Full Transcript
Tina 1945 Dallas let's go back what do you what do you remember we were just a little girl I just remember being able to go anywhere I wanted to in the city in the city was very safe and just remember not having to lock doors and just go out and play and do whatever I wanted to what did your parents do my dad so it was a lawyer and my mother was had a degree as a teacher and when we were born she was a stay-at-home mom but did a lot of volunteering you're born in 45 just when the war was ended yes was your
dad involved in the war at all he had been stationed in Alaska and then they came when he came back from Alaska then they were married and I was born soon after that they do you remember your grandparents yes tell me about them my grandfather there came over to America in steerage in 1892 he was born this is my dad's dad and he was born in Poland and came over here the through Ellis Island wasn't ready yet that's picniced accomodate very many people a lot of people so he came through North Carolina and came up through Galveston and he already had family here they had
already his family already was established here when he came nobody can blame himself he came by himself I'm not sure he had two sisters as well but I'm not sure if they came at the same time or what it happened I assume they were born later I think they were born later than he was so his parents stayed his parents ever come to this country his father his mother died over in Poland before he came and his father came here and what about your grandmother and my grandmother my dad's mother came through she had Hardy had family here as well and her sister sponsored her
and she came through Castle Garden in New York now where was she also from Poland she was also from Poland they were from a town not far from each other when they didn't know each other there do they need a church here in the United States my grandfather's bunk well my dad's uncle had was already here and they well when he came when my grandfather came they actually met here in the United States my grandmother through my dad's uncle had a sister-in-law he said I have a sister-in-law that you would maybe like to meet and my dad my grandfather met her and they were soon
married after that now what does your grandfather do for a living my grandfather when he came here they he was a peddler they sold they sold notions and they went from town to town in a wagon selling notions and then later on it turned they used a car with the crank I understand and instill notions that way and then he stopped doing that soon after the cotton industry had dried up and he stopped doing that and he I had investments and things like that and he retired from that business let's see the family came a long way if your dad was an attorney and your
grandfather came over as he said in steerage there were there are ten children in my dad's family my dad had seven brothers and two sisters and they were all born in Dallas no what about on your mom's side when my mother was two she lost her father and then assumed several years after that she lost her mother so my mother was raised by her aunt and uncle which would have been her dad's brother and his wife raised my mother and her sister there were five in that family and my mother and her sister had two sisters and a brother that were really her cousins but
they were raised like her sisters and brother my aunt and uncle had taken my mother and her sister in well your parents where did they meet they actually are related the two sides are related really yeah interesting it's through my my grandmother's sister on my dad's side and married a man named Mike Myers and Frank Myers which also the grandfather of her sister Frank bars is the was the grandfather of my mother the one the woman that was raised like my mother sister you have three sisters and a brother so you came from a pretty large family yourself oldest middle I be honest and my
brother is the youngest and what's the age difference between ten years between him and myself so when you guys were little was there a lot of sibling rivalry going on with you and your sisters and your little brother no no he was he was there were the three of us and then he came along and he was raised by the little prince I think the family boy yeah yeah no I can imagine so where did you where did you go to school where'd you go to grammar school I went to school at Robert anyway okay in East Dallas and what's interesting is that there were
very few I think there was maybe one other Jewish family over there and my dad was the president of the PTA mm-hmm we were very you know very well treated the words go to high school i went to high school at Hillcrest I lived in one house from the time I was born to when I was going into my sophomore year at high school and when went to Hillcrest High School what was high school life like it was a turbulent time in the country when you were in high school the beginning of the 60s yes what was high school life like in those days it
was a very Jewish high school mm-hmm very large percentage of Jewish people Jewish kids in the high school now were you in high school when Kennedy was assassinated no I was actually with my first year at SMU okay so after high school you went on to some music and when the assassination came when you were in college what what what was that like for you what was going on I was actually in class in one of my college classes and they had it was announced I said oh my gosh and just just so upset and it was just didn't move from the television from the
time I got back home like several days just went by and just too engrossed in everything that had gone on when you graduated college uh-huh did you go to workers work for a very short time and went back and got my master's degree and then got married soon after that well when did you meet Steve I met him in 1970 in December of 1970 and how did it where was this meeting a Jewish singles organization called my layers but I didn't actually meet him this that night I mean he heard me introduce myself I was very active in Hillel at SMU and one of the
rabbi's rabbi Goldenberg had you know I came up and said hi rabbi Goldenberg do you remember you know it's so nice to see you again and Steve hurt me but what was even more interesting is his father was my supervisor and when I was student teaching and if he had given my husband a lack of books a oh you maybe might be interested meeting these ladies you know some of these lady said I was my name was in that book your future father-in-law uh-huh do you write and then do you start dating his son yes and did he give his approval did he encourage his
son I don't know and so that's how you were telling me about your first meeting with Steve now what did you guys finally get the other well he called me said would you like to go through the movie love story and we were engaged in April the following year and got married that August of 1971 it wasn't that movie was it where'd you guys settle down we fell down in an apartment in Dallas okay and then what did Steve get into he is a journalism major and he at that time he was working for the Dallas Times Herald okay okay and then were you still
working at that time or did you stop work I had I worked I had actually stopped working I taught for about a year and then our daughter was born in 1973 and your son came later yes in 1977 the best time in your life my happiest time has been always around my family I'm a very family-oriented person we have a yes my husband said they told him he married into an army he has very small family and were related to a great number of people of Dallas and have you seen the Jewish community in Dallas scroll over the years one here and raised here and
I don't it's hard to say I noticed that it's men more people coming in from other places I think that's where the change I see the change the more people coming in from other places and being from here is just oh you're from Dallas really there are many you are are there I said well there yeah there's some there you know of course my huge family a lot of them we were all my sisters and brother and I were all born in Dallas it talked to me about your involvement in the Jewish community okay my main environment I first I've done a volunteering out of
it through May sit in my children's schools and everything loved they were growing up and then also my main involvement the Jewish community I was a member of women's American org in Dallas and did a lot with it but my main involvement in the Jewish communities through birth Israel and the reason is such I was actually I taught in the religious school when I was from six from the age of sixteen and have done a variety of things as I said the very theater was in my ribs and in my gym in my jeans my dad was president of the Congregation for eleven years off
and on and my mother was very heavily involved in the sisterhood but I just that's my second home and that's where the majority of my volunteering is through the religious school helping in the religious school and still wherever I can and also through my heavily involved in the sisterhood at the ferret now in your lifetime there's been you know in all our lives times so much advancement in technology is there something that came along that you went wow how did we ever get along without that computers and microwave right basically didn't want my said oh I don't want that and I now write basically like
the computers and I'm not a very digital digital person but I know the computer is my main thing in your lifetime you've lived through so many momentous occasions of course we already talked about the Kennedy assassination there's something good the moon landing in 69 it's her meal in times of the 60s with political unrest and whatnot I think I must have been sheltered during the sixties because with this I knew I would read of turbulence in other places but not as she's arriving okay me so of course we had the tragedy of 9/11 was there something that happened in your lifetime that you weren't oh
my gosh you know exactly where I was and I'll never forget that day I think basically the Kennedy assassination because in my opinion I think that just changed things when you had some youth invites and everything in in the white house and just and how it's changed significantly from that you would Steve have two children and two grandkids yes what advice does drama have for that next generation be happy with what you have and the most important thing is remember that you that you're always loved and you can be whatever you want to be that was fifty years ago this year that the Beatles right
first came to America all right do you remember that craze yes it's a great part of that crazy jumping up India did you watch for mine in Sullivan I don't remember watching him on I'd tell them that I knew that you know I've heard about all the things that we're going on with them well Tina thanks for doing this today oh yeah
