Louise Eiseman, jewelry store matriarch, dies at 91

Louise Eiseman, co-founder and chairwoman of Eiseman Jewels at NorthPark Center, died peacefully of natural causes at her Preston Hollow home Monday night.

The Dallas native community volunteer and accomplished businessman was 91 years old.

She and her husband, Richard “Dick” Eiseman, who died of Parkinson’s disease in 1996, founded Richard D. Eiseman Fine Jewels in 1963 as a rental department in the Titche-Göttingen store in downtown Gems and a cash register, which sells couldn’t handle more than $ 9,999.

The couple added a second store at Titche’s (now Dillard’s) in the NorthPark Center when the country’s largest air-conditioned retail space opened two years later.

In 1990 they opened their first freestanding store, Eiseman Jewels, across from Neiman Marcus. A much larger Eiseman Jewels still occupy this coveted intersection of the two luxury wings of Neiman and NorthPark.

The brave redhead often boasted that she was the last remaining original tenant of NorthPark after Neiman Marcus changed hands several times. “We’ve been here since Ray and Patsy [Nasher] opened the doors, ”she said in a 2014 interview to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the jewelry company.

“Mom thought of others first and foremost,” said Richard Eisenman Jr., president of Eiseman Jewels. “She didn’t do anything for self-promotion. She was happy to do all the work behind the scenes. She was the brain behind the business and understood how important the community was and how she could share philanthropy with it. “

Her employees had business cards made for her that said “Queen Mum”.

Dick Eiseman worked for Zale Corp. before he and Louise opened their business.

Don Zale, former chairman of Zale Corp., met the Eisemans when Dick was a Zale manager.

“Louise was an accomplished businesswoman,” said Zale. “She’s always been great support for the people in this store. She was there to make sure the customers were looked after. It naturally carried the flag of the Eiseman company.

“Young Richard is great, but you have to give credit to his father and Louise for setting the stage.”

Until a few years ago, when heart problems made her visits less frequent, the matriarch regularly stopped by the store, Richard said. The pandemic brought them to a complete standstill.

“She was fine in December when she turned 91,” he said. “January came and there was this rapid decline.”

In 2010, Eiseman Jewels was named the country’s leading independent jeweler by National Jeweler Magazine – selected from 22,800 individual stores in the country – and was inducted into the magazine’s Retailer Hall of Fame.

It was among the last of the once abundant Old Guard retailers in Dallas to turn Big D into a shopping magnet.

“Mom loved retail,” said Richard. “She loved the marketing side. She loved connecting people and she knew how to do it in a gracious way. People really liked her. And she had a wicked, funny sense of humor. “

She is the senior and senior lecturer at the Dallas Museum of Art, he said. “She loved giving tours for elementary school children because if she did something wrong, they wouldn’t know. Once she showed them a work of a great master and one of them said to her: “Do you know him?” ”

Alice Eiseman Adelkind, who lives in Toronto, said her mother was “efficient, effective and punctual. She made things happen. You could count on her to do it to the best of her ability. She always delivered. “

Born Louise Rose Freedman, she attended Hockaday School and Highland Park High School in Dallas before earning a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree from the University of Texas at Austin. After graduating, she was employed by WRR and WFAA-TV in Dallas.

While at the store, she kept a philanthropic portfolio that she went through each month to select eight to ten charitable donations.

“We think it’s very important for us to be the leader on the merchant side of the community,” she said in 2014. “Dallas has done so well because of its philanthropy. Each of us has benefited from it. It is vital. “

She was known for her flair for social news – a handy thing when selling engagement rings – and for keeping up with the times.

In the late 1980s, when Michael Irvin came into town with a giant diamond stud earrings, his mother asked Richard if the new Dallas Cowboys player had bought the ball from them.

He told her they don’t sell split pairs or men’s earrings.

“She said, ‘You better deal with this,'” he recalled. “We have sold a lot of them since then.”

Louise Eiseman leaves behind her children Alice Eiseman Adelkind and her husband Alan Adelkind from Toronto; Richard D. Eiseman Jr. and his wife Elizabeth “Betsy” Reed Eiseman of Dallas; and grandson Reed Eiseman Batesko and her husband Tyler from Hoboken, NJ, and Richard D. Eiseman III from New York.

The family said service will be delayed due to COVID-19 concerns.

Louise Eiseman and her son Richard Eiseman at Eiseman Jewels in 2014.(Kye R. Lee / Staff Photographer)

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