She and Ralph were friends for years before they ever dated. They used to fix each other up with their other pals, until she discovered she was strangely satisfied when he expressed disdain for one of her matchmaking attempts, and actually jealous when he seemed to like a girl! Beatrice was the one to kick the friendship up a notch by, in her words, grabbing his face and kissing him “quite thoroughly.” Ralph looked “thoughtful” afterwards, as she told it, and then asked her, “Do you know what you’re getting into?” If she didn’t, she soon found out!
She told me that after Pearl Harbor she had proposals from many young men, and only Boyfriend Ralph refused to propose. She ended that story by telling me he didn’t want to leave her a young widow; in a more tart mood she might add that he wasn’t worried about being drafted then because of his ulcer. In any case, she turned down her other swains and, after Ralph was drafted despite his ulcer, waited for him and faithfully sent him long letters throughout the war.
Beatrice was considered quite the rebel as a young housewife because she and my dad wouldn’t join a country club, but preferred to stay home and spend their leisure time only with each other and their young children?
When she went back to work as my father’s legal secretary to support his fledgling solo practice, they thought they were doing a great job of being professional at work—he called her “Miss S.” in the office. But some of their great affection for one another must have leaked through, because one day she got a call at home from an office worker who wanted her to know that the word in the building was that her husband was having an affair with his secretary, Miss S.
In fact, my parents’ love affair continued all during their marriage. Even though she spent 30 years a widow, Beatrice always said that the hours she and Ralph shared as they worked side by side added up to more time together than was given to many couples who had far more anniversaries.
Beatrice loved to work, and later in life took on a new role as a nursing home administrator. When it was time for her to have some help at the advanced age of 91, she insisted on going to a nursing home herself and did not hesitate to let the wonderful people there know that she was no beginner in the business!
She was so proud that well into her eighties she helped out at her son’s business. She loved Queue and was loyal to it and was delighted to see it weather tough times and prosper.
She stood by her children during their tough times as well. Did you know that she loved her children and grandchildren and now great-grandchildren fiercely and was prouder of them than anything else in the world? She rather grandly believed that she had contributed to the betterment of mankind by passing on my father’s genes—she always discounted her own!
She was so happy that after years of her and Ralph’s working hard and saving well, she could pay for college and graduate school not only for her own children but also her grandchildren. It’s a tradition we now hope to continue with our own grandchildren.
Her loyalties were fierce and unchanging! She supported her family, the Jewish people, and the Democratic Party from Roosevelt to Stevenson to Kerry throughout her long life.
Rapscallion street gamer, brilliant student, horseback rider, bold boyfriend snagger—all this lived underneath the decorous veneer of a lady most of you knew as quiet and modest.
And Beatrice had more passions as well! She was a faithful-for-life rose grower, Cadillac driver, New Yorker reader, Loehmann’s shopper, Masterpiece Theatre watcher, and, of course, bridge player.
There was a lot of love for life in that tiny lady! And she met life from beginning to end on her own terms. I am so grateful for the gift of her life as my mother and friend, and for the gift to all of us of her example of a life well and fully lived.
