THE TEXIANS
AND THE TEXANS
THE UNIVERSITY
OF TEXAS
INSTITUTE OF
TEXAN CULTURES
AT SAN ANTONIO
THE
LEBANESE
TEXANS
AND THE
SYRIAN
TEXANS
THE LEBANESE TEXANS
AND
THE SYRIAN TEXANS
THE TEXIANS AND THE TEXANS
A series dealing with the many peoples who have contributed to the history
and heritage of Texas. Now in print:
Pam phlets - The Afro-American Texans, The Anglo-American Texans, The Belgian
Texans, The Chinese Texans, The Czech Texans, The German Texans,
The Greek Texans, The Indian Texans, The Italian Texans, The J ewish
Texans, The Lebanese Texans and the !iYrian Texans, The M exican Texans,
Los Tejanos Mexicanos (in Spanish), The Norwegian Texans, The
Spanish Texans and The Swiss Texans.
Books - The Danish Texans, The English Texans, The German Texans, The Irish
Texans, The Japanese Texans, The Polish Texans and The Wendish Texans.
The Lebanese Texans and the Syrian Texans
Principal researcher: James Patrick McGuire
©1974: The University of Texas
Institute of Texan Cultures at San Antonio
John R . McGiffert, Executive Director
International Standard Book Number 0-86701-043-6
First edition (revised from The Syrian and Lebanese Texans), 1988
This publication was made possible, in pan, by a grant from the Houston Endowment, Inc.
Printed in the United States of America
Cover: Saadi Ferris
Back Cover: The Fadal Drug Store, Waco
THE LEBANESE TEXANS
AND THE SYRIAN TEXANS
Substantial numbers of Arabic­speaking
immigrants from the
former Ottoman Empire's
provinces of Greater Syria and
Mount Lebanon, now the modern
states of Lebanon and Syria, began
arriving in Texas about 1880. The
first were mainly Christians -Syrian
(Antiochian Eastern) Orthodox,
Eastern Rite Catholics called Maro­nites,
Greek Catholics called Mel­chites
and a few Protestants. Few
Moslems immigrated prior to 1945,
although thousands came after that
date as a result of conflicts in the
Middle East.
At the turn of the century,
America had a magnetic appeal for
the youth of Lebanon and Syria.
Overpopulation, economic stagna­tion,
and religious, political and
social discrimination by the Otto­man
Turks caused hundreds, then
thousands, to leave their home vil­lages.
More than 9,000 people from
that area entered the United States
in 1914, a peak year.
At first called "Syrians" until the
emergence of the modern national
states of Lebanon and Syria, these
immigrants later made the distinc­tion
between their lands of origin
and national identities. The Leba­nese,
said to be descended from the
ancient Phoenicians, had been ruled
and influenced by numerous con­querors
in their long history. For
most of the Lebanese and Syrian
immigrants, pride in their particular
Christian religious affiliations, pre­served
through centuries of alien
rule and discrimination, formed the
basis for identity, along with their
village or area of origin. They also
were proud of their contributions to
civilization - the Phoenician alpha-
View oj Beirut, c. 1859
bet and the Arabic transmission of
Greek and Roman philosophy and
science through the Dark Ages.
Immigration accelerated until
the outbreak of World War 1. The
1920 census revealed that there were
approximately 3,400 persons of Leb­anese
or Syrian origin living in Tex­as.
Then restrictive immigration
quotas, especially after 1924, severe­ly
limited the influx. The develop­ment
of Lebanese communities, in­cluding
the small number of Syrian
families, thereafter relied on internal
growth, migration from other states
in the Union and the few who were
annually admitted to the United
States. Today there are tens of thou­sands
of Texans whose heritage can
be traced from those turn-of-the­century
pioneers.
In Texas after 1880 these people
evolved from a few scattered itiner-
.3
ant peddlers of notions, laces, cloth­ing
and religious items from the
Holy Land into a significant, suc­cessful
and integrated segment of
Texan society. With their qashshaat
(peddlers' packs), the pioneers trav­eled
alone or in small groups to
farms, lumber camps and oil fields,
beginning the journey from poverty
to security. During this odyssey they
braved bad weather, long distances,
loneliness and even bandits. They
also learned English and received
their naturalization papers along the
way. New brides or established fami­lies
were brought over as the dream
of returning home after a few pros­perous
years in America vanished.
Characterized as clannish, pa­triotic,
highly individualistic and
adaptable, these Arabic-speaking
immigrants struggled to improve
their economic situation. They
turned to social and cultural organi­zations
in the form of clubs and
benevolent societies and founded
their own familiar churches. Neigh- ..
borhoods settled by the immigrants
soon faded as their children scat-·
tered to all sections of Texas's grow­ing
cities. But, through clubs and
churches, they have maintained
family ties and ethnic heritage.
The majority of Texas's first
Arabic-speaking settlers were Chris­tians
from Lebanon, and, therefore,
this study, albeit incomplete, is pri­marily
devoted to them. Further
research on Arabic-speaking immi­grants
from throughout the Middle
East who chose Texas as their new
home remains to be done and the
wider story told.
THE FORERUNNERS
1856
The first Arabic-speaking people
appeared in Texas just before the
Civil War, when the United States
Army attempted to develop camel
transportation between Camp
Verde, Texas, and San Diego, Cali­fornia.
The camel tenders were
mostly Arabs, Greeks and Turks,
4
who intrigued Texans with their un­usual
costumes and unpronounce­able
names. Perhaps the best re­membered
of these was Hadji Ali,
a Syrian native called "Hi Jolly" by
his contemporaries. Born about 1828
to an Orthodox family, he was raised
as a Moslem. Hi Jolly landed at
Indianola in 1856 with 33 camels.
They went to California with a gov­ernment
caravan the following year.
Hi Jolly lived "out west" until his
death in 1902. One of his Syrian
compatriots, Elias, eventually settled
in Sonora, Mexico. Elias's son, Plu­tarco
Elias Calles, became president
of Mexico in 1928.
Other Arabs arrived in Hous­ton
in 1858 with a shipload of camels
imported by an Englishwoman,
Mrs. Watson. For a year they peri­odically
visited Houston from their
nearby ranch. Little else is known
about Arabic visitors to Texas before
1870. Texas's first Syrian family was
that of Professor Joseph Arbeel y
from Arbeen, Syria. The well-edu­cated
Dr. Arbeely had been the
headmaster of several schools and
had served as president of the Patri­archal
Syrian Orthodox College in
Damascus. He had taught Arabic to
American missionaries in Syria and
had assisted in translating the Arabic
Bible. With his wife, six sons and a
niece, he came to America in 1878.
The family visited Texas. Two of the
sons-Dr. AbrahamJA. Arbeely, a
physician, and Khaleel, a pharma­cist
- remained in Austin until 1881.
THE JOSEPHS OF AUSTIN
1881
About 1881 Cater Joseph Azar, a
teacher in the Presbyterian school in
Roumieh, Lebanon, began sending
his children to America to escape
Turkish rule. Eventually, eight sons
and a daughter settled in Austin,
where they adopted the family name
of Joseph and produced a clan of
capable businessmen and women.
Isaac Joseph, one of the first
Lebanese to settle in Austin, peddled
laces and notions. He and his broth­ers
earned meager livings at first,
selling from their large, black satch­els
along dusty country roads. They
quickly learned English and Ger­man
from the farmers they encoun­tered
in their travels.
Later Isaac had a restaurant
and then a grain and feed store on
Dr. Joseph Arbeely 'bjl!Jing Freedom in America" in 1878 with his sons and a niece; the
empty chair signifies an absent relative.
Austin's 6th Street, before opening
a general mercantile store at 200
Congress Avenue, which he operated
from 1905 until 1933. There he shel­tered
and launched his brothers in
business. In 1902 he brought his wife
to Austin, and they ultimately had
seven daughters and three sons.
A brother, Cater joseph, came
to Texas by way of New York. His
passage to Galveston was paid by a
New York publisher of Lebanese ex­traction,
who lent him $200 in "sil­ver"
jewelry to peddle. Sea air cor­roded
the ornaments, however, but
Cater still repaid the publisher.
Eventually he owned a confectionery
on Congress Avenue, returned to
Lebanon for a bride and raised ten
children in Austin.
Other joseph brothers, includ­ing
Alex, john, jim, Shikery, Na­houm,
Fred and William came to
the Texas capital. All peddled goods
at first and then opened businesses.
The Cater Joseph family
Fred, the last to arrive, had a store
in Manor in 1911, but moved to
Austin in 1930. Succeeding genera­tions
of the large family made their
mark on community development.
Cater's son Eddie ran a men's store
with his brothers and later had a
chain of theaters as well as real estate
investments. Isaac's daughters, Han­nah,
Mary and Margaret, were in­strumental
in founding the South­ern
Federation of Syrian Lebanese
American Clubs in 1931.
MONSOUR J. BASHARA
1889
In the prosperous years before the
Great Depression, Monsour J. Ba­shara
was known as the world's rich­est
Lebanese. He had arrived in
New York as a 17-year-old immi­grant
from Broumana in 1888. A
year later, he was the first Lebanese
to settle in Waco, Texas. He entered
the dry goods business and, in 1900,
married Olga Eunice, daughter of
another Lebanese immigrant.
Bashara left Waco to open a
store in the oil boomtown of Beau­mont.
For the next ten years, he
moved his dry goods emporium
from one location to another in
southeast Texas and Louisiana. In
time, he was joined by three neph­ews
- sons of his brother Farris - to
whom he taught the rudiments of
merchandising and oil leasing.
Eventually two of them, Sam and
joe, became well-known Houston
oilmen and realtors, while a third,
George, established a highly success­ful
contracting business in Waco.
Monsour Bashara moved to
Wichita Falls before World War I
and made a fortune letting out land
for oil lease which he had bought
from drought-ruined farmers. In
1918 he helped establish the Ameri­can
Refining Corporation, which
soon had 50 wells in production and
a refinery with a daily capacity of
5,000 barrels. He was also half-own­er
of the Bashara Building, which
housed the American National Bank
of Wichita Falls. The 1929 stock
market crash brought an end to
Bashara's fortune. He died in the
mid-1930's a bright example of how
opportunity could open to a man
with perseverance.
Monsour J. Bashara
5
The Jamail Picnic, 1933
HOUSTON'S UNITED
JAMAIL CLUB
1890
The J amails of Houston constitute
the largest Lebanese clan in Texas,
and their club is the largest in the
Southern Federation of Syrian Leba­nese
American Clubs. According to
tradition, five J amail brothers and
their cousins immigrated from a
small village near Beirut in 1890.
Some brought their wives and chil­dren.
In Houston they took advan­tage
of their agricultural background
by entering the produce business. In
1895 the brothers went back to Leb­anon,
but the children settled i~
Texas, and their descendants now
number more than 500. Since the
1920's the United Jamail Club has
held an annual reunion at Easter.
Dahr N egem J amail, one of the
first-comers, left his wife in Lebanon
and worked his way to Texas aboard
a ship. He returned to his native
land in 1895, came again to Texas
for the years 1898 to 1902 and later
died in Lebanon. His son, N.D.
'Jim" Jamail, was a well-known
Houston grocer, who first arrived in
1905. He opened a stand in the old
produce market and from the 1920's
to mid-1930's supplied major res­taurants
and hotels. The J amail
Brothers Food Market, established
with his brothers Joseph and Assad
Dahr in 1946, was operated by the
family. Now called Jim Jamail and
Sons Food Market, it is one of
America's most luxurious gourmet
food stores.
Other members of this clan in­clude
Abe J amail, Houston's most
6
decorated World War II hero and
one of 30 in his family to have served
in that conflict; Mike J amail, who
led the first Armistice parade in
Houston in 1918 and continued that
tradition for many years; John J a­mail,
one of Houston's biggest prop­erty
owners; and Joe Jamail Jr. ,
Texas's "King of Torts;' one of the
nation's leading attorneys specializ­ing
in personal injury suits, who
~on America's largest judgment­$
10.53 billion in 1985 for Pennzoil
against Texaco.
In 1986 three teaching positions
were created at The University of
Texas at Austin: the Joseph D.
J amail Centennial Chair of Law, the
Lee Hage J amail Regents' Profes­sorship
in Fine Arts, and the Marie
and Joseph D. J am ail Sr. Regents'
Professorship in Fine Arts.
THE KAZEN FAMILY
OF LAREDO
1890
One of the most distinguished Leba­nese-
Texan families in the legal, pub­lic
service and business fields is that
founded by Abraham Kazen Sr. of
Laredo. Born in K'nat, Lebanon,
about 1868, the elder Kazen came
to the United States in the late 1800's
with his brothers, Anthony andJoe.
These young men peddled dry goods
around the countryside between San
Antonio and Laredo. By 1890 they
had established residence in the
border city and were operating up
and down the Rio Grande.
Soon after obtaining his Ameri­can
citizenship, Abraham Kazen
returned to Lebanon, married Anne
Reston in 1902 and brought her to
his new homeland. They raised a
family of four sons and a daughter.
From 1912 to 1914 he operated a
store in San Marcos and then anoth­er
in Benavides. Laredo, however,
remained the center of Kazen family
activities. In addition to his mercan­tile
activities, the elder Kazen sup­ported
his growing family with such
odd jobs as special duty policeman
and interpreter for the Immigration
Service. He was a staunch Democrat
until his death at age 97, and he
instilled a sense of public responsi­bility
in his children. All his sons
became lawyers.
Abraham Kazen's descendants
have distinguished themselves.
Charles served as an army captain
in World War II and was appointed
the first Allied judge in Naples after
its capture. He was elected clerk of
Webb County in 1946 and served
until his appointment as customs
collector by President John F.
Kennedy, which post he held until
his retirement in 1970. Charles
Kazen died in 1978.
Philip Kazen was district attor­ney
in Laredo from 1938 to 1942,
then served in various governmental
capacities during World War II. He
was active in many programs for
civic betterment and was decorated
by several foreign governments for
his goodwill efforts. He died in 1985.
E. James Kazen was appointed
district attorney when his brother
resigned from the office in 1942. He
served until he became district judge
in 1958. Judge Kazen's children in­clude
three lawyers and two teachers.
The youngest Kazen brother
was Abraham Jr., familiarly known
as "Chick;' After World War II ser­vice,
he returned to Laredo and was
elected to the Texas House of Repre­sentatives
for three terms, to the
Texas Senate for 16 years and to the
U.S. House of Representatives for
nine terms - a total of 38 years of
public service. He was the first Tex­an
of Lebanese ancestry to gain the
latter office. Chick Kazen served in
the U.S. House of Representatives
from 1967 until 1984. He died in
1987. Carmen Kazen Ferris, only
daughter of Abraham and Anne
Kazen, was a home economics
teacher in the public schools for
nearly 30 years and then a Texas
Education Agency official prior to
her death in 1970.
THE SEMAAN FAMILY
1895
The Sou thwest's oldest store special­izing
in oriental rugs, linens arid art
The Abraham Kazen family
Gbjects was established in Sah Anto­nio
in 1895 by Ameen Semaan and
his brother-in-law, Elias Farris.
Semaan was born in Syria and
was educated at the American Uni­versity
of Beirut. He immigrated to
America in 1893, and six years later
he opened the store in partnership
with Farris. The business prospered,
and branch outlets were acquired in
Houston, Beaumont and Mineral
Wells, as well as in Arkansas,
Missouri, Colorado and Michigan.
Within a few years, Ameen brought
his family- parents and six brothers
and sisters - to San Antonio.
When Ameen Semaan died in
1920, his sister Freda and her hus­band,
Elias Farris, assumed respon­sibility
for the education of his chil­dren.
Two of the boys became well­known
San Antonio lawyers. Anees
A. Semaan, born in 1907, received
his bachelor's degree from The Uni­versity
of Texas at Austin in 1929.
Returning to San Antonio, he en­tered
the family business and be-came
a widely consulted authority
on oriental carpets. During World
War II he was a captain in military
intelligence and wrote a manual on
the use of foreign maps. After the
war he changed careers, enrolling in
the law school at St. Mary's U niver­sity
and receiving a degree in 1951.
For the next few years he prac­ticed
both civil and criminal law
with his brother Fred, one of San
Antonids most effective trial lawyers.
Although handicapped by approach­ing
blindness, A.A;s thorough prep­aration
gained him wide respect. In
1965-1966 he was chairman of the
State Bar of Texas Section on Crim­inal
Law. In 1961 he was elected
justice of the peace, a position he
held until 1967, when GovernQr
John Connally appointed him judge
of the 175th District Court. It was
his last public office; he died in 1970,
and his brother Fred died in 1982.
GEORGE NAMI
1897
George N ami established a pioneer
south Texas mercantile enterprise
and raised two sons who became
prominent in American Legion
affairs. Born in Bechmezine, Leba­non,
in 1869, he married Sarah
Mafrige in 1891. They had three
children in Lebanon -Sam,
Herman and Adele - before N ami
immigrated to America in 1896.
Originally bound for Toledo, Ohio,
he was persuaded en route to come
to Austin instead. There he peddled
dry goods on foot until he could
afford to buy a hack and team.
In 1897 he moved to Cuero and
opened the George N ami Dry
Goods and Grocery, which he oper­ated
until his death in 1956. His wife
and sons came from Lebanon in
1902, and his daughter followed six
years later. Four more children were
born to the Namis in Texas. The
household became a center of Leba­nese
culture. The Orthodox priest
visited annually to baptize, perform
7
marriage ceremonies and hold ser­vices
in their living room.
George Nami's son Herman at­tended
The University of Texas
School of Law, graduating in 1917.
He was then commissioned an offi­cer
in the United States Army and
shipped to France with the Ameri­can
Expeditionary Force. On his
return from serving in World War
I, he began practicing law in Cuero.
In 1927 he transferred his practice
to San Antonio. He served as fourth
president of the Southern Federation
of Syrian Lebanese American Clubs
from 1937 to 1939. Ten years later
he was elected departmental com­mander
of the American Legion in
Texas. Herman N ami died in San
Antonio in 1957.
A brother, Jimmie, was a San
Antonio businessman who once
served as a state vice president of the
Southern Federation; and another
brother, William, was departmental
commander of the American Legion
in 1967-1968. William also served on ...
the Cuero City Commission from
1956 to 1958 and was mayor from.
1963 to 1967. Julia, their sister, was
long a San Antonio schoolteacher.
The Nami Store at Cuero, c. 1910
8
The Azar-Solomon offices in San Antonio, c. 1933
THE AZARS OF EL PASO
AND SAN ANTONIO
1900
The Azar family of El Paso and San
Antonio has long been active in the
Te;as pecan-shelling industry. Some­time
before 1900, two brothers, Elias
and Shibley Azar, came from Leba­non
to visit a sister living in Canada.
The brothers then ventured to El
Paso, where they established a con­fectionery
in the old Sheldon Hotel.
By 1919 they were in the pecan­shelling
business as well as m
candy-making.
Other members of the family
soon arrived: their brother and
sister, George and Sophie, and an
uncle, Richard Solomon. In 1926
Solomon and his niece, Sophie Azar,
opened their own company in El
Paso. Four years later Elias moved
to Los Angeles; and George, Sophie
and Richard Solomon moved to San
Antonio. Only Shibley remained in
El Paso. With his three sons as part­ners,
he built a multimillion-dollar
business with more than 200 em­ployees.
At his death in 1964, his
sons continued the enterprise as the
Azar Nut Company.
In San Antonio the Azar and
Solomon Pecan Shelling Company
began in small, rented quarters on
West Commerce Street. At first,
shelling by hand yielded only seven
or eight pounds per worker per day,
but George helped invent machinery
that raised the daily output to at least
250 pounds. One of the few remain­ing
pecan-shelling companies in San
Antonio, Azar and Solomon was run
by Sophie Azar until her retirement
and then by Richard Azar, her
nephew. As of the late 1980's, the
business is still run by the family.
Elias j. Antone
ELIAS]. ANTONE
1907
Elias Antone was an early Port Ar­thur
businessman, whose three sons
have made their own estimable con­tribution
to LebaneseTexan culture.
Elias was a lumber importer in Tri­poli,
Lebanon, before immigrating
to New York in 1892. There he oper­ated
a wholesale house until 1907,
when he moved to Columbus, Tex­as.
His stay in Columbus was inter­rupted
when he voted against a can­didate
for sheriff who then threat­ened
to shoot him on sight. Accord­ing
to family tradition, he departed
Columbus, took up residence in
Jennings, Louisiana, and thereafter
left the voting to others.
Meanwhile, Antone had mar­ried
J amilie Amuny, the daughter of
a Port Arthur businessman. They
had three sons - Kamal, J alaI and
J amal- all named for Turkish gen­erals
sympathetic to the Christian
minority in the Old Country. (Only
the intervention of the sons kept
their sister from also being named
for a military figure.) In 1913 Elias
moved his family back to Port Ar­thur,
where he operated a dry goods
store until his death in 1959. In the
late 1980's his son Jamal is still a
businessman in the coastal city.
Another son, J alaI, moved to
Houston in 1935 and founded a
well-known import food store spe-cializing
in Middle Eastern, Greek
and Asian foods. In one area of the
building he operated a sandwich
shop quite popular with Houston
businessmen for lunch. A civic,
charity and cultural leader, J alaI
Antone was a benefactor of St.
George's Orthodox Church. He died
in 1974.
The third son of Elias Antone
was Kamal E. Antone, widely
known as "Mr. Federation;' a name
he earned as a founder and longtime
guiding spirit of the Southern Feder­ation
of Syrian Lebanese American
Clubs. Born in Louisiana and raised
in Port Arthur, he attended Lamar
Tech in Beaumont while working in
his father's store. He subsequently
entered law school in Houston and
received a degree, although he never
practiced. Instead he became a suc­cessful
realtor. He was president of
the H.ouston Board of Realtors in
1959-1960 and president of the Texas
Association of Realtors in 1970.
Kamal Antone is best known,
however, for his work in the South­ern
Federation. After helping found
the organization in 1931-1932, he
became a two-term president in
1948-1949. For 11 years he was chair­man
of the board of directors. He
was also editor of The Official Bulletin.
Antone's stature among his compa­triots
may be judged by the fact that
a Syrian woman applying for Amer­ican
citizenship once gave his name
as the first president of the United
States. Kamal Antone died in 1978.
ESAU MALOOLY
1907
Among the first Lebanese immi­grants
to El Paso were members of
the Malooly family from Rachaya,
Lebanon. Esau Malooly was an edu­cated
man, fluent in five languages.
As a 22-year-old schoolteacher, he
decided to immigrate to Brazil in
1907. Aboard ship he was persuaded
to join friends going to El Paso.
Once in Texas, he peddled no­tions,
then began repairing sewing
machines for a living. Next he estab­lished
an oriental rug and tapestry
import business, which he operated
until 1918. During World War I he
utilized his language skills as a trans­lator
for Immigration Bureau offi­cials
in El Paso. When hostilities
ended he visited Lebanon. He re­turned
soon with a bride and then
established a note and mortgage
company. When the Great Depres­sion
hit he found himself the owner
of a great deal of real estate, so he
was able to assist his sons in starting
furniture stores in El Paso. In 1946
he gave land for expansion of the
College of Mines, which evolved into
The University of Texas at El Paso.
Esau Malooly died in 1969 at age 86
after a long and successful career as
realtor, investor and civic leader.
Esau Malooly, 1922
ANTIOCH IAN
(SYRIAN) ORTHODOX
CHURCHES IN TEXAS
1907
To the Arabic-speaking Orthodox
immigrant, his religious affiliation
has been more important than his
former nationality in the Middle
East. His Christian identity has
been maintained since the 7th cen­tury
A.D. despite Moslem rule and
periodic persecutions. Those of the
Orthodox faith owe allegiance to the
Patriarch of Antioch, who resides in
9
St. Michael's Church at Beaumont
...
Damascus, Syria. Missionary priests
began arriving in this country before
the beginning of the 20th century.
To the newly settled families the
church and its clubs offered a place
for religious services as well as for
social and community needs. The
more isolated Orthodox families
started attending Episcopal, Meth­odist
or other Protestant churches.
In Beaumont, EI Paso, Austin
and Houston, Syrian Orthodox par­ishes
were established after 1900,
with priests from the Old Country
and familiar rites in Arabic. Then
the immigrants began to sink roots
in Texas soil and to modify some­what
their ancestral religion into a
more contemporary mold.
To the casual observer entering
an early Orthodox church, the spec­tacle
was awesome. Icons of the
saints, elaborate clerical robes of
gold, richly gilded altar vessels and
the ancient liturgy made a vivid im­pression.
For hours the voices of the
priests, cantors and laymen could be
heard chanting the Arabic rituals
10
---,--------
through the heavy smoke of incense.
But, by World War II, English was
replacing Arabic in parts of the lit­urgy.
Choirs, organs, pews, Sunday
schools, altar societies and other
American innovations had been in­troduced
with the approval and
blessing of the clergy.
When Galveston's Saints Con­stantine
and Helen Orthodox
Church was built by Serbian and
Greek immigrants, a few Syrians
were present. By 1898 a Syrian
Orthodox society had been formed
in Beaumont, and nine years later
St. Michael's Church, established in
a simple frame building, became
Texas's second Eastern Orthodox
church and the first Syrian church.
Rebuilt after the 1919 storm and
again after a disastrous fire in 1953,
St. Michael's continues the mission­ary
tradition begun when its early
pastors journeyed forth to keep alive
the orthodoxy of Texas's scattered
Syrian pioneers.
By 1932 Austin's Orthodox im­migrants
had already spent a decade
conducting periodic services in
members' homes and in rented halls
whenever a traveling priest came
through town. In that year construc­tion
on St. Elias Orthodox Church
was begun, using conventional Mid­dle
Eastern architecture. Finished in
1934, it still serves a wide central
Texas area. The first full-time priest,
Reverend James Rottle from Tripoli,
Lebanon, began his service in 1943.
For many years the parish has held
a Lebanese Food Festival to the great
enjoyment of Austinites.
Houston's Orthodox communi­ty
had been visited for more than a
decade by priests from Beaumont
before the first St. George's Church
building was purchased in 1936 from
a departing Methodist congregation.
During the 1920's a Syrian Ladies
Aid Society had started fund raising
by giving Arabic dinners, a tradition
that continues in semi-annual food
festivals. Located on Houston's near
north side, the frame structure
served the growing parish until a
new brick church was completed in
another part of the city in the 1960's.
The present church is distinguished
by its modern architecture, onyx
windows and magnificent icon-cov­ered
screen in front of the sanctuary.
EI Paso's St. George Orthodox
Church began with the arrival of
large numbers of Lebanese settlers
after World War 1. Served only by
visiting priests at first, the congrega­tion
bought a meeting house in 1948
and built a new church in 1952.
Father Nicholas Husson served the
parish of EI Paso andJ uarez, Mexi­co,
from 1950 until his death in 1967.
Today the Orthodox heritage of
the state's Lebanese and Syrian im­migrants
is firmly based in these four
Texas cities.
THE HADDAD
BROTHERS
1908
Three Haddad brothers - William,
Constantine and Joseph - estab­lished
Tyler's Mecca Cafe shortly
after their arrival from Beirut, Leb­anon,
in 1908. Together they ran it
for more than 30 years. During the
east Texas oil boom, the Mecca was
a gathering place for crowds of spec­ulators,
geologists and land dealers.
The H addads later acquired real
estate and oil interests and became
civic leaders in their adopted home
town. They helped charter the local
Cedars of Lebanon Club, one of the
region's oldest and strongest Leba­nese
organizations. Their six sisters
also settled in Texas.
Until his death in 1939 William
"Bill" Haddad was widely known as
a restaurateur and strong supporter
of civic, church and sports activities.
As Tyler's "Mr. Baseball :' he attend­ed
all the local games. His brother
Joseph became a prominent real
estate broker and insurance sales­man
after 1940. H e was also a bank
director and board member of Ty­ler's
Lone Star Steel Corporation.
Constantine Haddad used re­sources
acquired in commercial
property and oil investments to ben­efit
Tyler's Catholic schools and hos­pitals.
Haddad Hall at the Mother
Frances Hospital was named in his
Constantine H addad and nephews
honor. The Haddad Hospital in JaIl
El Dib, Lebanon, founded by a rela­-
tive, also benefi ted from his philan­thropy.
When he died in 1961, part
of his estate was left to the Catholic
Diocese of Dallas to be used for
Tyler's parish needs.
LEON CURRY
1909
Born in Saghbine, Lebanon, in
1870, Leon Curry immigrated first
to South America in 1890 and later
to Mexico. He moved to San Anto­nio
in 1909 to avoid the Mexican
revolution. He opened a dry goods
store, raised a large family, wrote
articles for New York's El Hoda and
acted as an unofficial scribe for San
Antonio's Lebanese colony. H e died
in 1941, survived by two sons who
have led interesting and useful lives
of their own.
Joseph Curry became an inven­tor
and manufacturer of machinery
used in processing Mexican food.
Another son , Peter Michael Curry,
graduated from The University of
Texas School of Law shortly before
joining the military in World War
II. H e rose to the rank of major
The Leon CUTTY family
11
while stationed in the European and
North African theaters. Back in San
Antonio, he practiced both civil and
criminal law until being appointed
as 166th District Judge in 1963. He
has been twice reelected to that posi­tion
and became presiding judge of
the 4th Administrative Judicial Dis­trict
on the retirement of Judge
Solomon Casseb Jr. in 1969. Judge
Curry became the longest-serving of
San Antonio's three Lebanese-Texan
judges in the 1960's and continues
this public service in the late 1980's.
ZACHARY MAFRIGE
1911
Zachary Mafrige was one of 19
youths who departed Lebanon
aboard a Spanish ship bound for
Havana in 1886. He was 20 years
old. Yellow fever broke out during
the voyage and killed half the group;
the survivors were left in Cuba to
recuperate. Zachary made his way
to New York and from there peddled
jewelry to St. Louis, Fort Smith and
San Francisco. From 1886 until 1911
he stayed in Seattle, where he oper­ated
a dry goods business. The 1907
panic wiped him out, but he had
somewhat recovered by 1910, when
he sent his wife and two children to
Cuero, Texas, where his relatives the
Namis lived.
Zachary and Stevens Majrige
12
The Abraham store at Canadian, 1917
• The following year he joined
them in Cuero and operated the
N avidad Hotel for a short time. In
.. 1912 he opened a small dry goods
store, the Z.A. Mafrige General
. Store, and then a confectionery. In
1918 his son, Stevens, took over the
dry goods business. Three years later
Mafrige opened a wholesale dry
goods establishment with govern­ment
surplus material for starting
stock. The family moved to Houston
in 1927 but continued to operate the
Cuero store until 1931. Zachary died
in Houston in 1946, but his son
remained in the business until 1951,
when he switched to real estate .
Stevens Mafrige and his wife,
Marie, became well known for their
contributions, both in the St.
George's Antiochian Orthodox
Church and in the Southern Federa­tion
of Syrian Lebanese American
Clubs. Their gifts to St. George's
made possible the construction of
the Mafrige Memorial Auditorium
in memory of Stevens's parents and
sister. The auditorium was com­pleted
in 1959 and served as the
chapel for the congregation until the
new sanctuary was built. Stevens
and Marie Mafrige had been sup­porters
of the Southern Federation
since its inception. In 1964 they
established an annual scholarship
fund for the organization. When
Mrs. Mafrige died in 1970, the fund
was named in her memory.
NAHIM ABRAHAM
1913
Nahim Abraham, merchant and
civic leader of Canadian, Texas, was
born in Kafracab, Lebanon, in 1885.
At 17 he began carrying a peddler's
case from the Rockies to the Texas
Panhandle. In the next decade he
made several trips back to Lebanon
and, on one occasion, visited sao
Paulo, Brazil, with the intention of
settling in South America. Texas,
however, attracted him more. On a
last trip to Kafracab, Nahim mar­ried
Alia Malouf, the daughter of a
local doctor. Two sons were born
before he returned to the United
States in 1912. A year later he estab­lished
permanent roots in Canadian,
where he was soon joined by his wife
and sons. Two more sons were born
to the couple in Texas.
Nahim and Alia Abraham
opened a department store, which
they called "The Fair." They ran it
until their retirement in 1949, when
their son Tom took over. Another
son, Naceeb, owned an office supply
firm in Amarillo. The Edward Abra­ham
Memorial Home in Canadian
honors the memory of a third son,
who died in 1961. The youngest child
was Malouf Abraham, nicknamed
"Oofie" by his schoolmates. Gradu­ated
from high school at age 14, he
attended Texas Tech University, then
returned to Canadian, where he
entered the real estate and oil and
gas leasing businesses.
H e was mayor of Canadian
from 1953 to 1957 and served as a
Republican member of the Texas
House of Representatives from 1967
to 1971. "Oofie" Abraham was also
a director of the West Texas Cham­ber
of Commerce and a member of
numerous petroleum associations.
One of his sons, Malouf Jr. , became
a doctor in Canadian.
JOHN S. MALOUF
191.'3
When John S. Malouf arrived at
Ellis Island, New York, in 1912, he
could thank fate for intervening to
save his life. His sister Zia had wired
him in London, asking that he await
her arrival so that she could join him
on the trip to America. The delay
John S. Malouf
caused Malouf to miss his scheduled
voyage on the ill-fated Titanic.
He began his new life as a ped­dler,
beginning in South America,
working his way to New York and
finally gravitating to west Texas. His
wife and three children had stayed
in their native village of Kafracab,
Lebanon, hoping to join him in a
y'ear or so. About 1913 Malouf
drifted to the Texas Panhandle town
of Canadian, where his relatives the
Abrahams lived. With a couple of
suitcases of piece goods, he sold
enough to be able to send for his
wife and children. The British block­ade
of the Lebanese coast, however,
prevented communication with his
family until the end of World War
1. Meanwhile, he and Joe Schaded
ran a dry goods store in Dalhart. In
1920 Malouf went to Lebanon , was
reunited with his family and re­turned
with them to Texas in 1922.
He opened stores in Rotan, Anson
and Roby. Retiring in 1944, he died
three years later in Dallas.
John Malouf saw that his chil­dren
had college educations. In 1941
his sons opened dress factories in
Dallas. The family ultimately had
eight plants in Texas and Oklahoma.
The Maloufs of Dallas are part
of the larger Malouf clan which in­cludes
the Salems of Sudan, the
Abrahams of Canadian, the Scha­deds
of Tyler, and various M alouf
families in Lubbock, Plainview and
other Texas cities.
FRED KADANE
1914
In his lifetime Fred Kadane entered
several diverse areas of business and
was successful in each. He started as
a peddler, later opened a dry goods
store, then became a wholesaler of
poultry and eggs, butter and cheese.
Next he joined his brother George
in oil exploration, and fin ally he
became a manufacturer of men's
trousers. His was a well-known and
respected name at his death in 1962.
Kadane was born in the Leba­nese
mountain village of Baskinta in
1883 and came to America as a small
boy with his mother and young
brother, Charles. In New York City
he obtained his first job in a shoelace
factory, where he earned $1.50 per
week. Soon he was peddling collar
buttons and newspapers on lower
Broadway to help his mother. In
time they were joined by Kadane's
older brother and sister. The family
tried manufacturing novelties in
their apartment, but in 1886 they
came to Denison, Texas, then a raw
railroad town.
For three years they peddled
notions on foot and from a wagon.
George eventually became an oil­man,
and Fred opened a dry goods
store in Denison. H e also became a
successful dealer in poultry and
eggs. In 1910 he moved to Dallas and
expanded into the butter and cheese
business. Later he established the
Texas Margarine Company and pio­neered
the manufacture of vegetable
margarine and salad dressing.
As early as 1914 Fred Kadane
became involved with his brother
George in oil exploration and drill­ing
in Oklahoma and Texas. Their
Western Drilling Company sank 13
wells in the Burkburnett oil field. In
1937 there were further Kadane
family discoveries in the KMA field
near Wichita Falls. Between 1939
and 1943 Fred owned a factory that
1.3
produced more than a million pairs
of trousers for the United States gov­ernment.
After selling this enterprise
in 1943, he founded the Southwest
Margarine Company, which pro­duced
the Admiration and Sun Val­ley
brands. Fred Kadane died in
1962. A son, Sheffield, served as
Deputy Mayor Pro Tem and also
served two terms on the Dallas City
Council. In addition, he was presi­dent
of the East Dallas Chamber of
Commerce for three terms before
his death in 1978.
M.K. HAGE SR.
1915
M.K. Hage Sr. became a prominent
central Texas name because of the
variety stores he operated in Austin,
Taylor and San Marcos. When he
was a young man in Lebanon, he
had learned the stonemason's trade
from his father. At age 23 Hage took
a mallet and chisel, selected a large
stone near the village fountain at
Roumieh, Lebanon, and thereon
carved an inscription: "In April,
1912, M.K Hage left his country."
With money borrowed from his
father, he began his journey to
M.K. Rage Sr.
14
Wheeling, West Virginia, where a
brother, John K, lived.
After long, hard hours working
in the coal mines and steel mills
around Wheeling to repay his father,
Hage moved on in about 1915 to
Texas, where he became a peddler
at Manor, a small cotton-farming
community 15 miles east of Austin.
German and Swedish families had
already broken the rich blackland
soil, but there were few nearby stores
where they could get food and
supplies. Another Hage brother,
Assad, had capitalized on this situa­tion
by opening a store prior to
M.K's arrival. After a decade of
working for his brother, M.K.
moved to Austin to establish a busi­ness
for himself.
Within a year he opened his
first variety store; others followed. In
the early 1930's he helped organize
the S,t. Elias Orthodox Church. Late
in life he entered the building and
construction business in Austin and
fichieved notable success before his
death in 1966. His son, M.K Hage
Jr., continued his father's eriterprise
after a 16-year career in teaching and
school administration. Elected to the
board of the Austin Independent
School District in 1964, he served for
12 years.
CECIL LOTIEF
1919
Cecil Lotief was the first Texas legis­lator
of Lebanese ancestry and a
man much beloved for his work in
the Southern Federation of Syrian
Lebanese American Clubs. Born in
Jouret EI Termos, Lebanon, in 1888,
he immigrated to the United States
at age 17. Landing at Galveston in
1904, he settled in Tyler and began
peddling merchandise to isolated
homes and lumber camps in the
Piney Woods. The following year he
opened a confectionery in Tyler,
which he operated until 1909, when
he bought a store in Oklahoma.
Ten years later Lotief was back
in Texas, where for 42 years he ran
dry goods stores in Cisco, Cross
Plains, Eastland and Rotan. He
married Margaret Joseph in Shreve­port,
Louisiana. His three children
were born in Cross Plains, and most
of his life was spent in small towns
around Abilene, Texas. In the 1920's
he became active in Democratic pol­itics
and served in the legislature
from 1933 to 1937 as a representative
from Callahan County. He was a
delegate to the National Democratic
Convention in 1944 and was mayor
of Rotan from 1954 to 1956. Lotief
died in 1971.
Cecil Lotief
MANSOUR FARAH
1920
In 1920 Mansour Farah of EI Paso
rented a 25' x 50' room and began
producing work shirts and pants. By
the mid-1970's the Farah Manufac­turing
Company had factories in EI
Paso, San Antonio and Victoria.
Mansour Farah, born in Bas­kinta,
Lebanon, in 1885, came to
Canada with his parents as a child.
In 1905 young Farah and his broth­er,
Andrew, established a dry goods
and feed store at Las Cruces, New
Mexico. There he married Hana
Abihider and had two sons, James
and Willie. In 1920 he visited New
York City to study shirt design and
production methods, then moved to
EI Paso to open his own business,
beginning with a small rented room
and a handful of employees.
Mansour Farah (with mustache) and employees, El Paso, 1924
During the 1930's the company
moved to larger quarters and contin­ued
producing work shirts and den­im
pants. Farah himself was design­er,
cutter, salesman and janitor.
Three years before his death in 1937
the company began manufacturing
khaki shirts and trousers. James
Farah took charge and reached rec­ord
production levels of military
clothing during the war. James
worked long hours to keep the aged
machinery in repair, while his moth­er
supervised the sewing rooms.
Willie Farah became a combat pilot
in the European theater.
Following the war, the company
looked increasingly to national
trends and markets. During the
1950's and 1960's it expanded into
the dress trousers field, increased
production facilities in El Paso and
opened new plants elsewhere. When
J ames Farah died in 1964, his broth­er
assumed direction of the business.
In 1967 the Farah Company became
a public corporation. Both Mansour
Farah's business and his family were
generous contributors to El Paso's
civic and charitable drives, to hospi­tal
and nursing home construction,
and to scholarships in science and
engineering at The University of
Texas at El Paso.
THE VERY REVEREND
NICHOLAS NAHAS
1920 •
As a pioneer Syrian Orthodox mis­siCtnary
in Texas and the Southwest,
Father Nicholas Nahas carpe to
Beaumont in 1920 to rebuild the
storm-destroyed St. Michael's
Church. For the next 15 years he
ministered to Texas's oldest Syrian
Orthodox parish and to Orthodox
people scattered from El Paso to
western Louisiana. Whenever sum­moned,
Father Nahas would pack
his vestments and sacramental ves­sels
into an old satchel and catch the
next train from Beaumont. His aim
was to keep alive the Orthodoxy of
his fellow immigrants until they were
able to organize and build churches
for themselves.
Nicholas Nahas was born into
a merchant family in the port city
of Tripoli, Lebanon, in 1888. His
first visit to New York, in 1904,
ended two years later when he re­turned
to Tripoli to care for his aged
parents. He became a schoolteacher
and, in 1909, married Anna Suratie.
In 1912 the young couple came to
America with their son, Jack. While
studying for the priesthood in New
York, Nicholas also taught in the
Arabic School and acted as assistant
editor of The Mirror of the West, an
Arabic newspaper. H e was ordained
in 1916.
As a priest of the Syrian Ortho­dox
diocese in North America, Fath­er
Nahas served parishes in Pennsyl­vania,
Ohio and New York before
accepting Texas's first parish at
Beaumont. In Beaumont he rebuilt
the church, started an Arabic school
and began traveling throughout the
state to minister to the faithful. In
addition, he introduced English into
the liturgy in an effort to attract
American-born Lebanese who did
not know Arabic.
In 1923 he compiled an early
history of the Orthodox Church in
America, and a year later he and his
wife, Anna, translated the basic
rituals into English. After 1935
Father Nahas served the Beaumont
parish only occasionally. Until his
death in Beaumont in 1964, he
served as a missionary throughout
the Midwest, Canada, Mexico and
Central America.
The Very Reverend Nicholas Nahas
SOLOMON CASSEB SR.
1923
Solomon Casseb Sr. established San
Antonio's first supermarket and be­came
one of the city's leading real­tors.
Married to the daughter of an
Italian produce merchant, he also
15
Annie Swia Casseb and sons
raised five sons and two daughters;
who continued the family tradition
of public service.
Casseb was born in Beirut,
Lebanon, in 1885. His father, a
policeman, was killed in a mountain
snowslide while on patrol, and
young Solomon was raised by his
mother. At 16 he went to live with
his uncle, Elias Abdo, in Kenedy,
Texas. After working a year, he ar­rived
in San Antonio, where he at­tended
night school and peddled
fruit on the streets until he entered
the produce business with Arredo
Fahro. Eventually he sent for his
mother and brother, George. Later
he and his brother formed their own
produce establishment, which they
operated until George joined the
army during World War 1. They
sold out in 1918, and Solomon be­came
a real estate investor. In 1921
he bought property on Alamo Plaza,
which he renovated two years later
into San Antonio's first supermarket.
In the 1930's he entered the real
16
estate business exclusively. He died
in 1958.
Two of Solomon Casseb's sons,
George and Joe, became bankers,
and two others, Paul and Solomon
Jr. , established law practices. Solo­mon
Jr. graduated from The Uni­versity
of Texas School of Law and
was admitted to the bar in 1938. On
Solomon Casseb's produce establishment, 1915
the eve of World War II he was
elected vice president of the South­ern
Federation of Syrian Lebanese
American Clubs. During the war he
served in the Army Air Corps in the
South Pacific, attaining the rank of
major. After the war he resumed his
law practice.
In 1960 he was appointed to fill
an unexpired term as judge of the
57th District Court. Elected twice
more, he was named presiding judge
of the 4th Administrative Judicial
District. He returned to private
practice in 1969 and in 1971 became
a Fellow of the International Acad­emy
of Trial Lawyers.
DR. SOLOMON DAVID
1923
For many years Dr. Solomon David
was one of Texas's most respected
orthopedic surgeons. Born in 1888
in Rachaya, Lebanon, he was edu­cated
at the Irish Presbyterian
School in Damascus, Syria. He be­gan
teaching school, but his family's
close ties with Protestant mission­aries
had both political and interde­nominational
repercussions. David
decided, in 1908, to emigrate.
In America he sold linens for
a while, then went to St. Paul, Min­nesota,
to continue his education.
After a year of preparatory work, he
entered Macalester College, from
I
Dr. and Mrs. Solomon David
which he graduated in 1912. He en­rolled
in the University of Minne­sota
Medical College, finished his
course work four years later, then
joined the United States Army Med­ical
Corps in 1917 as a first lieu ten­ant.
David was assigned as regimen­tal
surgeon of the 82nd Field Artil­lery
at Ft. Bliss, Texas, and partici­pated
in General Pershing's expedi­tion
against Pancho Villa in Mexico.
Discharged as a captain in 1920, he
went to Houston as an employee of
the United States Public Health
Service for two years. He spent
another year in Boston, continuing
his medical studies, then returned to
Houston in 1923 to open his own
orthopedic surgery clinic.
David became a leading spe­cialist
in bone and joint surgery and,
for a time, was chief orthopedic sur­geon
at Houston's Methodist Hospi­tal.
He wrote articles on his specialty
for leading medical journals and
served as president of the Texas
Orthopedic Society. As a further
contribution to the medical profes­sion,
he donated the David Ortho­pedic
Library to the Fondren Ortho­pedic
Center of the Methodist Hos­pital
at Houston's famed Medical
Center. The library, given in mem­ory
of his wife, Victoria, is sup­ported
by the David Foundation.
CHARLES McKOOL SR.
1924
Charles McKool Sr. immigrated to
the United States with his parents,
Newman and Lola McKool, in
1893. They spent some time in
Waco, where Charles's parents
began peddling household goods.
"Buy, please" and "Thank you" were
among the first English words they
learned to speak as they sold socks,
buttons, needles and similar articles.
Charles married Filomena
Nasser in Shreveport, Louisiana, in
1914. The McKool family moved to
Mexico City in 1917, where Charles
managed an uncle's shoe factory for
about seven years before returning
to the United States to settle in
Dallas. There he was active in the
restaurant business until his death
in 1947.
Six children were born to
Charles and Filomena - George,
Mike, Albert, Ferris, Charles Jr. and
Patricia. George and Ferris died in
19070 and 1971 respectively, preced­ing
their mother, Filomena, who
di'ed in 1980.
Mr. and Mrs. Charles McKool
Mike became a successful at­torney
following his graduation from
Southern Methodist University Law
School. In World War II he was a
tail gunner in a B-24 bomber and
was shot down over Yugoslavia. He
was later rescued by Draja Mihailo­vich
and his Chetniks, Serbian un­derground
fighters who favored the
prewar royal government. After the
war Mike entered politics in Dallas
County and served in the Texas
State Senate from 1969 to 1973,
where he set a new filibu ster record
of 42 hours, 33 minutes, while trying
to add more budget money to men­tal
health and mental retardation
programs in Texas.
ST. GEORGE
MARONITE CHURCH OF
SAN ANTONIO
1925
The Maronites, an Eastern Rite of
the Catholic Church, are found
throughout Texas, but only in San
Antonio's St. George Maronite par­ish
has a church been built to per­petuate
this ancient ritual. In other
cities the Maronites have been as­similated
into Roman Catholic par­ishes.
In San Antonio Maronites,
who make up 80 percent of the Leb­anese
colony, formed their own par­ish
in 1925. Today it is part of the
Maronite Exarchate of North
America, ruled since 1967 by a bish­op
representing the Patriarch of
Antioch in Lebanon. The Maronite
mass in Texas is conducted in Arabic
with phrases in English and in Ara­maic,
the language of Christ. The
liturgy is that of St. James the Apos­tle,
and the music reflects the use of
Arabic hymns and modes.
Lebanese Maronites began set­tling
in San Antonio in the 1880's,
although the church was not estab­lished
until 1925. A large initial
contribution by Annie Casseb and
assistance from others in the Leba­nese
community enabled the Maro­nites
to acquire a small frame duplex
on San Antonio's near west side,
where most of the immigrants lived.
The first priest, the Reverend
17
St. George Maronite Church
George Aziz, lived upstairs and
offered mass on the first floor. A new
brick church was completed in 1932,
during the pastorate of the Reverend
Elias Nejem. In 1952 the Mediter­ranean-
style church was moved brick
by brick to a new site because of
freeway construction. By that time,
the Lebanese neighborhood was dis­integrating,
as the second and third
generations moved to newer areas of
the city.
A modern church complex was
built on 15 wooded acres on the
northwest edge of town in 1980 and
continues to be the center of San
Antonio's Maronite community. St.
George's priests, usually from Leb­anon,
have provided religious rites
for Maronites in other Texas cities
as well as in San Antonio.
Community spirit has always
been strong, and in 1964 it led to the
first city-wide festival called "Magic
Is the Night." Preceded by the may­or's
proclamation of Lebanese Colo­ny
Week, the festival annually enter­tains
thousands of non-Lebanese
celebrants with Arabic music, danc­ing,
costumes and food. Parishioners
also are active participants in the
Institvte of Texan Cultures, provid­ing
a large food area and colorful,
exciting entertainment.
LOUIS HADDAD
1926
Farming attracted relatively few of
Texas's Lebanese immigrants; Louis
Haddad was one of the exceptions.
He became a rice farmer on the gulf
coast almost as soon as he reached
annual Texas Folklife Festival at The "Magic Is the Night"
18
Texas from his native Endara. Born
in 1880 to a family of grain, vegeta­ble
and silkworm growers, Haddad
left his wife and infant son in 1912
to come to America. He intended to
return to Lebanon in a few years,
but 14 years passed before he again
saw his family.
In the meantime, he settled at
Nederland, Texas, and worked two
years on a rice farm before begin­ning
his own operation. He farmed
first at Spindletop, then Fannett and
finally at La Belle near Beaumont.
He used mules for plowing and pull­ing
the drill, and rented steam-pow­ered
threshing machines. Haddad
bought his first tractor in 1925, the
year before his wife and son, Daher,
finally joined him in Texas. Subse­quently
four generations of the
Haddad family have been gulf coast
rice farmers .
Louis Haddad retired in 1947
and turned the operation over to his
son, Daher. The family was active
in Syrian Orthodox church affairs
and in Syrian Lebanese club work
in the Beaumont-Port Arthur area.
Daher's wife, Esma, was long a
mainstay of the International Club
at Lamar University, helping hun­dreds
of foreign students adjust to
American life.
J.M. HAGGAR
1926
One of America's largest clothing
manufacturers-one who has helped
revolutionize the industry-was
Lebanese-bornJ.M. Haggar of Dal­las.
H e visited Mexico as a teenager
in 1905 but decided to return home.
During a stopover at New Orleans,
he changed his mind and instead
made his way to St. Louis by chop­ping
cotton and driving wagons.
There he worked in a dry goods
store, bought cotton and sold oil
leases. In 1915 he married Rose
Wasoff, then became sales represen­tative
for a firm that made pants and
overalls. In 1921 he moved to Dallas,
and six years later he invested his
savings in his own company.
Haggar rented space in the old
Santa Fe Building and started busi­ness
with 80 used sewing machines
and about 100 employees. A hard
trader with an uncanny ability to
anticipate selling patterns, he quick­ly
became a major force in the cloth­ing
industry. His company was one
of the first to advertise nationally. He
JM. Haggar Sr., Dallas, 1926
senled as chairman of the board,
while his sons, J.M. Jr. and Ed,
conducted the day-to-day affairs of
the vast enterprise. Today Haggar
slacks, sport coats and women's wear
are produced in 16 plants in Texas
and Oklahoma. Three generations
of the Haggar family are now lead­ers
in the family enterprise.
In 1972 the elder Haggar cele­brated
his 80th birthday with a
$3,000,000 donation to educational,
medical and civic charities through
the foundation that bears his name.
The Haggar Hall of Psychology at
Notre Dame and the Haggar Stu­dent
Center at the University of
Dallas both resulted from his gener­osity.
He also aided various denom­inational
schools in the Dallas area
and made possible a new wing on
St. Jude's Hospital in Memphis,
Tennessee. Haggar funds have been
established for civic development in
14 communities where his factories
are located. The Boy Scouts, Salva­tion
Army, United Way and Red
Cross also benefited from his patron­age.
These charitable efforts earned
J.M. Haggar several national awards
for community service. In 1976 he
received the Horatio Alger Award,
and Notre Dame gave him an hon­orary
doctorate oflaw. J.M. Haggar
died in 1987 at the age of 94.
JOE T. SALEM
1931
Not all contributions of Lebanese
Texans to the history and culture of
the Lone Star State have occurred in
the larger towns and cities. They
have been welcomed and assimilated
into countless rural communities
where they have provided firmly
established leadership for many
years. Such an example is Joe T.
Salem of Sudan, Texas, a small town
50 miles northwest of Lubbock.
There Salem has had a highly re­garded
career as a dry goods mer­chant,
farmer, and civic and reli­gious
leader.
Born in Kafracab, Lebanon, in
1904, Salem was eight when he and
his brothers joined their father, who
had previously settled in Provo,
Utah. While his father and older
brothers worked, young Joe ac­quired
a sixth grade education. His
mother and sisters came to America
at the first opportunity, and when his
father died in 1915, Joe accompanied
Joe T Salem
19
one brother and the women of the
family to Canadian, where they had
relatives, the Maloufs. Forced to quit
school and earn a livelihood, he
began as a peddler, then opened a
dry goods store in Ranger in the
waning days of the oil boom there.
In 1931 Salem moved his wife
and son to Sudan, where he opened
another dry goods establishment.
The family lived in cramped quar­ters
at the back of the building.
During harvest seasons the tiny store
was usually crowded until midnight
on Saturdays. With proceeds of the
day's sales in hand, he would reorder
stock immediately to be ready for
the following Saturday's rush. In
time the business was expanded in
a new location, but it continued as
a family operation until 1954.
After struggling to make his
store a success during the Great
Depression, Salem gave both time
and effort to civic endeavor. He was
president of the Chamber of Com­merce
from 1933 to 1941 and direc­tor
of the regional west Texas cham­ber
in 1936.
THE SOUTHERN
FEDERATION OF
SYRIAN LEBANESE
AMERICAN CLUBS
1931
The emblem of the Southern Feder­ation
of Syrian Lebanese American
Clubs depicts a Phoenician galley
departing the cedar-covered hills of
Lebanon. The organization dates
from 1931, when the idea was pre­sented
during aJuly 4th convention
sponsored by the Young Men's
Amusement Club of Port Arthur.
Two months later the details of a
federation were worked out at a
Labor Day gathering initiated by a
Syrian girls' club in Austin. During
the following weeks clubs from
Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Okla­homa
and Alabama attended orga­nizational
meetings. The first con­vention
was held in Beaumont in
1932. A constitution was adopted
20
Southern Federation Convention, 1932
and officers elected; H.A. Amuny of
Port.Arthur became the first presi­dent.
Within ten years the Federa­tion
had expanded to the East Coast.
..conventions were suspended during
World War II, but the Federation
'contributed to the war effort, princi­pally
by sponsoring war bond drives.
The organization's bimonthly
newsletter began in 1933 as a col­umn,
"The Galley:' in The Syrian
Voice, a New York City newspaper.
By 1936 The Official Bulletin had
achieved its present format. The
long-time editor was Kamal Antone,
an organizer of the Federation. The
records on file at the Houston office
are the best archive available on the
Lebanese in Texas and the South.
With the establishment of Leb­anese
neighborhoods, clubs and
churches during the early 1900's,
assistance often was given to the un­fortunate,
the unemployed, the sick
and the orphaned. With the creation
of the Federation in 1931, aid on a
much larger scale became feasible,
and relief was given to the refugees
of Middle Eastern conflicts and to
natural disaster victims in Syria,
Lebanon and America too.
Scholarships have also been a
principal concern of the Southern
Federation program. A student loan
fund was initiated in the 1930's, and
in 1948 a scholarship program was
established which has handed out
hundreds of thousands of dollars
from 73 funds. In addition, the Fed­eration's
Kahlil Gibran awards have
honored America's most popular
Lebanese author. Since 1969 dona­tions
have been made to the Center
for Middle Eastern Studies at The
University of Texas at Austin. In
1973 the Southern Federation Foun­dation,
Inc., was formed as a Texas
corporation to manage the scholar­ship
and charitable programs.
Today the Southern Federation
comprises 85 clubs in over 50 south­ern
cities, with a total membership
of almost 6,090. Texas, the pioneer
state of the Federation, has 34 clubs
in 14 cities from Beaumont-Port
Arthur to EI Paso. It provides a
forum in which Arabic-speaking
people can foster their customs,
music, food, language, folklore,
hospitality and devotion to heritage.
Families and friends meet to ex­change
news and to introduce their
children. A nonpolitical, nonsectar­ian
policy is followed. At convention
parties, dances, banquets and official
meetings, the traditions of old and
new homelands are blended in a
mixture of patriotism and pride.
ANTHONY R. FERRIS
1932
Anthony Ferris combined a full life
in business, education and service
to his adopted country with a love
of his native Arabic literature and
music. As translator of the writings
of Kahlil Gibran, the world-famous
Lebanese mystic, philosopher, artist
and poet, Ferris made a lasting con­tribution
to the literary arts.
Born in Roumieh, Lebanon, in
1907, Ferris received his education
at the British Missionary School in
Broumana and at the American
University of Beirut. After a brief
teaching career, he came to visit an
uncle, Saadi Ferris, in Texas during
the early 1930's. He addressed the
organizational meeting of the South­ern
Federation of Syrian Lebanese
American Clubs in Austin in 1931
and is listed as one of its founders.
After a visit to Cuba, Ferris was re­admitted
on the Lebanese immigra­tion
quota in 1932 and settled in
Austin, where he worked with his
brother, Elias, in a pharmacy.
Mr. and Mrs. Bobby Manziel with baby daughter, Merigale (right), pose with Senator and
Mrs. Tom Pollard, 1946.
In the years that followed, he
received undergraduate and gradu­ate
degrees from The University of
Texas at Austin. During World War
II he was an officer instructor at
Lackland Air Force Base near San
Antonio. Later he became a teacher
and eventually a lecturer at the uni­versity
in Austin. From 1959 to 1962
he was a consultant on foreign lan-guages
for the Texas Education
Agency. He was married to Carmen
Kazen, daughter of the pioneer mer­chant
Abraham Kazen of Laredo.
Their son, Anthony, became a law­yer
in the Kazen family tradition.
Ferris's renditions of Gibran
have benefited a wide public. Faith­ful
to the idea and style, he pains­takingly
translated the Arabic into
English to supplement the works
already available. Before Ferris's
death in Austin in 1962, he was
responsible for producing six vol­umes
of Gibran's work in English.
BOBBY MANZIEL
1932
One of Texas's most successful wild­catters
and independent oil opera­tors,
Bobby Manziel acted as his
own geologist and opened up nine
fields during the great east Texas
boom of the 1930's. Located in
Wood, Smith and Marion counties,
the fields were named for members
of his family. One of his wells, drilled
near Hawkins in 1940, resulted in
the completion of 243 additional
wells, which produced 1,500,000
Carmen and Anthony Ferris with their son, Anthony Jr. barrels of crude within a year's time.
21
Manziel was born in Lebanon
in 1905 and was brought by his
parents to America when he was a
year old. The family settled in Ar­kansas.
As a youngster Manziel
worked as a paper boy and sold pea­nuts
at sporting events. Later he
became a boxing and wrestling pro­moter
in Arkansas and a sportswrit­er
for newspapers in Monroe, Loui­siana,
and Fort Smith, Arkansas. In
1932 he moved to Gladewater, Texas,
where he operated a small hotel until
the opportunity arose for him to
enter the oil business. On one occa­sion
his friend Jack Dempsey loaned George Kadane
him $400 to complete a wildcat well.
Dempsey said later that it was the first projects was the construction of
best investment he ever made. The a Catholic convent and library in
two became partners in many suc- Denison. He learned drafting and
cessful business ventures. became his own architect, and soon
Manziel's business empire grew he had a thriving business in
to include banks, hotels and news- northern Texas and in Oklahoma.
papers as well as oil wells. He was • The Kadane enterprises grew
proud of his ancestry and was an to include highway and railroad con­organizer
of Tyler's Cedars of Leb- struction. By 1914 he was using his
anon Club. He also served as presi- ... own drilling rig to explore for oil in
dent of the Southern Federation of Oklahoma. Four years later he re­Syrian
Lebanese American Clubs . . turned to Texas, first to Dallas, then
Two years before his death in in 1917 to Burkburnett, where he
1956, he established the Bobby and his brother Fred formed the
Manziel Scholarship Award. His Western Drilling Company, which
widow, Dorothy, continued contrib- had its first great success in the
uting generously to scholarships and Burkburnett boom. He also drilled
Federation charities.
GEORGE E. KADANE
1935
The fabulous story of oilman
George E. Kadane began in the
mountain village of Baskinta, Leba­non,
in 1880. He was 11 when his
father died and his mother was faced
with the task of supporting her chil­dren.
She immigrated to America
with her youngest sons, Fred and
Charlie. George and a younger sister
arrived later.
By the time the family reached
Denison, Texas, in 1886, George had
worked as a peddler long enough. In
1891 he became an apprentice to an
architect and builder and quickly
learned his life's trade. One of his
22
in fields at Breckenridge, Ranger,
Desdemona and Mexia. Returning
to Oklahoma, he reentered the con­tracting
business and also operated
movie theaters in Frederick and
Altus, Oklahoma. In 1935 he was in
Wichita Falls drilling for oil in part­nership
with his sons and his brother
Fred. After eight dry holes the Ka­danes
brought in their first sensa­tional
wildcat well in 1937 in what
became a 60,000-acre field. Later
they made significant discoveries in
Oklahoma and California.
George Kadane died in 1945,
but his sons continued in the petro­leum
industry, including oil and gas
production in Oklahoma, Califor­nia,
Mississippi and Texas. Jack
Kadane brought in 12 new fields in
north and west Texas and pioneered
development of the thermal process
for the secondary recovery of oil and
gas. Jack died in 1972, his brother
Mike in 1975. Edward G. Kadane,
with his son, George, formed the
Kadane Oil Company in 1973, and
it remains a family firm.
NAJEEB E. HALABY
1944
One of the most celebrated names
in the American aviation industry
is that of Najeeb Halaby Jr., a Dallas
native of Syrian ancestry. In 1927 the
12-year-old Halaby was in the
throng that greeted Charles A.
Lindbergh's triumphal visit to Dal­las,
following his historic solo flight
across the Atlantic. Then and there,
young N ajeeb decided to become an
aviator. By the time he entered col­lege
he owned his own plane.
Halaby's Syrian father, born in
Aleppo in 1880, came as an eight­year-
old to New York with his par­ents.
At 14 he began learning the
interior decorator's trade. Between
1891 and 1910 he moved to South
America, back to New York, then to
New Orleans and on to Dallas,
where he imported oriental rugs, ran
an interior-decorating business and
later had an art shop in the Neiman­Marcus
store.
Najeeb E. Halaby Jr.
His son, Najeeb Jr., was born
m 1915. He was educated in the
Dallas public schools, graduated
from Stanford University and re­ceived
a Yale law degree in 1940.
During World War II he gained a
reputation for courage and intelli­gence
as a Navy test pilot. He flew
the first cross-country flight of a jet
plane in 1944. From 1948 to 1954 he
held important administrative posi­tions
in the Department of Defense.
He then practiced corporate law
until 1961, when President John F.
Kennedy appointed him director of
the Federal Aviation Administration.
In 1965 America's top civilian
aviator left government service, hav­ing
helped frame new safety regula­tions
that had reduced airline crash
fatalities by two-thirds. He joined
Pan American World Airways and
rose to become president and chief
executive officer. In 1974 he formed
his own Halaby International Cor­poration,
a venture capital company,
and opened his own international
law firm as well.
In addition to his aviation,
financial and legal careers, N ajeeb
Halaby Jr. has devoted himself to
teaching, serving in numerous cor­porate
directorships and participat­ing
in government study groups
relating to defense and foreign
affairs. He has also given time and
effort to a wide range of civic, chari­table,
cultural and educational pro­grams
in New York City and else­where.
He has served as a trustee of
Stanford University, the American
University of Beirut and the Amon
Carter Museum of Western Art in
Fort Worth.
In 1978 Halaby's daughter,
Lisa, married King Hussein of J or­dan
and took the title, Queen N oor
al Hussein (Light of Hussein) .
DR. MICHAEL DeBAKEY
1948
World-renowned cardiovascular sur­geon,
Dr. Michael DeBakey, was
born in 1908 to Lebanese immi-
Dr. Michael DeBakey
grants. His father, Morris, came to
the United States in 1900 and settled
in Lake Charles, Louisiana, where
he eventually acquired his own
drugstore. Michael DeBakey at­tel'lded
Tulane University, receiving
his medical degree in 1932. After his
in'ternship at New Orlean's Charity
Hospital and residencies at the Uni­versities
of Heidelberg and Stras­bourg,
Dr. DeBakey returned to
Tulane, where he developed a roller
pump that later became a vital part
of heart-lung machines.
During World War II he served
in the Surgeon General's Office. In
1948 he came to Texas as chairman
of the Department of Surgery at
Baylor University College of Medi­cine
in Houston. He served as presi­dent
of the Baylor College of Medi­cine
and Director of the Cardiovas­cular
Research and Training Center
at Methodist Hospital in Houston.
Dr. DeBakey, well-known for
his surgical skill and research, has
invented techniques, materials and
devices for heart and vascular
surgery in addition to the roller
pump. He pioneered the use of
synthetics for grafts and led efforts
to perfect heart valves and artificial
hearts. As of the early 1970's he had
invented some 55 new surgical in-struments
and written more than
600 scientific articles. For years he
performed more than 2,000 opera­tions
a year, in addition to his
administrative duties, lectures and
service on numerous boards. His
honors and awards are internation­al.
In 1964 President Lyndon B.
Johnson appointed Dr. DeBakey
head of the Commission on Heart
Disease, Cancer, and Stroke. With
his own funds the doctor established
the DeBakey Medical Foundation to
make research grants and to foster
the dissemination of medical knowl­edge
worldwide.
MICHEL T. HALBOUTY
1960
America's energy shortage and its
repercussions were predicted as
early as 1960 by Michel T. Hal­bouty,
Houston independent pro­ducer,
geologist and petroleum engi­neer.
He forecast that by 1975 the
American consumer would blame
the oil industry for lagging in explo­ration
and production, thus precipi­tating
a crisis. His prediction was
based upon 30 years of experience
in the petroleum industry.
Halbouty was born in Beau­mont,
the son of Thomas and Sodia
Michel T Halbouty
23
I ~
Halbouty, who had arrived from
Beirut in 1902 during the Spindletop
oil boom. The Halboutys encour­aged
education for their children,
who entered the fields of geology,
petroleum engineering, teaching,
medicine and insurance. Michel
graduated from Texas A&M in 1930,
received his master's degree in 1931
and was the first to be awarded that
university's professional geological
engineering degree in 1956. He was
a geologist and petroleum engineer
for the Yount-Lee Oil Company
from 1931 to 1935, and for the Glenn
H. McCarthy interests from 1935 to
1937. He then opened his own con­sultant's
office in Houston. By 1942
he had discovered eight oil and gas
fields in Texas and Louisiana.
During World War II he served
in the planning division of the
Army-Navy Petroleum Board. Later
he was responsible for discovery and
development of one Alaskan, 18
Louisianan and 36 Texan fields.
Halbouty was active in profes­sional
circles and served as a distin­guished
lecturer for national petro­leum
and geological societies, pub­lished
more than 280 scientific and
technical papers, and authored and
co-authored books on the oil indus­try
and its history. In 1965 he
received the Texas Mid-Continent
Oil and Gas Association's Distin­guished
Service Award; from 1966
to 1967 he was president of the
American Association of Petroleum
Geologists. In 1968 Halbouty was
named a distinguished alumnus of
Texas A&M, where he created schol­arships
for geology and petroleum
engineering students.
In 1977 Texas A&M University
named its geoscience building for
Michel Halbouty. He became a
member of the National Academy of
Engineering in 1979, and in 1983 he
was named to the Texas A&M Uni­versity
System Board of Regents.
As of 1988, Halbouty is chair­man
of the board and chief executive
officer of Michel T. Halbouty Ener­gy
Company in Houston. He serves
24
on many bank boards, is active in
community and civic projects, holds
membership in scientific, engineer­ing
and technical societies, and has
received many distinguished awards.
D.D. HACHAR
1967
The D.D. Hachar Foundation for
Education was established in Laredo
in 1967 by an immigrant from Syria.
The Hachar family originally fled
Mount Lebanon in the 1860's to
escape the infamous Druze massa­cres
of the Maronites and found
refuge in Damascus. About 1920
Dimitri Hachar immigrated to Mex­ico,
where he worked for two years
in the oil boomtown of Tampico. He
then journeyed to Laredo, Texas,
where an older brother, Nicholas,
had preceded him five years earlier.
NidlOlas became a department store
owner and well-known civic worker.
Dimitri, meanwhile, opened a shoe
.. store and soon acquired enough
, capital to initiate some shrewd real
estate investments.
Kind, generous and retiring,
Dimitri Hachar has always been
admired for his quietly effective
charity work. In 1967 he established
the D.D. Hachar Foundation for
Education to benefit the people of
both Laredo and Nuevo Laredo.
Since that time hundreds of thou­sands
of dollars have been given by
the foundation to assist disadvan­taged
people in obtaining an educa­tion.
Children and adults have been
aided at all levels from elementary
to university and in both vocational
and professional fields. Baptist min­isters
and Catholic priests alike have
received Hachar funds. In 1973 D.D.
Hachar was honored in his own
community when a new elementary
school was named in his honor.
LEBANESE ATHLETES
Athletic prowess among Lebanese
Texans was not at first emphasized
by the immigrants, whose over­whelming
concern was finding eco­nomic
security for their families.
Boys and girls were expected to work
in their parents' stores after school.
However, by the 1920's the Ameri­can-
born generation was infected
with baseball fever. As these young­sters
grew up playing on neighbor­hood
sandlots, baseball teams com­posed
of and sponsored by Lebanese
and Syrian clubs often emerged.
As early as 1923 Port Arthur's
Young Men's Amusement Club had
a team coached by Louis Abraham.
By 1925 tournaments were being
held with the Syrian clubs in Beau­mont,
Houston, San Antonio and
Port Arthur. Later Austin, Victoria,
Corpus Christi and Waco organized
teams. When the Southern Federa­tion
of Syrian Lebanese American
Clubs was formed in 1931, part of
the activities included a baseball
tournament. Several young men,
such as Waco's Louis Fadal and
George George, went on to play
semi -pro ball.
Chris Gilbert
I
Football has also attracted Leb­anese
fans since the 1920's. The
diminutive Anees Semaan of San
Antonio once tried out for the Texas
Longhorn squad and ended up as
head cheerleader. Others had better
success in winning places on the
squad. These have included Albert
Nemir (Texas, 1929), Edward Ogdee
(Texas A&M, 1942), Steve J amail
(TCU, 1965-1967), Tommy Asaff
(Texas, 1969), George Herro (Texas
Tech, 1971-1972), DougJamail (Ne­braska,
1971-1972) andJ oe Aboussie
(Texas, 1973).
The University of Texas All­American
halfback Chris Gilbert,
who played from 1966 to 1968, set
the greatest record for Lebanese­Texan
athletes. Half-Lebanese on his
mother's side of the family, Houston­born
Gilbert broke three school rec­ords
as a sophomore and was the
only player in NCAA history to gain
more than 1,000 yards three succes­sive
years. Gilbert established a new
Southwest Conference record for his
96-yard touchdown run in his junior
year. He was All-Southwest Confer­ence
for three years and the winner
of the first Annual Kern Tips
Award. In 1968 Chris Gilbert be­came
the first Lebanese Texan to be
named All-American.
JOE SALEM
1968
Joe Salem represented N ueces
County for four terms in the Texas
House of Representatives, beginning
in 1968. His father, Sam, was born
in Tripoli, Lebanon, in 1891 and
came to the United States as a teen­ager.
The elder Salem eventually
opened a grocery store in Galveston.
In 1918 he married Mary Moses,
daughter of Lebanese immigrants in
Morgan City, Louisiana. The Sa­lems
moved to Corpus Christi the
following year and opened another
store. They were joined by Mary's
parents, Michael and Rosa Moses,
who opened their own grocery
business. During the Great Depres-sion
"Mother Moses" became a local
legend as a friend of the down-and­out.
She fed and helped them find
jobs until her death in 1938.
Her grandson, Joe Salem, was
educated in Corpus Christi and
served as a pilot and instructor dur­ing
World War II. After the war he
became a businessman, investor and
developer who took an active role in
club work and youth activities.
Joe Salem was a member of
President John F. Kennedy and
President Lyndon B. Johnson's
National Committee on Employ­ment
of the Handicapped.
HELEN DONATH
1972
When she made her Corpus Christi
debut before a hometown audience
in 1972, Helen Donath was already
a star attraction of European oper­atic
circles. Born in 1940, Miss Do­nath
received her first musical in­strMction
at the age of two from her
Lebanese grandmother, Mrs. Alex
Hamauei, who taught the child Ara­bic,
Spanish and English folk songs.
As a teenager Helen studied voice
at Del Mar College, continued her
training in New York City and be­gan
her career in 1961 as a member
of the Cologne (Germany) Opera.
Helen Donath
Later she toured Europe with the
Hannover Opera and was a great
success. In 1965 she married the
Opera's principal conductor, Klaus
Donath. She sang for four years at
the Salzburg Festival and in 1966
joined the Bavarian State Opera,
with which she appeared in most of
the European opera houses.
Although Helen Donath had
been recording vocal parts since
1962, her American debut was not
until 1970, when she first appeared
with the Chicago Symphony Orches­tra
in Beethoven's Ninth Symphony,
conducted by Sir Georg Solti. Dur­ing
the next two years she became
better known to North American
audiences through appearances in
New York, San Francisco, Ottawa
and elsewhere. As a lyric soprano,
Miss Donath's voice has often been
praised for its tender lyricism and
its beauty in color, dramatic power,
suppleness and flexibility. Although
she is an unpretentious performer,
her warm and responsive stage pres­ence
has always delighted audiences
in America and Europe.
LEBANESE TRADITIONS
The Arabic-speaking immigrants
and their descendants still celebrate
their ancient traditions in a variety
of ways. Arabic language preserva­tion
-a nostalgic goal of the immi­grant
generation - suffered a decline
after the second generation but is
experiencing a rebirth. Church­sponsored
Arabic schools disap­peared
in the 1940's to be replaced
by Arabic courses in several of
Texas's universities. Arabic phrases
and family-related words are taught
to the children in Lebanese-Texan
and Syrian-Texan homes.
Arabic foods have retained
their popularity. Prepared regularly
for the family, the special recipes of
the Middle East have reached a
wider audience through Lebanese
festivals held in such cities as Austin,
San Antonio, Houston, Beaumont,
EI Paso and Waco. The role of the
25
woman has nowhere been more
visible than in church-sponsored
fund-raising drives based on their
culinary skills. Arabic bread, beans,
salads, pastries and kubba (pro­nounced
kibbe) helped finance the
first Orthodox churches in Texas.
Dancing the dabka
nounced sahriyyaat), festive evenings
attended by Arabic-speaking Texans
from far and near. These occasions
are held by families, clubs and
churches to provide an ethnic expe­rience
for young and old. Food,
drink, Arabic music and the dabka
(pronounced dubke) are necessary for
the sahra. The dabka is a traditional
Lebanese circle dance. Music is
provided by a small band of native
instruments - the oud (lute), the
darabukka (hand drum) and the
tambourine. The haunting, wailing,
half-tone sounds add a new dimen­sion
to the everyday musical scene.
CONCLUSION
Lebanese and Syrian Texans
periodically relive their traditions at ...
social gatherings called saharaat (pro-
I would define our Syrian­Lebanese
heritage as that group oj his­toric
moral values, ancestral customs,
racial characteristics and ethnic qual­i~
es and virtues acquired over the
centuries by our jorifathers oj Lebanon
and Syria,' brought over to America
by our parents and grandparents as
they emigrated,' and then bequeathed
SUGGESTED READING
Little written material exists on the
history of the Lebanese and the
Syrian peoples in the state of Texas.
Rather, general histories of these
immigrants in the United States pre­sent
immigration trends, settlement
patterns and accomplishments of
these Arab Americans.
Histories of local Antiochian
Orthodox and Maronite churches
can be obtained from parish offices
in Texas's larger cities.
For general reading:
The Arab Americans, Alixa Naff (New
York: Chelsea House, 1987), for
high school reading.
26
Arabic Speaking Communities zn
American Cities, ed. Barbara C.
Aswad (New York: Center for
Migration Studies of New York
and Association of Arab-Ameri­can
University Graduates, 1974).
Syrians in America, Philip K. Hitti
(New York: George Doran, 1924).
Arabic-Speaking Americans, Habib 1.
Katibah (New York: Institute of
Arab American Affairs, 1946).
The Syrian-Lebanese in America: A Study
in Religion and Assimilation, Philip
M. Kayal and Joseph M. Kayal
(Boston: Twayne, 1975).
to us, their American descendants, to
be used by us to attain a richer and
more rewarding American way oj life.
-Judge A.A. Semaan
Judge Semaan's speech to the South­ern
Federation of Syrian Lebanese
American Clubs at San Antonio in
1966 sums up the pride in ancestral
heritage and American citizenship
which has characterized one of the
state's most colorful ethnic groups.
From those scattered first-com­ers
to our present leaders in busi­ness,
law, science, politics and cul­ture,
the Lebanese and Syrian Tex­ans
have made steady advances. The
hardships faced by turn-of-the-cen­tury
immigrants were rewarded
slowly by a better way of life, free­dom
of religion and politics, and
with solid family and community
ties. Their children obtained sound
educations and contributed their
knowledge and skill to every type of
occupation. Their culture has given
Texas a welcome addition to its
multi-ethnic society.
Becoming American: The Early Arab
Immigrant Experience, Alixa Naff
(Carbondale and Edwardsville:
Southern Illinois University
Press, 1985).
Bifore the Flames: A Questjor the History
oj Arab Americans, Gregory Orfalea
(Austin: University of Texas
Press, 1988).
PHOTO CREDITS
All photos are from the collection of The University of Texas Institute of Texan Cultures at San Antonio, courtesy of the following
lenders. Credits from left to right are separated by semicolons and from top to bottom by dashes. Copies of these photographs may
be obtained from the ITC Library.
Cover
Page 3
Page 4
Page 5
Page 6
Page 7
Page 8
Page 9
Page 10
Page 11
Page 12
Page 13
Page 14
Page 15
Bertha Davis, Austin.
Edouard Charton, ed., Le Tour du Monde (Paris:
Hachette et Cie, 1861) vol. 1, p. 5.
Louise Seymour Houghton, "Syrians in the
United States: Sources and Settlements;' The
Survey (New York: Charity Organization
Society) vol. XXVI (April 1, 1911).
Eddie J oseph, Austin - George F. Bashara, Waco.
Negem D. J amail, Houston.
Anthony Ferris Jr. , Austin.
Shafica Azar, San Antonio-Julia Nami Snead,
San Antonio.
J alaI Antone, H ouston; Esau Malooly, EI Paso.
Katherine Edd H arris, Houston.
Haddad Family-Mrs. Ralph N. Karam, San
Antonio.
Malouf Abraham, Canadian -Stevens Mafrige,
Houston.
Mrs. John S. Malouf, Dallas.
M.K. H age Sr. Family; Rev. Cecil Lotief Jr. ,
Hays, Kansas.
Evan Haywood Antone, William Farah,
I ndustrialist (El Paso: Carl Herzog, 1969) - Mrs.
N.A. Nahas. •
Page 16 Florence Casseb, San Antonio - Florence
Casseb, San Antonio.
Page 17 Dr. Solomon D. David, San Antonio - Patricia
McKool, Dallas.
Page 18 The Institute of Texan Cultures - Fred Damon,
Houston.
Page 19 H aggar Slack Company, Dallas-Joe T. Salem,
Sudan, Texas.
Page 20 Southern Federation of Syrian Lebanese
American Clubs, Houston.
Page 21 Mrs. Bobby Manziel, Tyler-Anthony Paul
"Curley" Ferris, Austin.
Page 22 Margaret Kadane Binger, Dallas -Southern
Federation of Syrian Lebanese American Clubs,
Houston.
Page 23 Baylor College of Medicine, Houston - Michel
T. Halbouty, Houston.
Page 24 Sports Office, University of Texas at Austin.
Page 25 Helen Philpo, Corpus Christi.
Page 26 Fred Damon, Houston.
Page 27 Semaan Family, San Antonio.
Back cover Harvey Fadal Sr. , Waco.
San Antonio Biblical Play, c. 1922
27
Italic numerals identify illustrations.
Abraham family 13
Abraham, Nahim 12-13
store 12
Antiochian (Syrian) Orthodox Church
see Syrian Orthodox Church
Antone, Elias J. 9, 9
Antone family 9
Arbeely family 4, 4
Arbeely, Joseph 4, 4
Athletes, Lebanese 24-25
Azar and Solomon Pecan Shelling Company 8, 8
Azar family 8
Bashara family 5
Bashara, Monsour J. 5, 5
Beirut 3
Camel tenders 4
Casseb family 15-16, 16
Casseb, Solomon Sr. 15-16
store 16
Cedars of Lebanon Club 11
Curry family 11-12
Curry, Leon 11, 11
Dance, Lebanese 18, 18, 26, 26
David, Dr. Solomon 16-17, 17
DeBakey, Dr. Michael 23, 23
Donath, Helen 25, 25
Farah family 14-15
Farah, Mansour 14-15, 15
Farris, Elias 7
Ferris, Anthony R. 21, 21
Food, Lebanese 10, 25-26
Gibran, Kahlil, translation of 21
Gilbert, Chris 24, 25
Hachar, Dimitri D. 24
Haddad family 10-11, 11
Haddad, Louis 18
Hadji Ali 4
Hage family 14
Hage, M.K. Sr. 14, 14
Haggar family 19
Haggar, J.M. Sr. 19, 19
Halaby family 22-23
Halaby, Najeeb E. Jr. 22-23 , 22
Halbouty, Michel T. 23-24, 23
Immigration to Texas 3-4
J amail family 6, 6
INDEX
Joseph, Cater 5, 5
Joseph family 5
Joseph, Isaac 4-5
Kadane family 13-14, 22
Kadane, Fred 13-14, 22
Kadane, George E. 13 , 22 , 22
Kazen family 6-7, 7
Lotief, Cecil 14, 14
McKool, Charles Sr. 17, 17
McKool family 17
Mafrige, Stevens 12, 12
Mafrige, Zachary 12, 12
"Magic Is the Night" 18, 18
Malooly, Esau 9, 9
Malouf family 13
Malouf, John S. 13, 13
Manziel, Bobby 21-22, 21
Nahas, Rev. Nicholas 15, 15
Nami family 7-8
Nami, George 7-8
store 8
Peddlers 3-4, 5, 6, 7, 9, 13, 14, 17, 20, 22
Religion
see Syrian Orthodox Church; Saint George Maronite
Church of San Antonio; Saint Michael's Church,
Beaumont; Nahas, Rev. Nicholas
Saint George Maronite Church of San Antonio 17-18,
18
Saint Michael's Church, Beaumont 10, 10, 15
Salem family 25
Salem, Joe 25
Salem, Joe T. 19-20, 19
Semaan, Ameen 7
Semaan, Anees A. 7, 26
Semaan, Fred 7
Social organizations 4, 26
see also Southern Federation of Syrian Lebanese
American Clubs; Athletes, Lebanese
Solomon, Richard 8
Southern Federation of Syrian Lebanese American
Clubs 5, 6, 8, 9, 11, 12, 14, 16, 20-21, 20, 22, 24, 26
Sports
see Athletes, Lebanese
Syrian Orthodox Church 7-8, 9-10, 15
Traditions, Lebanese 20, 25-26
United J amail Club 6
29
One of a series
prepared by the staff of
THE UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS
INSTITUTE OF TEXAN CULTURES
AT SAN ANTONIO
ISBN 0-86701-043-6