People say they knew someone all my life. Indeed, I knew Harold Steinberg since I was three years old. OK, maybe I exaggerate maybe I was four.
When the Steinbergs moved in to 960 Locust, down the block from us, I lost my favorite retreat. I remember their house before it was a house, when it was only a hole in the ground. Thats how long I have known the family.
Somehow, I figured how to jump into that hole and to climb out, though it was about eight-feet deep. How much fun the construction of that house robbed me of!
But that was before I took up with Steve Steinberg. What a blast we had, constructing some sort of four-wheel, wooden contraptions and racing them up and down the alley all summer long. Somehow, we didn’t need camps to make our summer vacation memorable, although we did also enjoy heading over to Montclair Park for arts and crafts in mid-day. But camps? Activities? Learning experiences? We made our own.
Read the full IJN obituary for Harold “Hershy” Steinberg
I didn’t know at the time that Harold Steinberg was a WW II hero. Here is what I knew: Money was short in those days. Harold Steinberg finished much (all?) of the basement of that house himself. He had this large, intimidating, dangerous electric saw, and it seemed he could do anything carpenterial.
I remember the week he poured the cement stairs leading from outside the house to the basement. Yes, he did it himself.
I remember Harold’s father David, and Rosetta’s mother Esther Wedgle. A touch of the old country found its way even to the East Side. And Beth Joseph? The Steinbergs practically lived there. They were part of the wave that left the West Side for Beth Joseph in the 1950s, when the synagogue added about 100 new member units each year (though they werent called units in those days). Rabbi Daniel Goldberger, the founding rabbi of the modern Beth Joseph, was a pied piper.
Which brings me to two jarring absences.
This week I had the unfortunate task of witnessing Harold Steinberg’s funeral. Rabbi Goldberger, who died in 2007, was supposed to do this funeral. The Goldbergers and the Steinbergs were so close. Yet, such is life; and no criticism of the officiants at Harold Steinberg’s funeral. None at all. But such is life: the people who bury you are rarely the people who really knew you.
And the other, worse jarring absence will spread out before me when I pay a shiva call. Of course, Steve Steinberg was there to comfort me when I lost my father. But I will not be able be able to comfort him now that his father has died — because Steve himself died five months ago, suddenly. Yes, a compounded sense of loss and grief.
Yes, even though it was 41 years ago, I remember how Harold Steinberg came to the shiva minyan for my father. The Goldbergs and Steinbergs were neighbors and friends for decades. It hurt them when my Dad died, suddenly (younger than Steve was at his demise), and it hurts now that my second mother, Rosetta, is left without Harold.
As I say, I knew nothing about Harold Steinberg’s background in WW II. He flew 87 missions at Normandy. But I heard about all this, in a way, just this week. On Memorial Day, it was remarked on radio broadcasts that hundreds of WW II veterans of The Greatest Generation are dying every day. Then it hit me. Harold Steinberg, who died the day before Memorial Day, is one of them.
In 2009, he and his war buddy Homer Goodman went back to Normandy to mark its 65th anniversary. Back in 1944, Harold was 21. He served in the US Army Air Corps. Only three veterans from Colorado made the trip in 2009.
When he first went, he crossed the Atlantic with 15,000 young men aboard ship, dodging German U-boats during the seven-day voyage.
The details are laid out in an IJN front page story by Jerry Melman, July 2, 2009. At the time, Steinberg told the IJN:
“I can’t possibly express all the emotions, sadness, excitement, thanking G-d and the pride I felt for having had this trip and its memories. It was the most amazing experience of my life.
“When that life came to an end this week, lots of emotions and memories came to life.”
People remembered Steinberg as a long-time purveyor of kosher meat in what were once quaintly called butcher shops and then under Supervised Products.
People remembered Steinberg as a man who always had a wry smile and a sense of acceptance of life’s unending vicissitudes.
People remembered the many members of his “extended family”; I put this in quotation marks for emphasis. Usually, it’s a descriptive term, a genealogical sign, that’s it. In Steinberg’s case, it’s really family: the in-laws, children, nieces, nephews, grandchildren, grand-nieces and grand-nephews, etc. etc. the whole clan are in mourning.
And goodbye?
As we were neighbors in life, it struck me that, the way things turned out, Harold ”Heshie” Steinberg is now buried just a few graves over from my Dad. Maybe he said hello.
And the taps played at the closing moments of the funeral — the respect given by the military to a member of The Greatest Generation — were an apt, I-can’t-possibly-express-all-the-emotions goodbye.
Copyright © 2013 by the Intermountain Jewish News
