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The following are some notes that I found made by Henry Pullman when he was preparing a speech
at the Eastland Rotary Club. The date is unknown but Henry Pullman died in October 1967 so
they were made prior to that date. The notes will follow: "My name is Henry Pullman and I'm 65 years old. I'm an orthodox Jew and a member of Sherith Israel Synagogue that is located in Dallas, Texas and I am also a member of a small synagogue located in Breckenrige, Texas. I have two children a son and daughter. My daughter is married and lives in Miami, Florida and my son; Saul is attending law school at the University of Texas. He will graduate in January and if he don't I will burn the place down. I came to Eastland in 1923 and have lived here ever since. I am a member of the American Legion, V.F.W, Masonic Lodge, Shrine Club and member of a few Jewish Organizations and the Rotary Club. Now I'll give you the story how it happened to me and what caused me to settle in Eastland, Texas so here is the life of Henry Pullman "I was born in a small town in Lithuania with a population of 5,000. Lithuania was ruled by Russia and is located on the border of East Prussia. There was ten in our family; one sister died in her early years and that left us with nine. From the nine of us, only three survived and the rest were killed during World War II. I received my education in Russia and Germany and graduated High School in 1913. I accepted a job with a big Department Store in Germany. Every day after work I had to cross the border to go home. At that time Germany was well know known for good merchandise and people would come there to buy. Russia had a high duty on merchandise brought in from Germany, which caused the Department Stores to hire smugglers to take merchandise across the border to Russia without paying the duty. I went to the headman and told him that I would like to be a smuggler. I told him that I knew all of the officers on duty at the inspection center located on the border. He told me that he would have to talk to my parents and get their permission. I knew that my parents would not like it, so I told him to forget it. I had already made up my mind to be a smuggler so I talked to the floor man and told him what I had on my mind. I told him that there was big money in smuggling and I would give him one-third of what I made and he accepted my offer. The floor man had charge of all the merchandise going across the border. The main items that I was to smuggler across the border were watches, perfume, silks, and silver. My first week was very successful, I was making two trips a day and money was coming in fast. I knew all the guards and what their shifts were and had no problem arranging my trips across the border. Then lightning struck, it happened around 9 p.m., I was loaded down with watches and as I came to the Inspection Center, the guard I was expecting was not there and there was another guard there in his place. I started to go back into Germany but there were two policemen blocking my way and I knew that I had been framed. The policemen took my passport and I was not allowed to go into Germany anymore, which ended my smuggling career. My parents got tired of me loafing and wrote my sister in Dallas, Texas and explained to her what had happened to me. They said that the only thing to do was send me a ticket so that I could come to America. My sister at that time was not able to send for me and she went to my Uncle and explained the situation to him. My uncles send me a ticket (it was a package deal) everything was paid from home to Dallas, Texas. Now I had a problem, I had to cross the border into Germany and my passport had been taken away. So one morning I walked up to the guard and had a friendly talk with him, he was not aware of what I had on my mind. As we talked, I walked slowly toward the bridge with the guard at my side, I don't remember the conversation we had, but he fell for it. By walking toward the bridge, I made sure that if I made a run for Germany, the guard could not fire his gun at me because he would be firing into Germany. The bridge was about 500 feet wide and I know he could chase me and he may out run me so I walked to the middle of the bridge so I would only have a short run. He never made a move but he yelled out "Where in the Hell you going" I yelled back "America" Once in Germany, I took the train for Hamburg and once in Hamburg had to go through all kinds of physical examinations and paperwork. From there I went to the ship "Hanover" which took me to America. I arrived at Galveston and from there I went to Dallas to my Uncle's home. During this time I had a tag on me which told everyone where I was going. I made my home with my Uncle but that did not last long. I then moved in with my sister and stayed with her until 1915. I have done all kinds of work. One day a friend of mine asked me how I would like to go to Amarillo, as he was opening up a JunkYard. I accepted the offer and started to Amarillo with a Studebacker wagon pulled by a big white horse. As I was traveling, I was buying junk and sending it back to Dallas. I don't remember how long it took to make the trip from Dallas to Amarillo. Once in Amarillo the JunkYard was located in the back of the Amarillo Hotel, I remember the manager of the Hotel was Colonel Thomkins. I stayed with the Junk business until we declared War with Germany that was on April 6th and on May 5th I was in the Army at El Paso, Texas. I was assigned to the 5th Cavalry. I served 3 years in the army and received my discharge at Marfa, Texas. I went back to Dallas and got acquainted with a girl named Tillie. We had a few dates and I went back to Amarillo and worked a few months. I then came back to Dallas and proposed to Tillie and she accepted so we got engaged and married on the 15th day of January. My father-in-law took me in as a partner in his business. He was in the wholesale and retail meat business and lots of business and supplied most of the hotels and cafes in Dallas. This situation did not last very long, I had too many brother-in-laws and sister-in-laws giving me order, and so I told my father-in-law I'm quitting and told him the reason why. He accepted my resignation and asked me what was next, I told him I'm going back to Amarillo. In the mean time my father-in-law had a grocery man owed him a big bill for meat and couldn't pay so he took the grocery store. He made me a present of the store, I got lots of experience running a grocery store but at the end of one year I went broke. The reason for going broke was allowing too many people to buy groceries on credit. My father-in-law asked again what's next and I said I am going to Amarillo, I have a few friends there. He said that friends won't make you any money, and I have something for you to do. I have some property in Eastland, Texas and I would like to get rid of it. You go to Eastland and see what you can do with it, if you sell it I'll give you one-half of the sales price. If you decide you can't sell it then you can go on to Amarillo. We tried and tried to sell the property but nobody was interested in buying property in Eastland, Texas, the boom was going down and lots of business was moving away from Eastland. I decided that I would buy the property myself, I had experience in Grocery Store even though I had gone broke in Dallas. I opened the Grocery Store and named it Eastland Grocery & Market. I made a trip to Dallas to see my father-in-law and tell him I had a customer and the price he was willing to pay. He said sell it, and I reminded him that he promised me half of the sales price and said that was the down payment and I will pay you $100.00 every month until the balance was paid out. We did a good business and bought out the other grocery stores. We started the grocery store in a 25 x 100 building and wound up with a 100 x 100 building. We decided to close the Grocery Store when A & P moved a new modern store to Eastland. In 1926 I started in the Junk business in Eastland. My motto that I have used through the years has been "SQUARE DEALING THE YEAR ROUND". I stuck to this motto up to the present time. During the time I ran the Junk business I built a large store know as PULLMAN APPLIANCE STORE. Back then things were hard to get right after the war and I would go out and gather up hard to get merchandise. I was in the appliance business for around 5 years. I closed the appliance business because the hard to get merchandise and appliances were getting easier to acquire and there were several other businesses in Eastland selling appliances. I sold out everything down to the bare walls and rented the building to Hollywood Corset with a 5-year lease. |
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Henry Pularevitch departed from Germany, on the steamship "Hanover" and landed in Galveston,Texas
(it was the spring after the Tytanic sank).. Saul Pullman |
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104 N. Ammerman Eastland, Texas 76448 1-817-6291239 |