Ellis, Van & Carol Hart

In early 1926, H. Van Eaton Hart, a merchant, and his wife, the former Lillie Oppenheim, were living in Beaumont, Texas with their four sons when H. Van Eaton died of pneumonia. Unable to care for her sons alone, Lillie moved the family to Jefferson, Texas, where her mother and siblings lived. By coincidence, Home alumna Jean Segal Avegno, who was then working in the Home as Superintendent Harry Ginsburg’s secretary, came to Beaumont to visit relatives. According to Ellis Hart, one of the sons, Jean “prevailed on mother to go to New Orleans and look at the Jewish Children’s Home as a place to put the boys.” As it turns out, the Hart family had history with the Home. Isaac Tobias Hart, H. Van Eaton’s father, was an early supporter of the orphanage and delivered the Home’s 1863 anniversary address. Although he was no relation to Isaac Hart (no middle initial), who was an incorporator and founding board member, Isaac Tobias Hart’s sisters, Julia and Frances Hart, were among the orphanage’s earliest teachers.

In September 1927, following Jean’s suggestion, Lillie Hart admitted her three youngest boys to the Home: Ellis (11), Van (9), and Carol (23 months). Oldest brother Julian, at age 13, was too old to be admitted. Lillie and Julian moved to New Orleans where they remained in close and frequent contact with the three brothers in the Home. 

After graduating from the Isidore Newman School in 1933, Ellis returned to the care of his mother in New Orleans. Upon leaving the Home, he wrote to the board, “I wish to express my sincere appreciation and gratitude for the wonderful care and education I received while in the Home…. I trust that I live up to the teachings and high ideals instilled in me by our dear Uncle Harry, and that I will always be a credit to the Home.”

After a few years as a bench chemist for the Himalaya Sugar Factory in Labadieville, Louisiana, Ellis returned to New Orleans and started work with Autolec auto parts store, rising from floor sales to assistant manager, before selling life insurance. In August 1941, he relinquished to his brother, Julian, the military deferment he received due to his mother’s dependency. After serving nearly a year in the Philippines and Japan with the Army Air Force, Ellis was discharged with the rank of captain.

In 1943, he married Reva Schneider. in 1946, they moved to her hometown in Winona, Mississippi, where he operated a successful family clothing store, Schneider’s, and raised their four children. In addition to leadership roles with the Rotary Club, Boy Scouts, and Red Cross, among other organizations, Ellis served as president of Temple Beth Israel in Greenwood, Mississippi and on the Henry S. Jacobs Camp Committee from its inception in the 1960s. In 1999, the Montgomery County Economic Development Partnership awarded Ellis and Reva the George M. Harris Lifetime Achievement Award for their “endless contributions” to the community. Their son, Macy, became director of Henry S. Jacobs Camp, where he established the original Museum of the Southern Jewish Experience.

Ellis died in September 2017 at age 101. Still active until the end, Ellis attended the Jewish Children’s Regional Service Gala in March 2016 and shared his memories in a lively interview with this author in July 2017.

Van graduated from Newman School in 1935 with an impressive list of honors. He won awards for highest scholastic average in French and Chemistry, and the boy’s award for highest scholastic average among graduating seniors who lettered in varsity sports. Moreover, he won the annual scholarship that Tulane University awarded to the highest ranking member of the graduating class.

In 1939, Van graduated from Tulane University’s School of Engineering, Tulane, where he made the dean’s honor roll and was a member of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers and the boxing team.

In World War II, Van, a Navy lieutenant, served as chief engineer officer aboard a destroyer for over fifteen battles in the Pacific. After the war he married Carol Lobman and raised four children. He spent most of his career operating a family owned company that manufactured work clothes and denim in Montgomery, Alabama where he lived for almost 50 years.

In 1966, Van was elected to the board of today’s Jewish Children’s Regional Service. When he died in 1997, at age 78, his family established a fund at JCRS in his memory.

Carol Bernard Hart lived in the Home for 17 years. His earliest memories were being well cared for by women in the Home. At Newman, part of the musical education was to listen to Walter Damrosch, conductor of the New York Philharmonic on the radio. Carol played the bass drum in the band, although he recalled not being very good at it. At one football game, he got so excited about the action on the field he forgot to keep playing.

Carol graduated from Newman School in 1942. He attended Tulane University and received his law and business degrees while working full-time as a sportswriter at the Times-Picayune. After graduating in 1948, he went into the private practice of law before serving as assistant city attorney.

In 1953, he married Rick Elson Brown, with whom he raised two children. 

Always interested in the community, he aspired to public office. Although he was unsuccessful in his 1978 campaign to defeat former district attorney (and Kennedy assassination conspiracy theorist) Jim Garrison’s bid for the Louisiana State Court of Appeal, he dedicated himself to his civil law practice while serving the community as a social activist. He was active in the Louisiana Coalition Against Racism and Nazism to stop the electoral efforts of David Duke. He successfully pursued pro bono the freedom of a man wrongly placed on Louisiana’s death row. Among his many civic and community leadership roles, he was president of the Legal Aid Bureau in New Orleans. He also served on the board of the 1984 Louisiana World’s Fair Exhibition.

Among his Jewish causes, including B’nai B’rith, Hillel, and the Jewish Welfare Fund, Carol was first elected to the Jewish Children’s Home Service board in 1962, and served as vice president before being elected president in 1969, a position he held for four years. During Carol’s term as president, the organization changed its name to the Jewish Children’s Regional Service.

Carol died in 2009 at age 83. 

Undated photo of the Hart brothers, from left, Julian, Ellis, Van, and Carol. Courtesy of Carol’s children, Susan Hart Sandler and Richard Hart.