James Angerstein and Jessica Angerstein

[00:02] JESSICA ANGERSTEIN: All right. My name is Jessica Angerstein. I'm 41, the youngest daughter of four. Today's date is February 4, 2023, in El Paso, Texas. I will be interviewing my dad, James D. Angerstein My dad.

[00:22] JAMES D. ANGERSTEIN: I'm Angerstein I'm the age of 81. Today's date, 4th February, 2023, El Paso, Texas. And my daughter Jessica is interviewing me.

[00:39] JESSICA ANGERSTEIN: All right, so I'll go ahead and start with how was life growing up back when you grew up?

[00:51] JAMES D. ANGERSTEIN: The difference between here and now? Yes, it's a lot slower right now. You know, you get in the car and take off, and then in 20 minutes, you're back home and it's already 708:00 in the evening. Time flies like crazy in those days. You'd get out of the house. We woke up a little early, 05:00 in the morning. That was just normal. And, you know, you spend all day outside just about, unless you're going to school, but. And you'd be with your neighbors kids and you spend more time outside of the house. We didn't have tvs. At least we did. We grew up in the Tez apartments, which are south El Paso, south of Juan Piedras and Copia. And like I said, it was very, very open. You knew your neighbors. Nowadays you hardly even meet the people next to you.

[02:06] JESSICA ANGERSTEIN: You don't even see them.

[02:08] JAMES D. ANGERSTEIN: Yeah, but you knew everybody. Everybody knew each other, you know, and so forth in the area. Of course, you know, we could go out further, but you went walking most of the time, so we didn't go too far. So the difference between now and then was more intimate then. Nowadays it's kind of separate, you know, your family around the house and so forth. But really the neighbors, I've lived at the same place for 40 years, and some of the neighbors I don't even know.

[02:50] JESSICA ANGERSTEIN: Yeah, you know, well, I remember growing up in the same house. We knew our neighbors, even with me, with us girls. But I'm sure it was more, like you said, more intimate, even further when you were growing up. So with that growing up, what was your favorite thing to do?

[03:18] JAMES D. ANGERSTEIN: Favorite thing to do?

[03:19] JESSICA ANGERSTEIN: Yeah, when you were a young boy playing.

[03:23] JAMES D. ANGERSTEIN: We'd play with, like I said, with the neighbors, neighborhood kids, statues and tag.

[03:33] JESSICA ANGERSTEIN: Sometimes Haggerton.

[03:36] JAMES D. ANGERSTEIN: Yeah, I remember my dad would tell us stories from the 1001, arabian nights from Shahrazad, and all the kids would be there, of course. You know, my dad was an Eagle scout, and he would take kids out in the woods, you know, and show them how to hunt and so forth. And he liked, he liked to tell stories. And other kids, he'd just get around and he'd start telling stories. I remember that that was one of their favorite things to do, listen to grandpa tell stories. Yeah.

[04:15] JESSICA ANGERSTEIN: That's awesome. So my dad, you're the greatest violinist we've ever known. So what made you pick up the violin? How old were you?

[04:31] JAMES D. ANGERSTEIN: In the fourth grade at Altavista, the orchestra teacher came by and said that they wanted to get some recruits, some new kids into the orchestra, and she explained and so forth. It was free. If you had an instrument, it was free. So we had an instrument in a closet, my dad's old instrument that my grandmother had bought when he was little and took that and started playing. 08:00 08:00 when I was eight years.

[05:08] JESSICA ANGERSTEIN: Old, I was going to say, how old?

[05:10] JAMES D. ANGERSTEIN: Yeah, I, when I was eight years old, that's when I started.

[05:15] JESSICA ANGERSTEIN: Did grandpa play the violin too?

[05:18] JAMES D. ANGERSTEIN: I don't know. And he took up the trombone and he was playing trombone later on, but obviously he wants to start on the violin.

[05:30] JESSICA ANGERSTEIN: Wow. And with that, did you always know you wanted to choose music as your career path?

[05:41] JAMES D. ANGERSTEIN: Not really. Actually, when I went to high school, I had a plan in my head that I was going to go into electronic engineering and my brother was doing more or less the same thing. Of course, your older brother. And that's when I started taking draft and stuff like that, mostly mathematics. But after I started taking lessons, I brought in Abraham Chavez junior. I changed my whole view of everything and I got more into music, more into playing in the U symphony and so forth and so on. High school with the Austin orchestra, doctor Weber, and it was just involvement.

[06:35] JESSICA ANGERSTEIN: So how did you meet Abraham Chavez?

[06:40] JAMES D. ANGERSTEIN: He was recommended by Doctor Weber as an orchestra, well, violin teacher and I went and met him and started taking lessons from him and he was very involved in everything. He influenced a lot of kids. He had 15 regular students and was in charge of the El Paso youth Symphony. And he was a great influence in all our lives. A lot of the kids that came out were teachers. They became teachers and went into music. They're all over the world now.

[07:25] JESSICA ANGERSTEIN: Yeah, yeah, that's kind of cool. I always think that's the coolest that you got taught by him. And there's a building named after him. And I know music. Obviously, that's your life. That's our life because of you. But you did go into the army, so would you talk to me about the army? What made you join?

[08:00] JAMES D. ANGERSTEIN: What made me join?

[08:01] JESSICA ANGERSTEIN: Yeah.

[08:02] JAMES D. ANGERSTEIN: Well, many things, but mainly it was when I started teaching. Everybody has a sense of what they, they're going into, you know, what he wants to do and she wants to do in her life. And I knew I wanted to teach music, but when I started teaching, it was a completely different idea of what I thought.

[08:34] JESSICA ANGERSTEIN: How old were you when you started teaching?

[08:36] JAMES D. ANGERSTEIN: When I started teaching, 2020. It's kind of strange, but I was going to the UTEP and the canatio teacher had, I don't know, left or something. They needed a teacher and Mister Chavez had a brother, Ralph Chavez, that was the principal at elementary school there. And they needed a teacher. And Abraham Chavez suggested that I go teach. I hadn't graduated from school yet, but they could make a special emergency situation where they could hire me half price. They benefited them and it benefited me by getting the experience. It was real good. It was a general music class. I never taught choir, so you got that experience. But it was really, really mind boggling, you know, little kids, kindergarten kids, you know, all the way up to 8th grade. And it was, I mean, it's something else. And then I got it. After that I got a job here at El Paso school system. After one year a friend of mine took my place. I came over here and started teaching here for one year. Again, it was a mind boggling experience. And anyway, I took the chance to go ahead and complete my two years. Actually, if you were drafted into the army or drafted into the service, it was a two year experience and a draftee. So I volunteered for the draft and they called me after I took the test and they said that they would like to get me interested in another part of the army and would I be interested the army security Agency, which is a part of the intelligence corps. But the problem was it was four years. You had to volunteer for four years, not just two. Yeah. So I went and checked it out and decided I was going to go. I needed a time off. So anyway, it wasn't exactly, exactly what I expected either, you know, but for four years I went to that. And what I did there was mainly, like I said, it's been what, 50 years now, so I can talk about it a little bit. It took me mostly because of my bilingual. I was with the lingual of the part, the Spanish. I was fluent and they didn't need to train me on that too much. As a matter of fact, they didn't train me at all. They just got me as a linguist and I went to something else. I got my mosaic and I never practiced it. Mls, my specialty. They give you a specialty. They train you and you get out and so forth. You're supposed to be able to do it. But since I was already a linguist, they used me as a linguist, and that's where I went to Santo Domingo as a linguist, interpreter, and everything else I was doing after four years, came back and I played with the. Before I got a job again, they gave me a good job about one year afterwards here in the El Paso school system. But before that I was playing. I played with the Chiron Bellas from Spain. They came to Juarez and were playing in Juarez at that time, and they wanted to pass over to the United States. So they got in touch with local 466, I think I still remember the number. And they got permission to come over, part of them. Half of them took off to Spain, half of them stayed here. And I was lucky enough to get in touch with and become friends with Jose Canete, who was a pianist and cellist with him. Pianist and cellist and cellist, yeah, he played drums. He saw that the drummer was the one they kept all the time. So he started learning how to play drums. Anyway, played with them over at the Gillespie Steakhouse for a while. And when I got the job here, they got somebody else, a trumpet player, Ernie, anyway, and he took over. But that's what, that's more or less the time between when I went to the army and started back into teaching.

[14:32] JESSICA ANGERSTEIN: It's long, but I remember your story about the helmets, when you were supposed to wear helmets. Supposed to wear helmets. That always makes me laugh.

[14:45] JAMES D. ANGERSTEIN: Well, it didn't make them laugh, too. Tell you a story about the helmet, please. No, what happened was that we were a little bit cocky, I guess. And when we were in Santo Domingo, we didn't wear our helmets. The group, the ASA, and we used to gather intelligence for the airborne, 82nd Airborne. So, you know, the people were a little bit, they thought, get shot or something. So we didn't like to wear the helmets because it hurt. You know, sometimes you'd be going along with a jeep and you had to get a bump and the thing would come back and it hit me right there, you know, kept. So I'd take the helmet off and I kept it off, and after a while it didn't wear it at all, but the same thing with the other guys. And the general in charge told the so forth. And so I went down the line to come down and tell their commanding officer to please tell. Please tell your people if they would please put on their helmets, please.

[16:12] JESSICA ANGERSTEIN: Oh, yeah, that's funny. Okay. I just had to tell you or hear that story again. So you came back, you played with the spaniard group, the how?

[16:35] JAMES D. ANGERSTEIN: Churumbeles.

[16:36] JESSICA ANGERSTEIN: Churumbeles.

[16:37] JAMES D. ANGERSTEIN: Bird singers, I think. Yes. Chironbellis. Sort of like, that's the name they got. They had the Chiron. Bella is the Espana.

[16:46] JESSICA ANGERSTEIN: De Espana. You've been all over the world, huh?

[16:51] JAMES D. ANGERSTEIN: Well, not really. I've gone to. Well, taken trips, but the only place that the army sent me was to Santo Domingo. You can only be like, they stayed, like, two years out, and they bring you back for at least two years. So I was here for a year, just about in schools and this and that, and I went over there for about a year, six months, and then back, three months back, then back again for six months, and then they sent me down to Miami and stayed there for the rest of the mature Miami. So, yeah.

[17:34] JESSICA ANGERSTEIN: I love Miami. So when you came back and then you started, you played and then you started teaching, what did you enjoy most about teaching?

[17:47] JAMES D. ANGERSTEIN: About teaching?

[17:48] JESSICA ANGERSTEIN: Mm hmm.

[17:49] JAMES D. ANGERSTEIN: No, what you learned. Teachers usually will tell you the same thing. It's not what you're teaching that's enjoyment. It's teaching somebody else what you know and seeing them grow. So you get a student, and you start him out from nothing, and he doesn't know how to do anything, or he might be a difficult student. The ones that you learn the most from are difficult students, and those are the ones you appreciate the most. When you see that they might be having trouble in life with whatever they're doing, and you grab them and you teach them something that helps them, and then it helps develop them into better human beings, so to speak. And they grow and they get better and better and better until they grow to an extent that you really didn't have an idea they would. And I've had a few students that have done that, and I could give you an example. I always talk about Alex Matkes, my favorite student. No, he was very smart. He was extremely intelligent. And his sister, she's the head of the Milwaukee student group for Latin Americans, sort of like mariachi, but she teaches more than just mariachi. And she starts them out, old latin kids, and she starts them out from right from the beginning, and they develop, and they've been playing around that area. And she started from the ground up, and her brother started here with her from Mexico, from. They came over. They didn't know Spanish. I mean, English. They knew Spanish, obviously, and started when I was at Houston school. And they started right from the bear, you know, fourth grade also. And they started playing. I remember the first, about a month after they were here, they had a test, usually the test that you take every year. And they didn't know English there. Alex was there and he said, mister, mister. I said, what did it say here?

[20:41] JESSICA ANGERSTEIN: I said, I can't tell you.

[20:43] JAMES D. ANGERSTEIN: I can't tell you anything except give you an exam. You're supposed to do it. But he says, I said, I'm sorry. I'm sorry, but I can't help you. But he not only knew that after, when he was in the 8th grade, he was the president of the National Junior Honor Society. And they gave a special program here in Houston with the orchestra kids. He had them, he was directing them, and he was playing a solo from that we had arranged. It was great. He and his sister were co masters of ceremony. And they had dancing and stuff. Just what she's doing now, you know. And it was great. But like I said, alex Marquez just grew into something else. He's in Maine teaching down there. He was in Mexico playing with a city orchestra in Mexico when, I mean, all over, you know. And again, back to what we were talking about before. I slide on it and all that again before. Those are things that you remember and appreciate as a teacher. And that's what you remember and that's why you do it. You don't do it to teach music. You do it to teach the kids to expand themselves with the music. And when you see them doing that and love it, my goodness, it's a joy, you know, it's the same thing with every teacher. I don't care what they teach.

[22:36] JESSICA ANGERSTEIN: That's true.

[22:37] JAMES D. ANGERSTEIN: Yeah.

[22:40] JESSICA ANGERSTEIN: That'S very true, dad. Uh oh. Okay, so obviously teaching, like you said, you don't care what it's about, but what the person, how they grow into it and expand. That's what you said.

[23:04] JAMES D. ANGERSTEIN: That's what people, all the teachers go into that they don't go in for money or, you know, do this and that. They know, they know their subject, but it's developing. The student is the important thing, you know?

[23:20] JESSICA ANGERSTEIN: So now, enough about teaching. Ha ha. Just kidding. But how did you meet my mom?

[23:28] JAMES D. ANGERSTEIN: How did I meet your mom? Yeah, I met her at a 15 year old party. Quinceanera. Her cousin's daughter Tellyev was having hurricane Seneira. And I had just bought a brand new 1971 sports coupe, eight cylinder, four inch, four carburetors. And the carburetor was huge. I mean, it was a big car. I don't know if you remember it probably not too small. And that does the car that I had at the time. Dual pipes. I mean, it was beautiful.

[24:09] JESSICA ANGERSTEIN: What color was it?

[24:10] JAMES D. ANGERSTEIN: It was brown with chrome all the way around. I mean, and concave window at the back.

[24:19] JESSICA ANGERSTEIN: Oh, nice.

[24:20] JAMES D. ANGERSTEIN: And anyway, my brother Charles was going to be the one that was escorting the chamberlain. Chamberlain, yeah. And he asked me if I could take him. I said, sure. So I took him and I went down to Deli's house, picked him up and so forth and on. Took him down to the dance and so forth. And at the dance, the part of the family, her family brought the table over. Your mom was in there, and she wasn't 15 years old. It was her aunt and they were cousins, my wife and her mother. And that's where I met her, over here at the hotel. Was it called Cortes? I think it was a hotel Cortez. I think it was a Winston. Now Winston, like off the. Right across from the plaza.

[25:27] JESSICA ANGERSTEIN: Oh, okay. I think I know.

[25:30] JAMES D. ANGERSTEIN: Yeah. It was the old one. There was a pla. The Hilton was the plaza now. And then right next to it was the Cortez. And they. They had the ballroom there. That's where I met her at a 15 year old party. I tell people I met her at 15. Wow. You know each other that long? No.

[25:50] JESSICA ANGERSTEIN: How old were you guys?

[25:52] JAMES D. ANGERSTEIN: I was 31. No, not 31. 20. About 29. She was about 27. She looked like she was 15, but.

[26:03] JESSICA ANGERSTEIN: Yeah, she looked young. Good jeans. We got those jeans. What's the best memory you have with mom?

[26:15] JAMES D. ANGERSTEIN: Best memory I have with your mother. There's so many. No, I guess the best memories are when we used to go down and spend vacation over in Kamaru, Chihuahua with a family of 30 in the house. In her house. I mean, everybody together and. Oh, man, all the kids.

[26:48] JESSICA ANGERSTEIN: That was fun.

[26:49] JAMES D. ANGERSTEIN: Yeah.

[26:50] JESSICA ANGERSTEIN: I tell everyone about that house and they're like, that house was huge. I was like, it is a huge house. And all of us just there, everyone in a different room, all the families. It was really fun. I like that. Those are good memories. Family together. So our family, how was it living in a household with four girls and mom?

[27:20] JAMES D. ANGERSTEIN: It was exciting. No, it was always enjoyed to the girls. And it was not peaceful. You might not call it peaceful because it wasn't. We were loud all over the place. But now when you guys are gone, it seems like a cemetery. Nothing's going on. But no, it was enjoyable. I loved it. I still do when everybody gets together and there's nothing like founding.

[28:06] JESSICA ANGERSTEIN: So were you ever sad that you didn't have a son.

[28:12] JAMES D. ANGERSTEIN: Sometimes you wish you had a son, you know, but I took you guys hunting, you know, and when I go golf, I take, you know, whoever wants to go. But especially Jackie.

[28:30] JESSICA ANGERSTEIN: Yeah.

[28:32] JAMES D. ANGERSTEIN: But no, sad. Maybe once in a while, you know, just.

[28:41] JESSICA ANGERSTEIN: Yeah. So let's see if you could do something differently in your life. What would that be?

[29:03] JAMES D. ANGERSTEIN: I don't know.

[29:05] JESSICA ANGERSTEIN: That's a hard one.

[29:10] JAMES D. ANGERSTEIN: I've enjoyed what I've been doing, so, you know, I wouldn't want any different. I kept. I always tell the people, you know, as long as you're doing something you love to do, it's not work. I enjoyed my life with the music every time I woke up. Even though I woke up early in the morning, 05:00 in the morning, it didn't matter. But you knew you were going to accomplish something and do it and love it. You know, it's the most enjoyable thing there is. So I wouldn't change any. I don't think I. Maybe I would somewhere along the line, if I could remember which. But as far as the deal changing the career or something, I would. And even joining the army brought in some things that you'd learn. I learned some things in there that I wouldn't have learned if I hadn't gone into the army. Something completely different, what I was doing, just completely different. But that helped also. So, you know, you probably going down the line and you're going to get everything that you have just taken. Enjoy it or learn from it, and that's whatever comes. Take it.

[30:41] JESSICA ANGERSTEIN: Okay. What. What is a piece of marriage advice you can give to us.

[30:53] JAMES D. ANGERSTEIN: Me to you.

[30:54] JESSICA ANGERSTEIN: Me.

[30:55] JAMES D. ANGERSTEIN: Like I said, enjoy every moment of it. You only come around once. One time. And if you make it the best of it, try and make the best of everything you do and enjoy it. And don't be fretting about the past. Look to the future, you know, always, always look to the future.

[31:20] JESSICA ANGERSTEIN: What about parenting?

[31:22] JAMES D. ANGERSTEIN: Parenting advice? Parenting is a good one. You have to be strict. There's no doubt about it. I mean, not strict to the point that you move them, you know, beat up a kid or something. No, I'm not talking about that. But you have to have some rules and make sure that they follow them, because if they don't follow the rules, they're not going to have any way of structure, you know, to what they want to do when they get going toward their goals. They have to have some kind of structure. They have no structure.

[32:04] JESSICA ANGERSTEIN: They're everywhere.

[32:05] JAMES D. ANGERSTEIN: Yeah. You know, I'm not the greatest structure maker in the world. But, you know, we tried. That's what you have to do. Try.

[32:20] JESSICA ANGERSTEIN: How does it feel to be 81 years old, daddy?

[32:25] JAMES D. ANGERSTEIN: I'll tell my bones. No, it's 81 years old. I could keep my mind going all the way through until the end. It's okay. I started losing it, and I wouldn't be too good. As far as the physical part of it. You feel the creaks and cracks in the morning. Obviously, if you keep active. I do exercise in the morning. I do exercise, even though the amount says they don't. But I do. But you have to exercise so that you can get the bones going. Once they get going, no problem.

[33:10] JESSICA ANGERSTEIN: Before we finish, I do want to know. I always enjoy the story of the Angerstein last name. How it came over here.

[33:19] JAMES D. ANGERSTEIN: How it came over here?

[33:20] JESSICA ANGERSTEIN: Yeah.

[33:21] JAMES D. ANGERSTEIN: Your great great great grandfather, Ernst Angerstein, came to New York after he left Germany. He came over to make his fortune, so to speak. Came down with. Joined the army, by the way, and then wound up in Mesilla, New Mexico. Married Zenobia Madrid. And then with her father was a merchant, and he was known there. And then he came down here. During the civil war, he went across to Mexico, to Juarez. And since, you know, since he was in the army, he had been in the army. His loyalty was to the United States. So when the Confederates tried to make him the comptroller of the confederate army around here, he went to Mexico. And he took all his family across. And he set up in Juarez. He had fields in Juarez and so forth and so on. As a matter of fact, I think he had a winery there for a while. And that's where we came in. My great great grandfather, or great grandfather, my grandfather, were born in Juarez. And then my grandfather came over with my grandmother, who was born in Des Delicios. And they sat up here in El Paso. As a matter of fact, the house that he made is still there.

[35:07] JESSICA ANGERSTEIN: Oh, wow.

[35:08] JAMES D. ANGERSTEIN: On Piedras, way down near Paisano. Anyway, that's how he came here.

[35:17] JESSICA ANGERSTEIN: That's how he came here.

[35:18] JAMES D. ANGERSTEIN: That's how he spoke Spanish, period. I didn't speak English till I was eight years old. Not eight, six or five. Whenever I turned into the school, like kinder.

[35:37] JESSICA ANGERSTEIN: Okay, so I guess I don't know how to end this, but I just wanted to say I would like to tell you how much I love you. We all love you very much.

[35:51] JAMES D. ANGERSTEIN: I know. I know. I know. And I love you all four. I hope you've known that ever since you were born. Because I've loved you ever since then and still do and will always love you. Thank you, babe.

[36:10] JESSICA ANGERSTEIN: Thank you, Daddy.