Mom in her Youth
Calvin Harvey, Mom, Dad
OUR MOTHER RACHAEL MORITZ WOLFF
We dedicate this to our Mother, who was a good and remarkable woman.
On July 9, 1912 in Brownsville, Texas Rachael Emma Moritz was born to Isadore and Julia Bollack Moritz. She was their only surviving child, having lost a stillborn son in Mercedes, Texas in April of 1910. She was a bright and beautiful little girl.
By “bright” we cite the example of her father Isadore’s first heart attack. The United States had set up an Army base in McAllen, Texas, where Isadore owned and published the newspaper “The Monitor”. The base was established in 1915 or 1916 to defend against Mexican bandits who raided across the Rio Grande into the U.S., including Pancho Villa. (Isadore was a volunteer Vigilante sometime prior to that. He was also a 50+ year Freemason, District Deputy Grand Master for a number of years, having founding several Lodges in the Rio Grande Valley). Having found no doctor available to treat Isadore, and unknown to her Mother, little four-year-old Rachael went to the Army Base and found a doctor and Isadore survived.
Rachael grew up in several towns in the Rio Grande Valley, because Isadore was an adventurous newspaper man. He trained in Pleasanton, Texas, about 30 miles south of his birthplace in San Antonio. He and a friend had a post card shop next to the post office in Corpus Christi which was successful until they were robbed. Then Isadore decided to find work in the newspaper business at the Panama Canal, which was then under construction. He travelled from Corpus to Brownsville to earn and gain passage to the Canal. While sleeping he was robbed again, at night, also losing his trousers. So he hired on with the still existent Brownsville Daily Herald and remained there for about a year commencing August 1907. He then decided to venture on his own and in 1908 established the Mercedes Enterprise, which is still publishing. Mercedes, Texas, about 40 miles west of Brownsville, was then a pioneer town. In 1912 he sold the Enterprise and worked as City Editor for the San Benito Light, then bought the Hidalgo County Advance (in Edinburg, TX). In 1915 he sold the Advance and bought the Monitor in McAllen, which is still publishing. In 1924 he bought the Willacy County (Raymondville, TX) News. He sold the News in 1928 and moved to Harlingen, TX (about 20 miles south of Raymondville, 30 North of Brownsville) and became the General Tire dealer for the Valley. In late 1932 the Great Depression hit the Valley and the bank in which he had considerable cash, closed and tire sales dried up. He then moved to Harlingen, TX and went to work as the Valley Wide News Reporter for the Harlingen (TX) Star.
Thus Rachael was educated in McAllen schools and Raymondville High School where she graduated in 1928 at age 16 (there were then only 11 grades). She was registered as a Freshman at the University of Texas and had a room reserved at the Scottish Rite Dormitory there, but due to the Depression she could not be educated there. But in Harlingen on December 24, 1934 she married our Father Charles S. Wolff.
Charles (called Charlie) worked as an office supply salesman for the Clegg Company in San Antonio. His territory was the Rio Grande Valley from Zapata, TX to Mercedes. He was based in McAllen and the young couple rented a house there at 709 Cedar Street, then in around 1942 moved to another rental down the block to 505 No 7th St. On October 12, 1938 their son Calvin Moritz Wolff was born, and on November 2, 1944 their son Harvey Alan Wolff was born. Later in 1944 they rented a house in Pharr, TX (about 3 miles east of McAllen) on the west side of Sam Houston St. In 1945 they moved to another rental house in Pharr owned by a Judge in Tyler, TX. The Judge and his family would visit them for several weeks every year. The house was a two story on 305 So. Dogwood, and was a grand estate with a variety of citrus orchards attached to the rear and a very large front yard lined with royal palm trees and contained many shrubs typical of the Valley. A “U” shaped driveway ran from Dogwood St. around to the back of the house, separating the house from the orchard, and emptied back on Dogwood. None of these houses were air conditioned but were well ventilated. The house was big enough to house in 1948 the organizational meeting of our Jewish Congregation Emanuel, which was eventually built in 1949 on the corner of Main and Redwood streets in McAllen. In that same year the Wolff’s offered to buy that house, but the family from Tyler wouldn’t sell it to us because we were Jews. So Rachael and Charlie designed and had built a three bedroom, two bath house on 603 Nyssa Ave. in McAllen, which was completed in 1949. That house was not air conditioned but had very good southeast exposure (strong prevailing wind) and was ventilated with an attic fan. The house had a detached 2-car garage with a utility room/servant’s quarters attached.
Rachael was an excellent mother and housekeeper. We and our Father didn’t show our appreciation for this. One year we totally forgot Mother’s Day, which hurt her very much. We were not the easiest boys to raise. A strange wanderlust took each of us at four years of age: At that age, Calvin and Harvey got on their tricycles and wandered off to Highway 83, running thru the center of McAllen and Pharr respectively. We were average students in school, but our attendance was good, thanks to Mom.
Mom also was Dad’s bookkeeper and received payments and paid the bills for Wolff’s Office Supply and did the household books as well. In the 1950’s Dad broke with the Clegg Co. and started his own business, selling office supplies in the mid-Valley. We, his sons, helped him as needed make heavy deliveries (desks, filing cabinets), never on own, however.
Tragedy struck our family in 1957 when our Grandfather Isadore Moritz was diagnosed with an aortic aneurism. At that time the only treatment was replacement of the weakened section with a synthetic material, that treatment being developed by the famous Dr. DeBakey in Houston. The treatment was approved in late 1958 and Mom made arrangements and took her Father to Methodist Hospital in Houston for the procedure. As can be imagined, there were many people at that hospital seeking the same treatment. As a result of the overcrowding, Isadore was bedded in a corridor with inadequate heating. It was in December-January 1958-59. There he developed pneumonia, weakening his system so that the Dr. could not operate. Grandpa Moritz lived until June 1958. After that Grandma (Julia) Moritz lived with us in McAllen until she passed at age 95 in 1997.
Dad made a comfortable, but not extravagant living. They were able to send their oldest, Calvin to the University of Texas (Austin) to earn a BA and a Chemical Engineering degree in January 1961. Harvey’s education was limited to being a live-at-home student at Pan American University (now UT Rio Grande Valley) because of another tragedy that struck our family. That was when they invested in an apartment project in Pasadena, TX organized by Dad’s brother Jack. Our parents lost a lot of money and went into debt because of the project, which was finally sold at a loss in 1965 or 1966. Calvin loaned the Project his life savings ($1,000), and of course lost it. But he did, however, live in the apartments for nearly a year. The Project cost Harvey the wonderful experience of going to away to college.
Our Mother suffered horribly when a few days after her Mother passed in December 1977 our Father was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer and lived only six weeks thereafter. Mom and Dad decided to do a lot of travelling after Grandma passed.
Another traumatic experience for our Mother is when in 1964 Calvin married a woman who was not Jewish and was Hispanic (Honduras). Mom was never very religious, and Judaism was more of a social thing to her. Having lived on the Mexican border all her life, she acquired a very negative impression of Hispanics. Calvin’s wife Betty became and still is a good practicing Jew. She is from a prominent family. Her father was of a good English family originally from the Cayman Islands. Although he was born and raised in the former British Bay Islands of Honduras, he remained a British subject all his life, never taking Honduran citizenship. Betty’s mother was a very fine woman, born in Guatemala to a prominent European/native family.
The result of the marriage is daughter Annette. It was in April 1965 when Calvin called Mom to let her know that her first grandchild is on the way. Mom then informed Calvin that she had just bought a children’s clothing store, The Younger Set, on Beaumont & Main Street in McAllen. Mom and Annette grew to love each other very much. As a girl she went to McAllen to spend a few weeks each summer with her Grandmother. Although Annette was raised Jewish, she became a Christian after marrying a gentile, a very good man, Charlie Stegemoeller. This was also traumatic to Mom. Annette and Charlie have three very fine adult children: Michael, Aaron, and Sarah.
The Younger Set did very well, demonstrating her business acumen and taste in selection of merchandise.
Mom was very pleased that a healthy boy William was born to Betty and Calvin in 1965. William is a very good and loving son and grandson, which delighted Mom. William was educated receiving a BA in Physical Sciences from Southwestern University (Georgetown, TX) and a B.S. in Mechanical Engineering and an M.S. in Biomedical Engineering from the University of Texas (Austin). He is presently a Senior Engineer at a major pipeline company in Dallas. He is married to Donna (Law librarian and professor at SMU) having a fantastic son Moses (b. 2014) and an adopted daughter Avery (b. 2004). She is a beautiful and talented young lady who loves our family very much.
Harvey was an Eagle Scout. He graduated Pan American University (now University of Texas Rio Grande Valley) with a B. A. in Communications and from the University of North Texas in 1968 with a Masters in same. In 1968 he taught one semester of communications at the University of Oklahoma and taught Junior High English and drama in McAllen. Harvey is past president of the Dallas Association of Health Underwriter of the Year and later their Underwriter of Year in 1989. He was also President of the Dallas B’nai Brith.
He married Carol Frank of St. Louis in 1971. They have two children, Julie (b. 1976) who has three children herself (Corbin, Toby and Kate, and Alan Isadore who has two girls (Bella Rachael and Leah.) Harvey and Carol divorced and in 1994 he married Marsha Albert. Harvey and Marsha grew up together in McAllen, she living five houses down from we Wolff’s.
Mom passed of heart failure on January 7, 2006 at age 93. She is buried at Temple Emanual Cemetery in McAllen in a plot with Dad and Grandma and Grandpa Moritz. May they rest in peace.