Harry Vise

Vise loved his family, the center of his life. He is survived by his beloved wife of 65 years, Doris, his devoted three children, Judy and Mark Schaengold, Joyce Vise, and Lori and David Vise, and his adoring five grandchildren, Rachel and Josh Wojnilower, Jessica Schaengold, Allison Vise and Jennifer Vise.

Funeral services will be held on Friday at 2 pm at The Temple, 5015 Harding Pike. Following burial at The Temple Cemetery, the Vise family invites you to join them at The Temple for a gathering of family and friends.

In lieu of flowers, contributions in Mr. Vise’s memory can be made to: The Temple, 5015 Harding Road, Nashville, TN 37205.

Born in Coblenz, Germany in 1921, Harry Vise excelled in school, as a soccer goalie, and at track and field, and in Jewish studies. But his life changed dramatically with the rise of anti-semitism in Nazi Germany. In November 1938, the Nazis stormed his family’s apartment, seizing his father, who was a rabbi, while Harry, then 17, escaped through the back window of their apartment and climbed down a fire escape.

Before morning, Harry went to the synagogue where his father worked in Hamburg, Germany and saved four Torahs, hand-carrying them in the dark of the night to his mother, who was still in the apartment. (Torahs are holy scrolls that contain the first five books of the bible, written in Hebrew on parchment.); Harry then went into hiding in the woods, before escaping in 1939 by crawling across the German border into Holland. Remarkably, Harry’s father was released from the concentration camp after U.S. Secretary of State Cordell Hull, a native of Tennessee, intervened on his behalf. (Hull had been contacted by a close friend in Tennessee who knew the family and the scholarly rabbi.) Hull also granted the family non-quota immigrant visas so they could leave Germany and enter America, where they settled in Clarksville, Tennessee.

Harry went to work at Acme Boot Company, starting as a production worker and leaving the company as a manager. In October 1950, Harry Vise went on a blind date with Doris Oppenheim, a woman from New York who also grew up in Germany. They were smitten, getting engaged on their third date, married on Christmas Eve and relocating to Nashville.

Vise’s entrepreneurial instincts stirred, and in 1950 he founded his own company, Texas Boot Company, in Lebanon, Tennessee. Such was the beginning of a thirty year enterprise, which began with a single production facility and eventually became one of the country’s best boot enterprises, with four plants in Tennessee. Vise, a humble man knew the names of all his employees and helped them whenever they were in need.

A philanthropist as well as businessman, Vise and his wife participated in a host of charities and institutions, one of which was Cumberland University Harry particularly became a renowned benefactor of the University, and in 1989, Cumberland library was dedicated in the family’s honor.

Vise’s twinkling blue eyes reflected his optimism about life.