The sto­ry is famil­iar. It’s the sto­ry of so many Jew­ish Russ­ian immi­grants who fled caus­tic con­di­tions for a bet­ter life in the U.S. The grit, deter­mi­na­tion, and smarts; the strug­gle to assim­i­late and to rein­vent commu­nity in a for­eign land; the strug­gle to edu­cate chil­dren, to mar­ry well, and to cre­ate success­ful liveli­hoods are all famil­iar in the sto­ries of my grand­par­ents, my husband’s grand­par­ents, and many of my friends’ families. 

The sto­ry is unfa­mil­iar in the details — and, per­haps, in the mag­ni­tude of the success.

This par­tic­u­lar immi­grant is Nathan Kalli­son, who land­ed in Chica­go in 1890 and who then moved south to San Anto­nio where he expand­ed his small har­ness shop into a suc­cessful dry goods store. A series of smart real estate trans­ac­tions cul­mi­nat­ed in Kallison’s pur­chase of over 2,500 acres in cen­tral Texas, one of the largest ranch­es in the region, and today a State Park. The fam­i­ly became lead­ers in the Jew­ish com­mu­ni­ty as well as the busi­ness and ranch­ing com­mu­ni­ties of San Antonio. 

It is exact­ly the details of the Kalli­son fam­i­ly that Nick Kotz, vet­er­an jour­nal­ist, Pulitzer Prize win­ner, and grand­son of Nathan Kalli­son, mines so care­ful­ly and pre­serves so metic­u­lous­ly in The Har­ness Maker’s Dream. For most of us, those details are for­ev­er lost in the cob­webs of our past. Every fam­i­ly wish­es they had a Nick Kotz to tell our sto­ries. But we don’t, and so The Har­ness Maker’s Dream is our proxy; it is an his­tor­i­cal trib­ute that we can all trea­sure. Chronol­o­gy, index, notes, select­ed bibliography. 

Relat­ed Content

• There’s Jews in Texas? by Debra L. Winegarten
• Shel­ter from the Texas Heat by Bob­bi Kornblit
• Amer­i­can Immi­grant Tales Read­ing List