ETHAL WISE

What did Dallas look like when you moved here in the mid-’40s?

Oh my, it was entirely different. We had the streetcars, and I came here during the war [WWII], so nobody had cars then. You either walked or rode the streetcar. Then they started the buses. Then they started the electric buses, and they got rid of the streetcars. Plus, most of the things you wanted were in downtown Dallas. The shopping was in Highland Park. Sometime after the war, or during the war, Casa Linda was built. Most people only had one car. Some people didn’t have cars, but we happened to have one because my husband got one as soon as he got out. It was a Ford Coupe.

Earlier, you talk about the “Dallas of yesterday.” What’s a story that you feel like represents that Dallas?

Well, back then, we didn’t have cell phones. My daddy worked for Frisco Railroad. He had a little apartment in

Ardmore, Okla., and after mama died he was lonely. So I was going up, taking the two little ones to visit. I would’ve gone up Northwest Highway, around the circle, to go I-35 North to Ardmore. Daddy calls Whit [short for Whitby, Wise’s late husband] at the office, saying he’s not going to be in Ardmore because the train has come to hook up his apartment to go to Antlers, Okla., which was about 100 miles east. So by the time I got there, he wouldn’t be there. So Whit calls the Dallas police to say, “She’s going to be going around the traffic circle, headed that way. She shouldn’t do that.” So I was headed up towards Denton, and somewhere in there the Texas Highway Patrol pulls me over, and I think, “Oh what’ve I done?” They say the Dallas Police had called them to tell them they must’ve missed me at the traffic circle, that I shouldn’t go to Ardmore; I needed to go to Antlers, Okla. It was just a different

Dallas, a time gone by.

And let me tell you a tale about my firstborn. When I got pregnant with my first child, my father says to me: If it’s a boy, he’d give me $10,000, but for a girl I only got $5,000. In 1949, $10,000 was a lot of money. Of course there’s no sonograms back then, so you didn’t know until the baby came. And, of course, it’s a girl. So Whit takes that $5,000, goes down to Mercantile National Bank. Then, we get a letter from R. L. Thornton saying [my daughter’s] father had been down to open a savings account, and he said he wanted to welcome her to the bank. He said, if she came downtown to give him a call, he’d take her to lunch. So we took her downtown, and we had lunch with R. L. Thornton. It was a different Dallas.

With my fourth child, her doctor, Dr. Strother, called her “Suzy.” I said, “Dr. Strother, is it a Suzy?” He opened his cabinet — this is a doctor now — he opened his cabinet, and there were tick marks on both sides, girls and boys. He says, “She’s in the Suzy section.”

Do you remember your first job?

During World War II I worked at the telephone company, and then I worked at South Western until I married. Then I didn’t work after I was married in ’49. I didn’t work again outside the home until I started working at SMU in ’72. I took care of kids, and I took care of my two sisters who had cancer, and I’ve always done a lot of stuff outside of home. I took a Girl Scouts troop from Brownies all the way through high school. I gave them up when they were 11th graders at Bryan Adams.

What did you do at SMU?

I was assistant registrar at SMU under John Hall, who’s still registrar. When he went up as registrar, he took me up as assistant registrar. I’ve always been thankful for that. I was at SMU for 25 years total.

And when did you get involved with For the Love of the Lake?

Marci Novak started for the Love of the Lake. I wasn’t one of the first, but I started Second Saturday Clean-up probably the second year after they started. I was on the board … how many years? I forgot. Probably eight or 10, at least, at the beginning there. I still enjoyed going to the board meetings, but I decided the younger people who’d come in needed to be on the board.

And

In ’98 I started at the Arboretum volunteering there. I’ve been on the VAB [volunteer advisory board] there several times because you serve two years and then you rotate off the board. I rotated back on in another position, rotated off and rotated back on. I’d say I’ve done that six years, at least, total at different times on the VAB at the Arboretum.

So you do a lot of things in East Dallas. Why is it important for you to be so involved?

Well, I enjoy it. It’s a purpose. It’s a reason to get out. It’s a reason to get up. It’s a reason to go. I just feel like leaving — especially with For the Love of the Lake, when we planted the trees last fall

I feel like I’m leaving a better future for my little great-grandson. Because that is the Dallas of tomorrow.

When Whit died in ’93, my work at SMU was a huge blessing. It was hard, socially, to be alone. But the fact that I was out, that I was working at SMU was a blessing; it really was. My friends from SMU, they were kind of a filler. They gave me a purpose, helped me fill the void. For the Love of the Lake has been the same way, although I’m not as active now.

If you could tell your young self anything, what would it be?

Probably, I’m not sure, but I think to try to understand when people differ from you, to try to go from their point of view to yours.