Immigrants to America needed no recruiting campaigns, no persuasion to come. That they didn't know the language didn't stop them. Nor the fact that most would arrive with almost nothing. They saw an America that provided all they required—a chance. The pull of America's possibilities brought Israel Nasher to Boston in the late 1890's He would marry a first generation American, Janet Brenner, on December 7, 1920. Almost eleven months later, October 26, 1921, their only child, Raymond Donald Nasher, was born in Boston.
This boy's Boston was obviously not the Boston of the Cabots or Lowells or Lodges. The Nashers settled in a section of Dorchester where immigrant Jews established their own close knit community; they lived in triple deckers, one family per floor. Twenty feet at the most separated one triple decker from another. Janet, Israel and their
son, Ray, lived on the third floor. Israel's younger brother lived on the second with his family, and Israel's father and mother lived on the ground level. That three decker would provide, floor by floor, the support and encouragement Ray Nasher would need. Ray says, "My parents were determined that their only child would try to be something above and beyond what their goals could be. And so they spent all their time trying to educate me."
Ray Nasher's maternal grandparents, Frank and Rebecca Brenner, had also immigrated from Germany in the late 1890's They settled in the Bronx where Brenner opened an upholstery business. Whenever something of consequence happened in New York City, Frank Brenner would insist that his daughter, Janet, and her husband, Israel and their son and only child, Ray, come down to New York from Boston. As a result Ray Nasher, as a boy, was there, Zelig-like, for the opening of the Empire State Building and the George Washington Bridge and for the expansion celebration of the New York Public Library. Why? Because Frank Brenner, Nasher's maternal grandfather, was convinced that New York was the center of the world, and wanted his grandson to come down from Boston to see the evidence for himself. The great lesson, to go see for yourself, Ray learned for life. New York City was for him, as it has been and still is, for so many, what E. B. White described as "the white plume saying that the way is up." Many of those New York experiences often required Nasher to literally look up and see for himself where aspirations could lead—to gravity defying bridges and skyscrapers going ever higher and higher. These landmarks were created by those with an appetite for risk—the most necessary appetite for those who believe in possibilities.
Ray, an only child, was exposed to life's excitements and the arts in a way that was natural, not as a chore or duty. He was encouraged by both his parents and grandparents. He was taken to Yankee Stadium, where he saw the Murderer's Row which included Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig. His maternal grandfather, Frank Brenner, was a strong, physical man, a marathoner, a weight lifter and a bare-knuckle boxer in clubs around New York. Those who would come to do business later with Ray Nasher would not be surprised to learn that he was descended from a man proficient in bare knuckle boxing. Nasher was being prepared to go further up the ladder his parents had begun to climb.
Ray remembers when he was eight years old the stock market crashed. In those subsequent depression years, Nasher believes the die was cast for him. Not so clearly that he knew exactly what he would do with his life but he remembers wanting to somehow control his own destiny. What that destiny would be he had no idea. He saw what the depression had done to his father; he remembers his father coming home after losing everything including two small apartment buildings he owned in Boston. One evening Israel came home and
said he had only $42.79. That's all. Ray remembers that number like the rest of us remember our first address or phone number. In 1929 the family moved to New York hoping to improve their economic situation. There Israel started a low-priced dress business with his brother-in-law, Louis Kalis. The Nashers spent 5 years in New York getting back on their feet. They moved back to Boston in 1934
That fall Ray entered Boston Public Latin School, the nation's oldest public school, founded in 1635. Its graduates included three signers of the Declaration of Independence: Benjamin Franklin, Samuel Adams, and John Adams as well as Ralph Waldo Emerson, Leonard Bernstein and Joseph P Kennedy. Latin School was then and is now elitist in the best sense. Anyone in the Boston city limits can be admitted who passes the rigorous entrance exam. There is no tuition. For almost four centuries Latin School has prevailed. Because it is and always has been a meritocracy. The school is true to the belief that learning isn't necessarily fun, knowing is fun. The school was and is Darwinian. At its core, Latin, Greek, English, math, history, and science still prevail. And other substantive courses. You measured up or you were out.
Even the extra curricular activities were daunting. It seems almost make believe to read in Ray's yearbook about his involvement in the Literary Club of which he was vice president. That year's program included president of the club, Franklin Flaschner, speaking on the plays of John Galsworthy. At one meeting Ray discussed Eugene O'Neill and his writings. Norman Zatsky spoke on Maxwell Anderson at another. And Joseph McVeigh gave an analysis of Joseph Conrad. Ray was also president of the Classical Club whose sessions, the yearbook said, were "imbibed with long but highly entertaining and enlightening talks on such subjects as Latin and Greek mythology, literature and history."
Latin School was the ladder up and Ray would thrive in its competitive atmosphere. He was captain of Latin School's tennis team for three straight years and ranked among the best players in New Eng land. He was encouraged in tennis by Helen Hotchkiss Wightman, later a member of Boston's aristocracy and one of the world's best players. She won 16 U.S. championships and would go on to create the annual Wightman Cup matches between Great Britain and the United States. She had seen Ray play in tournaments and gave him the chance to play at the Longwood Cricket Club in Brookline where she was a member; there he played on grass courts for the first time. There were certainly no grass courts in Dorchester. Even now in his 80's, he's proud to be a graduate of Boston Public Latin School.
Ray could see for himself the prejudice of Boston which worked against immigrants like his parents and against the Irish. He knew the story of a successful banker, Joseph P Kennedy who had married the daughter of Boston mayor, John "Honey Fitz" Fitzgerald. Joe Kennedy was an extremely successful banker and financial operator but his success meant nothing to the WASP members of the Cohasset Country Club, in a beautiful small town on the ocean 30 miles or so south of Boston where they summered. They turned down his membership application which explains why Hyannis, not Cohasset, became home to the Summer White House.
Following graduation from Latin School, Ray decided on Duke in Durham, North Carolina, an unusual choice for a Latin School graduate. It was a long way from home but Ray had always had the exceptional confidence of an only child. And you could see this clearly when he hit his stride at Duke. He was president of the student body when he was a senior. He was on the tennis team. And in 1943, his senior year, he had his own column, "Time to Think," in Duke's student newspaper, the Duke Chronicle. In those columns, sixty years later, a reader senses a young man comfortable with great issues, and also in the bully pulpit a column affords.
In early 1943, members of Duke's Army Enlisted Reserve Corps got the word. They would be called into the service missing their last month of their final semester and would not, therefore, receive their degrees. Ray wrote in his column, "I have been attempting to think out this problem rationally now for several months. I have tried to weigh the evidence in favor of not granting their degrees quite impartially. I readily admit that technicality that these Duke men who leave us April 1 have not completed their total scholastic training—they will be training hard in khaki during April and a few weeks of May rather than sun-bathing on our Duke lawn. My credo is that granting these men their A.B.'s and B.S.'s will not deflate the value of their sheepskins so as to lower the intrinsic value of the college degree."
In another war time column he urges readers to do whatever they could: "We can do many tangible things while on campus to expedite our fighters' drive to Berlin and Tokyo. We can give blood at the hospital every six weeks to save the lives of our fallen heroes; we can buy war stamps at the P. O.'s to give our share toward the actual financing of our military men and equipment and to retard inflation; we can exercise daily so that our bodies will be toughened to endure actual physical combat or long hours in war industries; we can read profusely and study faithfully to educate our minds to be able to make the quick and necessary decisions which will be a part of our war job; and we can take time to think about our social, economic, and political conditions today so that we can take a certain part in the construction of the post-war world of tomorrow."
He wrote in one of his final columns, "What are we going to do about tomorrow? Today is the time to think seriously about tomorrow." Ray has never stopped thinking about tomorrow. Those columns reveal a young man who took himself seriously, in the best sense.
In 1943, after his Duke graduation, Ray immediately joined the Navy in which he would serve for four years. He did his officer's training—it sounds too good to be true—at Wellesley College. After training he was assigned to the Third Marine Air Wing at Cherry Point, North Carolina. He became an aide to Captain Russell Sullivan, Chairman of Navy Supply to the Marines. Then he was assigned to the USS Humboldt as a supply officer. The ship had been designated to transport all the correspondents to the invasion of Japan. The Humboldt was being outfitted in Philadelphia. Then, on its way to Japan, on August 6, 1945, word came that the atomic bomb had been dropped on Hiroshima. Officers and sailors, including Ray, were sent subsequently to Orange, Texas on the Sabine River to help in the decommission of ships. Ray says, "It was the first time I ever touched land in Texas."
It's no accident that Ray remembers so clearly meeting Patsy Rabinowitz for the first time in Boston at a party in November, 1948, on Election Eve. She was the only guest who predicted Truman's victory. Ray began to fall for this smart independent woman, a Dallasite and senior at Smith College in Northampton. She graduated magna cum laude in 1949, majoring in American Civilization. They fell in love that winter. In the aftermath of the war, courtships tended to be brief. Ray and Patsy were no exception. They were married July 25, 1949 in Dallas. Patsy, her collecting instinct apparent early, would save the 72 telegrams of wedding congratulations she received; the following year, Ray finished work on his Masters Degree in economics at Boston University. Then they returned to Dallas.
Patsy's family was well to do but not at the level of the Texas Super Rich. Ray worked for Patsy's father but it didn't last long. He rented a small windowless office in downtown Dallas and there began his life as an entrepreneur. He began by learning the residential development business. He built houses for returning veterans in the Oak Cliff section of Dallas, a decidedly across the tracks location. The houses were sold for $8,000 to $10,100. No down payments were required. The twenty year loans with monthly payments of $30 to $34 were appealing to veterans. His success was solid but not spectacular. Dr. Donald Seldin, a brilliant doctor, who would become one of the architects of Southwestern Medical School's greatness, knew Nasher slightly in these early years; Dr. Seldin was treating Meyer Rabinowitz, Patsy's father, who was very ill at the time. Dr. Seldin and his wife Muriel had a party to help introduce the Nashers to their friends. He took one of the guests aside and told them, "Keep your eye on this man. He's going to be a millionaire." That's when being a millionaire meant something. Ray's drive and intelligence and his competitive instincts (seen most clearly on the tennis court) were apparent.
He kept in the back of his mind something his father had said. Ray's father was bright, driven, and realistic. He told Ray, "You can't be President of the United States because you're Jewish. But there are two things I hope you'll do in your lifetime: own a baseball team because I love baseball. And own a bank because that's where the money comes from." Israel Nasher's two wishes would come true. Ray became an owner of the Texas Rangers (along with the future President, George W. Bush). And Nasher has been chairman of a bank since 1965.
Ray went on to create some middle class housing developments in the more affluent fast growing North Dallas area. But he was looking for bigger things and abhorred, he remembers, the idea of having his life on any sort of autopilot. Ray and one of the men who worked for him at the time had made contact with people in Tulsa, Oklahoma. They went up to visit and while there met with the vice president of one of Tulsa's prominent banks. He told Ray about a piece of land on the Arkansas River that was owned by some leading Tulsa citizens. He asked whether Ray would be interested in developing the land. By nature, Ray was always interested but could take a long time to commit. He has always liked keeping all his options for as long as possible.
When he decided to go forward, he brought in E. G. Hamilton, an imaginative and confident young architect from Dallas, to work with him on the Tulsa project. Next he involved the Dallas builder, Centex, as a partner. Together they designed and built a 17-story apartment building for the carriage trade. The building was well received and is still considered one of the best addresses in Tulsa: 2300 Riverside Drive (it's endemic with developers to borrow names with successful connotations). Riverside Drive became a design award winner, Ray's first award. This was more like it in terms of what Ray wanted to be known for: the marriage of notable design, association with top creative people, and upscale real estate projects.
