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Recording purposes. So this is Katie Weber and Joshua Furman meeting with Libby Marvins on November 28 of 2018. Okay, so, now I feel sort of under pressure because the first thing that interviewed your mother did so well. But, I wanted to ask about your experiences of

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growing up in Wharton. So maybe you could tell me a little bit, just about your life story and maybe up to where you're living now. I know that's a long thing. But yeah, well I had a very lovely happy childhood, you know, I had no terrible

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traumatic things ever happened to me and my childhood growing up, I had my mother's parents um at the time I was born we lived in a duplex next door to their house, which was next door to the hospital where I was born. And so my grandparents

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were a very large part of my life. I also had a great grandfather who um my great, let me back up. My grandfather had um emigrated from Lithuania when he was a teenager and he had relatives in pennsylvania and he somehow managed, I don't know how

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he pulled it off, but he got an engineering degree from Lehigh University. So not many jewish grandfathers of my generation had a grandfather with an engineering degree and um he subsequently, after he graduated, he came to texas on an engineering project which was which was the

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construction of the seawall in Galveston's alexander Harrison and he, the company he worked for sent him to Galveston's to the construction of the seawall, which was After the terrible hurricane of 1900 that destroyed Galveston's. So that brought him to this part of the country. My grandmother

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had, her family had immigrated to Texas when she was about five. She was the youngest of her family and uh they met you know through some mutual acquaintance and they married and so um I'm getting to where we wound up in morton. Anyway, she was and

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she was the she was the only one in her family who graduated from high school and it was like Houston high school or something to that effect. And um when he was through with the project in Galveston's and they wanted to send him to south America

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for a project. And my grandmother was like there's no way in hell I'm going to South America and he left the engineering company and my grandmother's sister's husband had a dragon store in Warton. So she convinced my grandfather will move to Warton and will work in

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the dragon store with you know with their brother in law and sister bertha Eagleson. Harrison Wilson F. B I G. E. L. S O N. Harrison. I imagine Harrison wasn't the family name when he came up it wasn't but the relatives that had come before him

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had taken that name. So that's why he took the name and we've never known exactly what the name was because we think that when his father came we had the passport but it appears we think it was the passport of like some dead Russian that they

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got the so we don't think that the name on the passport was the actual name. Although we have some pictures of um I'm digressing too much. Let me let me keep on with getting to warden anyway so they stayed in Warton because my grandmother didn't want

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to go to south America and my uncle uh Toby Gordon? Her brother in law was quite a character in Worton. He was a renowned resident. I think I recently sent you a photograph of the nameplate on the bank. I can find it you know? And I

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had like the directors of the warden bank and he was one of the original directors of the bank and warden. So he was a well known character in a well known person around town. And uh my my grandfather really hated being in dragons business. He was

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a brilliant, brilliant person. Let's see I had a sandwich, his mind was way too sharp to be working in the dragon store that yours. So eventually he started an accounting practice and um and stayed with that throughout the rest of his life that was in the

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early thirties. He started an accounting practice. And uh to get himself out of the dragon store. And so actually my father who was a C. P. A. And had grown up in another small town in texas when he got out of the service he came back

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he came to work because my parents already married. So my grandfather and my father had an accounting practice together. And daddy you know well we had that until daddy retired and this is Arthur. So that's how we it's hard for me to talk. That's how my

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family got to Wharton. Almost everyone else in the community was a merchant. And at that time they really weren't jewish. Doctors weren't you know in that generation there weren't so much you know later jewish doctor became a big thing but at that time because of quotas

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and getting into medical school, everything there really weren't. So that although there were many doctors in war and there were no jewish doctors. Everybody else at a store basically except us. So um the community was really unusual in that there are a lot of small towns

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the size of Warton but they didn't have the size of jewish population. We had, what do you attribute to that? I'm not I'm not really sure how that evolved because a lot of those communities were settled along the Colorado River because goods were shipped on the

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river. But there were many other small towns along the river that didn't ever develop that size population. And I can't really, I've never really known why why did our community become so much. I mean there were certainly groups of people that were related. We were also

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one of the only families that weren't other than this. Uncle I was talking about. We weren't really related to like if you get into all that, a lot of those people that came and we had the lunch that day. Well like like fred Zeidman family that

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and Larry waters, okay, the Schwartz, the Schwartz family which led to the Wobbler family and uh the smith family. And there were a lot of those people that were related and, and I'm sure that connected a lot of them in, whereas we were just not related

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to the rest of them, married each other. Yeah, related, you know, related people that came because the other relatives were there. But we were really disproportionate to a comparable. There's lots of other towns like morton and they'd have to jewish merchants. So there'd be two jewish

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families. Like my father's sister and brother in law lived in columbus, which is only about 45 minutes away. Also in the colorado, there were two jewish families said there was a very old jewish cemetery there which had been just overrun by weeds and noble been buried

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there since maybe the thirties. So maybe before that there were other families there. But in my lifetime I never knew about my aunt and uncle on this, One of the family that were there. And that was pretty typical of the towns around where there'd be one

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or two families, ours was just, you know, on the high holidays you couldn't buy anything important because all the stores were closed. Yeah. Yeah. So it was it was a real unusual scenario. And we had as I grew up we had a full course of everything.

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We had sunday school, We had young Judaea, we had we had been a brief but sisterhood always had a full time rabbi. You know we drew from all the other towns around. But how many, how many members do you think? I think it was the number

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was like 90 families. And so the synagogue definitely drew membership from the surrounding towns. Did the social and political organizations as well. Like when people come in for the circles. Yeah. I mean we were all one chapter, you know whether it was um young Judaea like

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we have sunday school in the morning and then we'd have lunch and then we have young Judaea and then uh met on a regular basis. But they you know they all had their regular, it took all three towns to support this. And there was always a

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lot of competition of, well there's more of us in Bay City, we should have this in Bay City and you know there was always squabbling over where was the county seat and why is the county seat in Ward and not in El Campo. There was a

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lot of that and like the rabbi would go around and teach hebrew for the kids that were studying for their bar and bat mitzvahs but let me take that back. There was no such thing as bar mitzvahs them, but for bar mitzvahs, he would go around

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one day a week to Bay City, el Campo and then warden at the synagogue and he would teach hatred of the kids went on. You know we always had friday night service. I don't remember much about saturday morning service, I don't know that we just didn't

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go that didn't have it. But one thing that was amusingly unique to being in a small town in texas. Our rabbi had been raised in Czechoslovakia, the rabbi that was there for the longest time. I had been raised like in Czechoslovakia had a heavy accent and

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it was very european and when football season came around um and there were several jewish boys at the time that actually played football and in one year there was one that was the captain of the football and whatever and he always said the friday night service

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at eight o'clock. So the members explained to him if you want to have a minion you're gonna have this service at seven o'clock Because we're going to the football. So he was very indignant about it. But during football season we had 7:00 abbreviated services or he

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wasn't going to have a minion, he didn't like that, but that was how that's how it had to be. Um I never remember, I'm gonna get over to any Semitism, I never, it was really very aware of it. Um all of my girlfriend playmates were all

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gentiles and there was really no issue about it, but the issue of the warden country club, you may have heard me on this subject before. My mother hated the warden country club more than anything in the world because she had grown up in warden, she'd been

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comfortable there all her life, she had had her place in society in the town. My grandfather was very well respected and after the war when they decided to build a country club, they made it no jews allowed. And to my mother, this was the most shocking,

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it's like I've known these people all my life, where did this come from? She was absolutely indignant about it, furious about it and it went along like that for a lot of years until they got into financial trouble. Many I'm talking way down the line later

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and then suddenly they invited jews to join the country and my mother was so indignant that that was the end of my father's golf game because the other two, many played will join the country club and she was like over my dead body one nickel and

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my money is going to go to that club, my father's money wasn't good enough for them, you're not getting any of mine and when I was a teenager if a group of girls, we're gonna have a party, you know, everybody was going to pay a share

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and be a hostess, she would let me go to those parties, she would never let me be a hostess, there was an issue of, I'm not giving any money to that place, you know, and it was a real, she was real indignant about it and it

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was so hurtful because she had never really experienced any antisemitism up until that point, and that was after World War Two that occurred. So it, you know, it was something that made me aware of it remember, like in about the eighth grade, I had a boyfriend

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and his mother was very cool or cold to me. I mean, we weren't old enough to drive, so if we went anywhere, his mother drove us, but she would never talk to me or whatever. And I once said to one of my other girlfriends, I said

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his mother was so nice to so and so his other girlfriend says she was just rude to me and she said, well, don't you know why? And I'm like, no, and she said, because you're jewish, just like, you know, and it just, you know, I didn't,

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I wasn't used to that, it really took me back. So, so there were little, you know, things that occurred, but but basically we were very integrated into everything in the community and and the the right after World War Two, and I know I've given josh stuff

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about this in the archives, they formed a board to build a junior college there because there were so many people coming out of World War Two. And and to build a junior college. And when you look at the group picture of the founders of the junior

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college, about a third of the men in the picture or jewish. You know they were putting up the money and getting the money and finding the funding and whatever to build this college which has been very sporting Junior college has been very successful, had a major

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impact on the quality of the community. And so many people came out of high school there who by going to junior college for a couple of years could then go into a four year school. So I think it made for a much more educated community because

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of the junior college was very important. So you feel like the institutions in Warton besides the country club were pretty well interrogated. It's interesting. Yeah I mean that was the only issue where exam which is kind of smacked us in the face but and anything else,

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we were totally a part of everything. Uh My parents were president of local organizations and it was like one P. T. O. For the whole town. And my mother was president. Dad daddy was president Alliance. But you know they were just what about memories of like

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jewish observance is growing up. So like high holidays passover. What was that like? They just had regular high holiday services they did on young people, they did a break fast in the community hall because people were from other towns and they needed to eat right away.

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So we always had a community break fast but everything else was, you know, really family, you know it was, we didn't mean sunday school, we had some kind of community seder but I mean every, you know families had their own family Seders and we did always

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have, we always had Asuka attached. You know, we always had, even in the original synagogue we had Asuka and we have that, I don't remember any particular about Hanukkah. Where did you go to get Matzo and food for holidays? Okay. I don't know what the company

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was but we would get these order forms months in advance and you would order what you wanted for Passover and they would send them in and then there'd be a day would arrive and they set it up in the community hall and you'd go there and

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you pick up your monsters and all your stuff and that's how we got it. Now a lot of people that kept kosher had to come into, you know, if they needed particularly kosher meat, those people came into Houston and bought it in Houston and like my

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Orthodontist was like just over there was on rice just to the just next door to the medical center building. My orthodontist was here and had to come every three weeks and I car filled with fred's admin and ellis Hudson who both work well at the lunch

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here and fred's family kept kosher. So when, when it was, his father started to drive, we would have to stop off somewhere he'd go and the meat would come in from, I don't know where and it would be packed in dry ice and so they pick

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up the side, it's kosher meat before we went back to war. And there was a real good jewish deli in the village Alfred. Well you have the menu recently, whenever we would come in with my parents were driving, we always have to go to Alfred and

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they had a real good bakery, had holland rye bread and danish and all that. So we always have to go there and get those kind of foods. And so I mean like I said, we didn't, we didn't keep kosher so we had a lot less issues

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with getting stuff. But was there a variety of observance levels in the community. Can you talk about that? Our congregation was affiliated with whatever the conservative conservative united synagogue, they were affiliated with that main thing, but it was always explained to a new rabbi when you

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got to do it all because we ranged from totally, you know, nearly non observant only on the high holidays Reform to Orthodox. And so mainly we went by conservative rules and you know, people just came less if they reform, but we wore I mean the men

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were keep us and tallied and it really went by the rules of conservative. So services were mostly in hebrew with some english readings are a lot of english english. It was it was the same book, they had it that you sure in like forever and it

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would be you know transliteration on one side, it was a mix and you can follow I'm just trying to when I took my husband out there to the synagogue for the first time for our wedding and he had grown up in a manual one that's around

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the corner here and I'm like you will be wearing a yarmulke and he was like no no don't worry, you didn't even wear one for my bar mitzvah and he will be wearing one, this is how it's gonna be Cosmi in the community in terms of

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like some people wanted more observant, you really just have to accept that's what we have. I mean it wasn't like a city or you can choose this this or this is like if you want to have a rabbit, I was expecting that call but I'm not

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taking that um you know everybody you know that grumble about services too long because those people want it longer and there was grumbling but you know there was no alternative, it had to be middle of the road and we had you know rabbis that came and

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went but this rabbi Rosenberg was there the longest and throughout all our childhood. And then after that it was a short man of from bad to worse right? You know, they finally got to the point where they couldn't afford to pay a rabbi. So we'd have

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somebody that came out from somewhere twice a month, once a month, you know for sabbath services which was you know, all you could do. So it was it was you know just a kind of a different place in time. It was just a When when my

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age group went off to college, we didn't go back, you know that I mean like I graduated from high school in 60 for pretty much anybody in our you know from several years above me and everybody after me, you know everybody went to college and only

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a couple of people came back to run their family businesses which was Gordon franklin, you can be met, Gordon? Gordon franklin continued until he got flooded to run their, you know that was the last family business in warden. And then um the Davis family which had

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a men's store and uh Kenny died very young and that was the end of that one so that they were the only two who came back to run their family businesses. Um My father was kind of looking towards retirement and didn't want to, my my father

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wanted to retire and sell his practice but he wanted to be sure that my brother was my brother who's also a CPA and a lawyer. You want to be sure my brother didn't want it, which he didn't when he was convinced that I remember like okay

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you know now I've got to retire and uh so you know the businesses closed the families, several families at grocery stores falling short, you know just it just kind of all wound down because our generation went, went elsewhere. Did you ever feel guilty about any of

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that or did anyone try to make you feel guilty or parents kind of expected their Children? They wanted you to go to college. They wanted you to succeed. No, no. I mean at the time I finished college, it wasn't in that shutting down though, you know

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it was still a fairly healthy situation there. So No, I didn't feel anything you yelled about that but it was just a, how things just happened at a unique place in time and I'm sure a lot of people came there after the war. There was only

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one and I picked two. There are only two families there that had holocaust survivors. There were holocaust survivors. Um one was the penn family. I mean when I say you know talking things on the Penn family had a store in New Golf. New Golf was a

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company town, there's a texas gulf sulfur was there and it was just a company town and when they closed the company town right away. But the pens had a dragon store there. Um Their daughter in law was here at that lunch with their daughter in law

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is um Larry walker's niece. Well she's she's a wider family pam pam, pam, pam, Kapito pam and her husband. So those boys grew up in in New gulf. They weren't there for a real long. Okay, so they were holocaust survivors. And then there was another man

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who was a home builder who was there for a while and he and his wife were holocaust survivors. And we just, we didn't talk about the holocaust we didn't talk about. I mean that was just not a subject because basically the people in the community were

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not, we were already there so to speak. You know, I mean a lot of the men were in the army, you know, people like you know my father's age were all in the military but we didn't like where we talk about the holocaust today. You know,

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I mean I can remember saying to my parents like what's that, you know, and by the time the pens were there in New gulf, I was old enough. I mean I understood it and they had some really tragic story of what had happened to them but

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they had succeeded in in a new life here. But we didn't, we didn't talk, you know, we didn't talk a lot about it. And my father talked about World War Two all the time. We heard stories all the time, but he didn't tell us bad stories.

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He told us stories, but until the holocaust museum hope here in Houston and I took my father there and there was a picture on display from when at the end of World War Two, when when um General Eisenhower made everybody go into the camps and see

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what had been done okay. And so they sent all the townspeople and the officers into the camp while the bodies were still there. And until that day when I took daddy to the holocaust museum, he saw that picture, he said I did that, I was there

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and I'm like, you know, in 40 years you've never told me that he had this feeling there. But for the grace of God go I I would have been one of those people if my parents hadn't left, I would be one of them. And it was

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so painful to him to understand the relationship those, you know, we didn't have any personal family that we knew of but to see that he never talked about it and I didn't, you know, and then later when we discussed it, he said how they brought the

00:28:51.060 - 00:29:06.000

local townspeople in, they made him, they made him clean it up, they made him do this stuff and you know, he saw that happen, but it was just too painful to even to even talk about it, you know, for him. So what about Israel, did you

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grow up learning about Israel about Israel, to what extent was Zionism part? It was it was a very big part because Israel was established in 48, so I was you know, a small child at that time, we were always raising money for things, sending stuff to

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Israel, having bond drives, I mean we had the blue, you know the little blue boxes of the charity. Yeah, so it was it was yes, we talked about Israel a lot, we studied in sunday school, we did the maps, you know, it was it was very

00:29:45.940 - 00:30:02.240

much a part of our and you probably heard fred Zeidman tell this story about how we would pack these boxes that people would would give like clothes or like when they finished the sales at the department stores in morton bring over the, you know, whatever didn't

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sell and they would pack these, get these big wooden boxes I think from the undertaker casket boxes and they would ship them to Israel at some point, the people in Israel said thanks a lot, but why don't you just send the money? They didn't, they didn't

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want the old used clothes, but I can remember us, there'd be a day when we go to the hall to pack the boxes, so we were very aware of the formation of Israel and there were there were a number of kids in morton around my age

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who went to Camp Blue star, I didn't go because I don't want to go to camp, you couldn't have blasted me, but you know, people were involved in what was going on and I mean I could name off half a dozen people that went to camp,

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you know, it was, it was uh available people did and um I mean in school we were very integrated, but when I was finishing high school on Youtube, I was so excited that I was going to really be living in a jewish situation, I was gonna

00:31:21.470 - 00:31:39.450

be, I was gonna have jewish friends which I had wonderful friends growing up there, I'm still extremely close with people that I mean like daily contact with people that I grew up with important, but I really looked forward to seeing what it was like. The only

00:31:39.450 - 00:31:59.610

time I ever dated jewish voice was if somebody had a cousin that came and visit that I was like the designated jewish date, so that was, you know, that was not a very fun experience, but I've never really had much opportunity to jewish voice. So by

00:31:59.610 - 00:32:12.670

the time I got to college it wasn't the least bit interested in dating non jewish boys, been there, done that, don't you know, that's not going to be my future. So I mean I went out a few times with non jewish, but I really just didn't

00:32:12.670 - 00:32:29.630

care about, it was just like, I know that's not what I want, so I don't need to mess with it you know and I really just concentrated on what you know I felt my life would be which was you know the right choice for me. So

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what else? This is not about just out of interest? Where did you meet and hang out with other jewish people and jewish boys at U. T. Well mostly fraternity parties. I was very active in sorority, I was president of my sorority. It was at that time

00:32:53.430 - 00:33:12.940

was all jewish we didn't go through there was rush but then there was a jewish rush. They can't do that anymore, it's not legal but it's the jewish sororities at the time we weren't gonna get invitations to the non jewish sororities. So we all you know

00:33:12.940 - 00:33:28.600

anybody that was jewish that was going to say she went to the jewish world so we only went to the three jewish houses and you pick between those three and um we had our own little world and was the same with the fraternities, there were four

00:33:28.600 - 00:33:51.620

jewish fraternities and three sororities and there was a lot of doing stuff together and um you know that was who I was focused on who I was going to be dating or whatever it was it was that but that is totally changed today and um but

00:33:51.620 - 00:34:07.210

we were in our own little we were in our own little world, we had our own little bubble in our own little world and I like that very much it was coming from morton, I hadn't had camaraderie with jewish kids my age and so I liked

00:34:07.210 - 00:34:23.200

it very, very much. It was a very happy fun thing to me. And and actually me, my parents had gone through that same experience to my father had come from a small town, went to university of texas. Well both of my parents went to Youtube and

00:34:23.200 - 00:34:38.500

daddy was in fraternity. And again, it was the same, it was the same scenario of what I went through was like, you know, had jewish friends there and and so you know, we had the same feeling of the group we were a part of at that

00:34:38.510 - 00:35:11.080

time. So uh all those things have changed uh really seeing the community wind down. I was very sad to see the synagogue had to close and and all that. And my mother was the last, the last jewish woman in Warton and then larry water who left,

00:35:11.090 - 00:35:37.240

you know, for personal reasons, he, you know, moved to Houston. So that's it, you know, and the doors closed. So it becomes history. Did you go back, go back there to see people or well, I was going, well my mother died a year ago, october so

00:35:37.240 - 00:35:59.290

I was going over and over and over and we sold the house and I'm getting it even confused. We sold the studio sold the house, we saw the house and we closed on the house in april and then um you know we had unveiling in september

00:35:59.290 - 00:36:12.690

but I mean I don't have anything you know I don't have one real close girlfriend there and I keep in touch with her but unless I had some event to go to you know I mean I'll go to the cemetery periodically but I don't have I

00:36:12.700 - 00:36:27.080

don't have my home base. So um I still get on my mother's subscription, I'm still getting the Horton newspaper which my subscription is gonna run out in a few weeks and it's like I look at it and like I don't really you know I look at

00:36:27.090 - 00:36:44.690

even like the obituaries that I hardly even know anybody. So you know I don't really have I don't I don't know the middle aged professional people there at all anymore and and you know the cemetery will just always be our Touchstone. And we had gotten um

00:36:44.700 - 00:37:01.940

again he knows all about this stuff and Mark Daddy had worked on getting a historical marker for the congregation and that historical marker was at the synagogue. And so it was moved to the cemetery at the time we closed the synagogue so that historical marker is

00:37:01.940 - 00:37:21.280

still there and you know that's that's yeah I mean we're so thankful that Betty Suren took that over took that property over because we needed the maintenance of that, of that thing so of the cemetery. So that's just you know I guess it was for about

00:37:21.290 - 00:37:44.530

what 100 about 100 years. I don't know, I don't know what the founding date of the congregation was and I'm sure you have it in the archive somewhere just short of 100 years. That's that's the history we had and you know, for the most part, I

00:37:44.530 - 00:38:01.510

mean it wasn't any uh you know, we didn't have the plan and we didn't have, you know, there were other, remember reading a book a number of years ago and it was a man who grew up in one of the towns in Mississippi or Alabama and

00:38:01.520 - 00:38:14.570

talked about how his father would take him to a Klan parade and they could his father could tell him who was under the hood because he'd sold every one of them their shoes and their feet and there he'd say that's you know, the kid, the kid

00:38:14.580 - 00:38:34.100

sitting on his shoulder didn't know who they were because they had their Klan hoods on, tell him he could tell them. That's mr Sands. I saw them. I mean we didn't have I don't ever remember there was anything ever about the plan and what I don't

00:38:34.110 - 00:38:52.700

remember any stories of as far as like difficulties for the black community. I don't know whether I was just oblivious to it or you know, like the kind of bad stories you hear from the south, I mean, do you remember I'm just old enough to remember

00:38:52.710 - 00:39:13.090

the water fountains, the bathrooms and the local movie theater. There was the place where you bought the tickets and then there was around the side of it and they had to go up the side door and sit in the balcony. So and I you know I

00:39:13.100 - 00:39:29.840

found that it there was just something about this in the water fountains and the bathroom. I knew that there was something like innately bad about that about being really. So what their revenge was they were in the balcony. We knew not to sit forward of the

00:39:29.850 - 00:39:44.000

balcony because stuff undescribable things would come over the balcony that was their revenge and you can't really blame you know things came over so we knew to sit way at the back of the theater so that stuff coming over the balcony didn't get you in the

00:39:44.000 - 00:40:02.630

head but uh that was you know near the end of the time when with the bathrooms and all that. As far as as far as segregation in the public school. Mine was the very last class before they did a test run on segregation. The year after

00:40:02.630 - 00:40:18.000

I graduated the A. C. P. Sent a girl I think she had some relatives and they sent a girl from Little Rock. She was as outstanding a student as you could be. You know they sent the best possible person. This wonderful girl that could do anything

00:40:18.210 - 00:40:33.500

and she was the token you know the token integration and the next year there were Few more and then you know, within a few years they integrated because we had to separate high schools and then they, you know then they integrated but I missed all, you

00:40:33.500 - 00:40:49.390

know that was I was the very last class that was completely segregated and then that whole process started but that was that I graduated in 64. So that's right when all that was going on. So I missed out on, I mean I'm not aware of any

00:40:49.400 - 00:41:11.010

episodes or incidents as I just I was gone and it was done. But so now the schools, the schools are probably predominantly or let me say minority, the schools are now minority white. A lot of people have, there's a couple of school districts near there that

00:41:11.010 - 00:41:26.830

have a better reputation for education. So like one of my friends um her daughter in law was a teacher in the warning system, but another town a few miles over had a better reputation of school. So she took herself over there to teach and took her

00:41:26.830 - 00:41:41.130

son with her because he could then go to school there because she taught there and you know, people have done things like that to get it because the schools don't have a good and plus the effects of the flood has just been catastrophic on that community

00:41:41.460 - 00:42:03.880

real bad. Think of anything else, feel free to call me and I'll have to see if I can give you the date of that recording. You know what, you know, we didn't talk about what we didn't talk about the barbecue, the barbecue, that was the fundraiser

00:42:04.110 - 00:42:21.090

and I used to make fun of them because what they would sell those chickens for them, like you're not even making money, they paid more for the coaster. They only had a certain number of kosher chickens, They paid more for the coach Chickens. Then they didn't

00:42:21.090 - 00:42:37.130

sell the tickets at a different price. In other words, the tickets are one price and if you requested a kosher chicken and a lot of people requested them not because they kept kosher because they heard they were bigger chickens. So they would pay more, let's say

00:42:37.130 - 00:42:50.780

the barbecue ticket was $5. They were paying more than that for the chicken. And I used to say, daddy, this is insane. You know, when I was, you know, a full fledged adult and I'd see this guy, you're going to all this work, you're not even

00:42:50.780 - 00:43:03.760

making any money. Oh, we can't charge any more than that because the Baptists have this and they charge such as the Catholics have this and they charge such and such and you can name off every other religion in town and what they charge for their event.

00:43:03.770 - 00:43:19.740

So we can't charge anymore. I'm like even charge more for the culture chickens, you're getting, you know, you're not making money, but it was people, lots of people came out from Houston, you know, relatives or family or whatever would come out and everybody would make, you

00:43:19.740 - 00:43:34.700

know, the women would make dessert. And um, one of the families that had a big grocery store, big modern grocery store at the time, there would be one night we would go to make the slaw because they had the big containers or some kind of slicers

00:43:34.700 - 00:43:50.590

or whatever. So they make the coleslaw was the famous coleslaw recipe and they make the slaw and um, trying to think what else we've had for. So I just remember the ladies made cakes and they sold the cake whatever and, and there was a certain group

00:43:50.590 - 00:44:05.480

of men that would come and do the fire and cook the chickens and whatever. So that was a big tradition for many years. I would say it was probably in june yeah, I don't put my finger. It was probably june you probably have some minutes. I

00:44:05.480 - 00:44:21.860

gave you some notes of Daddy's, gave you notes of daddy's about this stuff to do for the letter he sent out to people what they had to do for the barbecue. So so we had that. So anyway, that was our community thing, but in a small

00:44:21.860 - 00:44:36.960

town like that, every, every church, you know, whether it was the so and so pancake dinner or it was commonly done thing in a small town where you have something like that in the community, You know, the community come out. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I mean if

00:44:36.960 - 00:44:48.600

they didn't eat there, they get it to go, a lot of people got to go stuff. It sounds like it also became a kind of reunion event. Well it was, yeah. Yeah, it was. And a lot of people would come to that. Yeah. So we'd see

00:44:48.600 - 00:45:05.840

everybody then. I mean as a kid I found it just a pain in the ask and I didn't want to be there but you know, and as an adult we always went, daddy was always sitting there with the cash box. Yes, yes. The treasurer. And then

00:45:06.450 - 00:45:18.760

and then usually when it was all over, you know who Lester smith is when it was all over Leicester would give daddy a check? It would be more than what made on the whole bar. But this isn't like a known fact but it would be more

00:45:18.760 - 00:45:33.170

than they made on the whole barbecue. And this was when Lester wasn't a billion yet. But he was still very he was always very, very generous to the interrogation. So I'd look at that. You worked your asses off to make whatever like Lester just gives you

00:45:33.170 - 00:45:52.700

a check for more than a good whatever it takes. That's what it takes. So very generous. Always. Maybe it's like a last question, do you think there's anything special or unusual or different about growing up, jewish in a small town as opposed to, you know coming

00:45:52.700 - 00:46:11.070

from Houston or Dallas or boston. Well I've talked to have talked about that a lot because all of his friends were jewish and with the exception of fred and ellis, you know, like mine weren't and it's just a different, it was a different type of friendship.

00:46:11.070 - 00:46:24.770

I mean there were always, I guess you'd say like code words that fred and I would have like if something happened in class, it would be something kind of, you know, like fred and I would give each other a look. You know, there was just, there

00:46:24.770 - 00:46:42.520

was just that link that I had with fred didn't have with anybody else and it was just more things in common. It was just what my experience, my whole life experience was and it was people that I had more in common with. So although I love

00:46:42.520 - 00:47:00.010

my, I love my non jewish friends dearly, but there's still a different, um, there's just different common experiences, you know, and, and I didn't get that until I went to college and had jewish girlfriends because I had no jewish girlfriends growing up, whereas my husband was

00:47:00.020 - 00:47:19.160

always grew up here in Houston and he was always surrounded by, you know, jewish friends. So yes, it was a different um, we did didn't talk about, you know, today, everybody talks about everything we didn't, I didn't talk about being jewish around. I mean I'll give

00:47:19.160 - 00:47:38.040

you, I'll give you an example in the lower grades in elementary school every year, there'd be a class christmas tree and everybody would bring an ornament for the tree. So starting with first grade, I'm like an ornament for the class trip at that point in time,

00:47:38.040 - 00:47:51.490

you wouldn't have said, I'm jewish, I don't celebrate christmas, I don't have any ornaments, you didn't do that. So we went to the local five and dime and we bought an ornament and I would take it to school and every year I would take that same

00:47:51.500 - 00:48:04.000

ornament and finally at some point I said to my mother, you know, probably about third grade, I said they might know that I've brought this same ornament every year and she's like, nobody's gonna remember what ornament he brought, you know, but it was like, you always

00:48:04.000 - 00:48:25.230

had the feeling of being quiet about it, you would never have said, I don't celebrate christmas, you know, I exchanged christmas gifts with my friends, we did hanukkah whenever we did hanukkah, you know, but there was definitely, I was, I knew I was a different situation.

00:48:25.240 - 00:48:39.840

I always, I always knew that, you know, even, you know, from, from the time I was in first grade, I always knew or whether it was an easter egg hunt or whatever. I mean you just kept quiet about it, you didn't make waves and go, I

00:48:39.840 - 00:48:56.540

don't do that, you know, and I didn't, we didn't keep kosher, so there was never an issue going to someone else's house and saying, well I can't eat that, it's kosher, so I didn't have that issue, but it there was an I know I'm different fact

00:48:56.550 - 00:49:11.450

that I always had and I knew it and I never had that, you know, growing up in Houston, he never had that. We've talked about that a lot of difference in the feeling of growing up and being the other. You know, it's one thing, if you're

00:49:11.460 - 00:49:29.400

african american, everybody knows you're an african american, you can see the color of our skin is different, but it's ju you don't necessarily look any different. However, when I did have a nose job, that was quite the talk of the town, it was the summer between

00:49:29.400 - 00:49:48.680

my, I guess it was the summer before my senior year in high school and my mother had a very beautiful, elegant cousin who was a professional model. And when she came from my grandmother's funeral, she sat my mother down and said she needs a nose job.

00:49:48.960 - 00:50:02.990

I remember sitting on the sofa and giving my mother this lecture and my mother was in awe when she was very beautiful and elegant. She was pretty close in age to my mother, she was, you know, very worldly and if my mother heard from her that

00:50:03.000 - 00:50:17.420

that's what she needed to do, that's what she needed to do. So I mean those jobs were very common at that time was very common. I mean if my Houston girlfriends and everybody had a nose job, it was just really, how did you feel about that?

00:50:17.420 - 00:50:30.020

I was thrilled, you know, I was thrilled because I didn't like my nose and uh, my father had a very large nose and I, mine wasn't as large as it was the same shape, but it wasn't as large, but I was thrilled with this concept, but

00:50:30.020 - 00:50:41.600

it was quite, you know, I guess there was nobody else in our high school at that time. No, there wouldn't have been anybody else. So when I had this, it was like, I mean, like a whole carload, I was in the hospital, like maybe one or

00:50:41.600 - 00:50:58.290

two nights at methodist hospital, like a whole carload came in to see me at the hospital, including the high school history teacher who used to actually teasing, he was, he was really part of the right somewhere and he actually sort of teased me occasion about my

00:50:58.290 - 00:51:14.850

nose, which my mother was really curious about, way that's how my mother perceived it. And so when this carload again, he brought this carload of kids to methodist hospital to see me in the hospital, you know, and I'm all bandaged up. Like my mother, my mother

00:51:14.850 - 00:51:31.690

was really digging the knife, You're the reason we had to do this. I mean, he wasn't, but she just got in his face and you're the reason we had, we laughed about that forever. She failed him about that, but it was her cousin it was her

00:51:31.690 - 00:51:55.650

cousin telling her you need to do this. But that was you know that was another thing about it was that other people didn't do you know nobody else did that in my pure Barbra Streisand kind of change that for everybody when Barbra Streisand made it okay

00:51:55.650 - 00:52:12.860

to have an unattractive big nose then it was okay. It was it was it was trendy but know off the top of my head I could name my friends you know they did that but they were not girls I grew up with girls I knew later.

00:52:14.250 - 00:52:31.880

So anyway but it was it was a different uh but but it gave me I think a broader world view or something. I don't know like I said I always felt so creepy out when I would see the restaurants men women colored you know and we

00:52:31.880 - 00:52:53.160

always we always had a black maid and she was a very subservient type of person. I mean I don't say that we treated her disrespectfully anyway but she was a very poor uneducated you know very um subservient. I don't know how to say it. But did

00:52:53.160 - 00:53:08.250

you ever read the book The Help? Okay. We had N. C. J. W. Had a book review of the Help and it was it's really interesting the divide between those of us who were there who grew up in the south and those of us who were

00:53:08.250 - 00:53:23.340

there grew up in like Brooklyn so like a completely different world experiences. So as we started talking through that you know and those of us who grew up in the south and and like one of the one of the girls is actually from Jackson Mississippi which

00:53:23.340 - 00:53:38.200

is where that was set. And they started talking about the fact that there was a bathroom that made used like in the book they made a lot of issues about the bathroom that may be. So as we sat and talked about it that day and I

00:53:38.200 - 00:53:52.330

remember in particular one of the girls who grew up in Waco and the one that grew up in Jackson Mississippi and a couple of like we did have one of those bathrooms and it was like an unfinished bathroom in the garage or it was just somewhere

00:53:52.340 - 00:54:04.860

not quite in the family. You know people going oh my God we did have one of those you know or like in our case we didn't have a separate bathroom anywhere but there was only one bathroom that are made of reused and she would only use

00:54:04.860 - 00:54:20.220

like a certain glass and plate. I don't remember my mother saying to her you can only use that glass but she she you you know kind of did those things, I mean she was never told because we had three equal bathrooms. So it wasn't like go

00:54:20.220 - 00:54:34.360

out in the garage to this thing but those kind of things you know existed at that time and I mean I really related so to that movie. I mean you know the small town but we I mean we didn't have that level of that kind of

00:54:34.370 - 00:54:55.120

what went on in that story. But it was real interesting sociologically to see the two groups of us at this at this book review and in Brooklyn it was a whole different, you know they didn't have those kind of experiences with racism. I don't know that

00:54:55.120 - 00:55:14.740

they didn't have racism but it was not in the way we had it in the south. Yeah. Yeah. And you know I used to when we would take the maid home and I would see it that's just like I knew there was just terrible. Most of

00:55:14.740 - 00:55:37.950

your friends growing up everybody had a black man. Everybody have black and there weren't as many Hispanics around at the time. The hispanic population has grown more since then. And I don't I mean there were hispanic kids in school with me all the way from the

00:55:37.960 - 00:55:54.680

beginning on they were always hispanic kids in school but they didn't play a large part of the community but they weren't just I don't know how you would say whether they were discriminate don't know if they felt discriminated in anyways or not because they weren't in

00:55:54.680 - 00:56:10.890

school this but I'll tell you one thing that I always I always felt a real strong thing of racism or class. They would come around in school like once a month and they would check for headlights that was before my Children went to the JCC day

00:56:10.890 - 00:56:25.900

school and got headlights at the JCC day school, you know, it was like in those days it was like, oh my God, you know, it was like the worst thing in the world. It later became every but his kid headlights somewhere okay. Your kids had that

00:56:25.900 - 00:56:41.360

yet. Okay. I mean I remember when my kids came home from the JCC with headlights, I'm like, what? Okay. So back in the day the school nurse would come around about once a month and do a check. So for those of us right? She knew us

00:56:41.360 - 00:56:56.950

and she wasn't the least bit concerned that she would just pat us on the head and then she would get to the hispanic kids and she would be digging through their hair looking for and then when that was over there'd be a message that certain people

00:56:56.950 - 00:57:11.170

were called, you know, so and so and so and so please go to the nurse's office. It was like embarrassing that had to do because it was so discriminatory the way she just remember she just pat me on the head and keep going but the others

00:57:15.620 - 00:57:44.530

right, right. And and so you know those kind of things, you know, went on, it just so being jewish from a small town in texas is different. It could still you could make you tough pride or it could be a source of embarrassment. There was just

00:57:44.530 - 00:58:00.430

a thing you just kept your mouth shut about. You didn't want to be different, you know you growing up you don't want to be different, you don't want to be the other. So so never made any issue like I said with the christmas ornament or whatever,

00:58:00.430 - 00:58:12.120

you know, and if I had to sing christmas songs in the pageant, well I just sang them, you know, we didn't make any to do about it and our mothers went through a period of time and I don't know how much they fought it, but I

00:58:12.120 - 00:58:28.150

know they fought it. We were not given an excused absence on Russia shine and um Kipper and at some point finally I guess I must have been in the middle elementary, our mothers started objective and saying you know my child would have perfect attendance but for

00:58:28.150 - 00:58:44.220

the fact that those two holidays my child won't be in school and I don't know how it really resolved, but it was very brave of them. I mean at that time for the mothers to take that stand and say our Children deserve an excused absence for

00:58:44.220 - 00:58:59.090

this. They don't really fight about it and I don't know I guess it eventually worked out, but I mean that was a big deal for them to go to the school board and say you know now today in H. P. S. D. They do it as

00:58:59.090 - 00:59:11.230

a teacher in service day so that they you know they do it for Russia shawna or young Kiper, they do one or the other as as an in service day and I I don't know how they, you know maybe the other one will fall on a

00:59:11.230 - 00:59:29.550

weekend or something but I mean they wouldn't have that issue that we were having in those days and so again you know you knew you were, you were different, you know all the stories were closed that day. Let me thank you so much. I hope you

00:59:29.550 - 01:00:01.980

write a wonderful paper. Anyway it's uh it's just one of those slices out of history, a different place temple. So it's not very exciting when you know as old as my grandchildren are and they don't live here, it's not very exciting but it's never you know

01:00:02.360 - 01:00:16.520

it's never been like christmas was like way better. You know I would try to spend the night at my best friend's house on christmas eve and I love the tree and I I'd go over there whatever night they decorated their tree, I would go and I

01:00:16.520 - 01:00:31.320

mean I loved it but I knew it was never gonna you know it wasn't like if I begged my parents a lot I'm going to have, I mean there was no question, I knew there was no and I don't really know if any of the families

01:00:31.330 - 01:00:42.600

did or not. Probably not. I mean Buzz said a lot of his friends, you know, in a blue and white tree, but I know it doesn't matter how much I begged and pleaded, it wasn't gonna happen. But I mean I thought it was beautiful and I

01:00:42.600 - 01:00:57.790

loved all the attrition and I would spend the night on christmas Eve with my best friend and I would go to midnight mass with them at the Episcopal Yeah. At the Episcopal Church. No, I I really I really thought it was just beautiful. I would have

01:00:57.790 - 01:01:14.830

loved to decorate, but I always clearly understood this ain't my dear, I don't get to do this is really not. And they didn't think it was weird that, you know, I mean, that was my best I've had three emails from her this week. You know, like

01:01:14.830 - 01:01:32.730

I said, I mean regular, these are my regular, they were mostly Episcopalians. I have to say that most all of my close friends, I don't know whether they were more liberal or well the Baptists were another whole issue. You know, we couldn't deal with the Baptists,

01:01:34.110 - 01:01:54.090

you know, I don't know if, you know, I didn't know the baptist story. I mean, I know generally anyway, but you know, sometimes I would go to methodist youth something or other because it was just somewhere to go along. But Episcopalians, all my all my best

01:01:54.090 - 01:02:02.640

friends anyway, that's the story. Any other questions Tommy