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Fort Worth jeweler weds poet
On this day in 1912, Sam Kruger, Jewish immigrant and founder of Kruger
Jewelry Company, married poet Fania Feldman in Fort Worth. Sam Kruger
was born in the Ukraine in 1882. He and his brother Julius immigrated to
New York in 1904, then around 1907 moved to Texas. Sam brought his other
relatives from the Ukraine to New York and Fort Worth, where he trained
them in the jewelry business. His nephews, Morris and William Zale,
joined the family business and in 1912 moved to Wichita Falls and opened
the Kruger Jewelry Company. In 1926, Kruger helped Morris Zale open what
became the first Zale Jewelry Store, and eventually the Zale Jewelry
Corporation. The daughter of a rabbi, Fania Feldman was born in 1893 in
Sevastopol and became a partisan in the political underground during the
1905 Russian revolution. The family emigrated to the United States three
years later. While her husband's business prospered, Fania Kruger
blossomed as a poet and social activist. Her experiences in Russia
inspired her poetry and were the basis for a lifelong commitment to
human rights. She published three collections of poetry, Cossack
Laughter (1938), The Tenth Jew (1949), and Selected Poems
(1973). She became known internationally and corresponded with a variety of
writers and editors in literary circles. She knew Langston Hughes well
enough to trade poems with him and to send him her homemade strudel from
time to time.
- Links to Related Handbook of Texas Online Articles
- KRUGER, SAM
- KRUGER, FANIA FELDMAN
- ZALE JEWELRY CORPORATION
- GALVESTON MOVEMENT
- JEWS
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