- Date Of Birth: May 27, 1925
- Date Of Death: July 19, 2018
- State: North Carolina
Harry was born in Limburg on the Lahn, Germany in 1925. His father had a mill to grind flour, a gymnasium and stables for horses at the house. In 1934, when he was 9 years old, Hilter said Jewish children could not go to school any more. His parents starting realizing how bad Hitler was and started to think about leaving. For the next three years, things got worse for the Jewish people in Germany. The United States did not want to take in immigrants, unless they had someone already living here that could help them out.
His mother, Helene, had cousins that lived in the United States. The family went to England when he was 12 and then took a boat , the Georgic, across the Atlantic Ocean to New York, arriving just before he became a bar mitzvah. It took seven days on the boat. Mr. Alford Bernson met the family at the boat and took them to New Rochelle, New York. They had a grocery store in Mt. Vernon. They had seven or nine kids so they couldn’t live there. They got an apartment at 74 West 164 St in the Bronx that was a walk-up. There was one bathroom in the apartment. There were two bedrooms for five people. The man upstairs played music from Ireland 24/7, all the time. Mr. Bernson used to drive a horse and wagon and deliver milk of magnesia, a medicine to make people poop when they were constipated. Harry thought it was American soda and drank it. He did not speak any English.
At school and in his neighborhood, other children made fun of him, cursing at him because he was German. His parents started to speak English in the house, but they spoke English with a thick German accent. They wouldn’t let the children speak German in the house. But he didn’t understand English.
In two months, the family understood English. Harry was involved with the PAL, the police athletic league. He got to see 1000 baseball games. He used to play stickball, instead of baseball, on the street. When he was 18, the United States was at war with the Germans, finally realizing that Adolf Hilter was bad. Harry was drafted, made a citizen, and given a driver’s license. He told them that he did not speak German. They believed him, supposedly. That was a very short time to learn a language and sound like he was born in the United States. But he still remembered German. When he was in a building, he heard German soldiers. He got the other American soldiers out of the building and that was the first of his two purple hearts.
After the war, he went bowling on Tuesday nights when Milton Berle was on television. He could bowl and watch TV. His highest score was 271.
Then he met Hazel, his wife until she died, on a blind date. They had one daughter. On the weekends, he would do “handy work” such as putting on extensions, electrical work, plumbing, etc. in exchange for dinner. He liked to socialize by being active and then having a good meal. When Hazel’s grandparents were still alive the family would drive up to Kerhonkson in the Catskills for the weekend. They went to the farm, which was not a farm, just a lot of old bungalows, but that’s what they called it. They went there for weekends for years. There were beautiful places to see. The three of them walked up the mountain. Harry was a swimmer and liked to swim in a pond that was called 32. When he built his house in Durham, he put in a 40’ pool in the backyard that he swam in every day between May and October, even if it was lightening. He liked to socialize in the kitchen.
He had a bicycle and a bicycle built for 2. His diet wasn’t great, but he was always active.
Harry worked in the garment district on 29th street. He managed the books, cleaned coats, and fixed the equipment. He retired when he was 62 years old. They wanted him to stay, but he belonged to the union. He had a calendar in my bathroom (that he built) that was crossed off for 2 years until he retired. BUT, he really wanted to be a comedian and told punny jokes. He had a list of almost 4000.
He traveled wherever his daughter, Sheila, moved to. He was known to look in toilet tanks when he got somewhere. Her roommates in college didn’t believe it until they heard the top of the toilet lifted when he first arrived somewhere.
After retiring, he did gift wrap with Hadassah at Northgate mall, OLLI, peer learning, Gerofit (he bragged about never missing a day), Chavarim, and senior center, where he went to the Sudoku club and played billiards. He also liked to play Super-scrabble. He bowled in Durham and made sure that his grandkids took bowling lessons. He liked to dance, especially the fox trot. He was involved with the Chevra Kaddisha with Beth El and Judea. He picked up his grandkids almost every day from Durham Academy when Sheila worked. He was a do-it-yourself person. He cleaned his own gutters at 89 and put up a garage door opener at 90. He was not one to sit still.
But time takes a toll on all living things (and mechanical things too). The last 6 months of his life meant going in and out of the hospital. He became very confused after glaucoma surgery that left him blind in one eye. When he got out of the hospital, he ended up falling twice in one night. He went to hospice the next evening and died about 24 hours after that.
He is predeceased by his wife Hazel. He is survived by his daughter Sheila Tayrose, his grandson Gregory Tayrose, his granddaughter Eva Novick, and his 5 great-granddaughters: Hanna, Hallie, Blair, Marisa, and Nell.
May his memory be for a blessing
m. Friday, July 20, 2018 at Judea Reform Congregation Cemetery, 2560 Jones Ferry Road, Chapel Hill, NC 27516.m. Sunday, July 22, 2018 through Tuesday July 24, 2018
