us.
Okay. So that's where we got together. So I was still working with Esmer. And then we opened a drug store at Oak Lawn Cedar Springs. I was the pharmacist and Ted was the man. Oh, you and Ted opened the store. Yeah, drug store. That's when we got back into pharmacy again. And that lasted about five years. He was, we gave up the drug store. And I didn't work. He was in the liquor business. He opened a liquor store. Then when he closed the liquor store, he worked for somebody else and had the liquor department for the big grocery store. See, I was always living not with a Jewish neighborhood.
We lived on Cedar Springs Road when we had the drug store. But when I married, I lived on South Boulevard and Holmes. We had an apartment there. And of course, we'd go to services every Saturday, Friday night. We would go to services Friday night. Now, do you remember the address of the drugstore and the name of it? The drugstore they had? Oak Lawn Pharmacy. Oak Lawn Pharmacy. At Oak Lawn and Cedar Springs. Yeah. Across from Melrose Hotel. Oh, uh-huh. Yeah. And now it's that great big building. Right. I've never been there to see what the building looks like. It's a pretty building. Yeah, they got a big building on that building.
It's in bankruptcy, I think. So we're back in the drug business. Yeah. For five years. Uh-huh. And then he opened the liquor store. And then he opened the liquor store. And then we moved to California, that was important. Yeah. Well, what took you to California? Well, we had a holiday, and we drove to California. We had a nice time. We were just on a holiday, and he came, oh, we took the car one day. went to CBS and he was supposed to pick us up at CBS. When he picked us up, when I say us, Mrs. Smith, Mrs. A.J. Smith was in California visiting and we went to the to the studios.
And he says he was late and coming to pick us up I thought my god what in the world happened? every car every ambulance that went by I'd wonder what's happened what's the car and when it comes to it she said now don get excited I all right everything all right but I bought a drugstore Oh Just like that So So how you react to that I was shocked. Here we had all our things in Dallas. I said, how would you buy a drugstore? I don't have to take it now. We'll go back to Dallas. I told them I'd come and take the office, take it over in August.
This was June, July. I don't know what it was. You don't want to know all about that. Why not? Oh, golly. So we came back to Dallas and decided we got to have to...we were living on Cedar Springs Road, because that was two blocks from where the drugstore was on Cedar Then he gets a call from Los Angeles that this man wants him to come take the store now. He'd like for him to take it now. So he goes and he leaves me with everything. So I had to sell my furniture, get rid of my stuff, and pack up other things. How'd your family feel about your leaving?
It didn't make any difference. We're all grown, you know. It didn't make much, much difference. I'd already lost, we've already lost my mother. But my father still had the house and so forth. So, did you have any children then? No. No children. So I had to pack up and go to California. In the meantime, I had an appointment with a doctor to have my tonsils removed. Then my brother had to drive back to California. By yourself? But I couldn't drive by myself. was working with the goldmans in the bakery company in oak cliff and uh one of the men in oak cliff had a son that was in the navy in san diego he says uh so says so can drive you back to San Diego but he has to leave on such a date I says I got a date with a doctor I better call the doctor now tell him I'm not going to have my tonsils taken out which I did so he drove me back to California and I as far as San Diego then had to drive from San Diego up to Dallas up to LA LA yeah so okay my husband had a druggist working in the store an elderly man he was he had a room in the neighborhood so when I came I parked the car at the store and I walk in the store nobody knows me and I go behind the counter and I start ringing up the cash register and what in the world's going on I said don't worry I'm Mrs.
Harmel and I just came in and then my husband took a nap in the afternoon because the drug store those days was from 7 in the morning till 12 at night and he saw the car parked there he comes in the door he says where's Tilly where's Tilly I says here I am I was behind the counter yeah you're You were already working, huh? I was already working. Yeah. Did you work with him in the drug store? Yeah. Yeah. So that was my drug store experience in California. Yeah. And then he passed away in 59, and by that time we had given up the drug store, but we We sold it to some people in the valley out in Burbank, and so when Ted passed away and we sold, and this man knew about it, no, Ted had passed away.
We sold him a lot of our merchandise. He called me and says, Telly, I'd like for you to come to work in the valley. I said, you know, I've been out of the drugstore now for about 20 years. I don't know what's going on. He says, you kept up your license. I kept it up in California. I kept it up in Texas too because I got a certificate from the Texas Board of Pharmacy for 50 years paid dues Oh did you Uh So, uh, I went to work for him. So you went out to the valley? Out to the valley. Yeah. I'd drive through the canyon every morning.
I'd open up the store in the valley. Well, I didn't open up to begin with because this man, he had a son, and he hoped his son would take over the store, but the son had diabetes, and though he studied pharmacy, he didn't continue with it. He didn't want it. So, this man sold his store to somebody else, and I still worked for these people, until they gave up the store. I was, I wasn't working. I was just on my own. I was living in California. And I decided, Tilly, you're here alone, though I had a cousin living there. You're a member of everybody's family.
All your friends, all you had to do was walk into their house and put another plate on the table, sit down, you're having dinner with us or whatever. And I said, we're getting older, and it's time that you go back home. You can ask your family to do things for you, and you can't really ask your friends to do it. So I came back to Dallas in 72. So you came back to 72. So I've been playing around since. Yeah. So, meanwhile, tell me something about you, the people in your family. I know that Ted was very active. Wasn't he on the city council? Yeah, he was on the city council one year, but he couldn't take it again.
He said he doesn't like the way they do things. So he didn't run again? We had another Jewish man, Emil Kornblad, he was on the council too. There have been several. Joe Goldman. Joe Goldman was on the council. I think so. Remember the council? Sistong. Sistong. Teddy was the only one in the family that was really active. My brother, Eli, was a baseball player. Oh. And he worked, I mean he played baseball at Selma, in some place in Arkansas, in those teams. And then he came to Dallas, and he was working with Max in the liquor store. But the family, other than Gladys and Teddy and myself, really did nothing for the community.
Nathan belongs to Sheriff Israel, but he never goes. goes through your side and that's the only time he goes through. I shouldn't tell you about my family. Why not? But Teddy was always active. My mother was very active in sisterhood. Shared Israel, sisterhood. It wasn't sisterhood at that time, it was ladies auxiliary. Anything else she worked on? What did? Was she in any other, active in any other sisterhood? No. I know Gladys was president of the sisterhood. I was president of the sisterhood. Oh, were you? Mm-hmm. I was president of Council of Jewish Juniors when they first organized. I was on their member of the National Board of Council of Jewish Women, Council of Jewish Juniors.
Mm-hmm. Extension Chairman, Vice President for Extension. So, it was just Gladys and I really did. That were active, yeah. Did you do all this while you were working or after you retired? Oh no, you do it while you're working. You did it while you were working? I was working even in the drugstore in LA and I was President of Adasa. How did you have the time? Well because I would go to have meetings In the days that I had the DOSA meetings ...look back on your life. If you could live some of it over again, would you do anything differently? I don't know. I don't know.
I try to keep myself busy. I try to do whatever I could for anybody else. Like everybody says, Tilly, you didn't have any children, but you were a mother to everybody. You know, that sort of thing. I always felt that I would have liked to have had a family. It just didn't happen. So, particularly interested in children. My husband loved kids. Kids loved him. He would play with them all the time. Yeah. But did you make a decision not to have any, or it just didn't happen? It just didn't happen. It just didn't happen. Yeah. It wasn't like in those days you'd go to the doctor and they'd, so I'd stay away from the doctors.
I'd give other people pills and I don't want to take any myself, that sort of thing. Right. What has given you the most satisfaction in your life? Really, just to have other people caring for me, like now everything, and the children, when I say the children, I'm talking about nieces and nephews. You know, it's, they're very conscious of my being here. Like Martin once says, you know Aunt Tilly, we're really thankful because you seem to have kept the family together. You know, children know about their own business and everybody's busy doing things, but when When it comes to certain times the family has to get together Everybody has to do Now Mother Day is coming up So one member of the family lost his mother He doesn't feel like Mother's Day is Mother's Day.
The only thing he feels like his wife now is mother and their children have to have Mother's Day. But up until that time, all of us got together for Mother's Day. So you won't this year? I don't know what's going on. I know I'm invited out with the kids. Two of the members of the family are going to be together, but everybody I don't think are going to be together. I just hope they would be. Who are you closest to? Whose children are you closest to? Gladys' Martin and Ida. Well you see, when I was living in California, Gladys would come out every summer with the children.
We'd always go to the beach. So and she'd also bring a maid with her sometimes, and the maid would take Martin in the go-kart, you know, down on Hollywood Boulevard, and everybody used to stop and talk to Martin. She had a head full of curly hair. He was a bright gesture. And this girl would come back. She was always so happy. She said, everybody stopped us. They all wanted to talk to Martin. From what you've told me, you were certainly firmly rooted in your Judaism. Oh, yes. Do you think that the next generation in the family is that involved? No. No. Maybe some of them, but no.
That's what I'm afraid of. I always went to services either Friday night or Saturday morning. I still go to services Saturday morning, only If I can't stand on my feet and I'm in too much pain, I don't go. But otherwise, I say, you have to go. You've got to do things. I've always been doing things, you know, and so it makes it very difficult. Like I had to give up Golden Acres that I went every Monday for the last twelve or so many years Sisterhood I go to the gift shop and would work at the gift shop For those two days, I had to give up.
Just this last, just this year, I had to give up. So it makes it awfully, awfully hard. However, I got myself back to playing bridge twice a week. Uh-huh. Well, that's nice. And the girl said, Telly, you're not going to be hostess this week. Yes, I am. I says, Don't baby me. I have to do. And you feel better what you're doing. Right. And you can still hold the cards, right? Still hold the cards and you don't feel pain. Right. And keeps your mind clear and occupied. And I work crossword puzzles every morning. Oh, do you? To make sure that I'm thinking. Yeah. Now, I take it that the nieces and nephews don't go to services.
as conscientiously as you do. No. But do they belong to a congregation? Oh yes. Yes. They do. They belong. They all belong. And their children belong. Yeah. And now even like Tanya, you know Tanya Myers? Teddy's, it's one of Teddy's daughters. She lives here. Teddy had three girls. Her daughter is married and she has a child and she says the baby's name is Saul. Saul will be going to services and he'll be a good Jew like you. Oh. So in that family I have a little more assurance than I do in Clavis's and of course my brother Eli didn't have any children either, and Nathan had one daughter and five children, but they're all Baptists, so you expect nothing.
Right. So some of them have married out of the faith, yeah. Anything? Nathan's wife was converted, but her daughter was confirmed that Sharon was married, but she didn't like any of the Jewish boys. They were too fresh. She just couldn't take it. Is there anything that I have not asked you that you'd like to put in your interview on tape that you think is important? I wouldn't have liked to put anything, but I've opened up the whole, the birds out of the nest. Okay. Well I, do you have this on at the moment? Mm-hmm. Do you want it off? Well, I didn't know. No, it's not.
I was going to get up and get something. Oh, do you want? No, I'm finishing. No, that's all right. That's what I've done. I certainly thank you for being so gracious and telling me so much about you and your family, and I wish you good health and more years. Well, we hope so. We'll try to do. And I really appreciate you letting me come. Thank you.