JGANovDec10.pdf - The Jewish Georgian

November-December 2010 THE JEWISH GEORGIAN Page 33
Downsizing? Moving? Settling an estate? Here’s help
Customers have been known to camp
outdoors overnight waiting for the doors to
open on her estate sales. “This is true,”
Shirley Romm Wender, manager of the
longest continuous estate sales business in
Atlanta, modestly verifies.
In 1969, she and Frances Kuniansky
started their estate and moving sales. Now
the business has a more formal title: Home
Furnishings Brokerage. Frances bowed out
in 1996, and Shirley was joined in her
endeavor by Litchfield Carpenter in 1999.
Carpenter was the curator of the house
collection (circa 1790 to 1830) of the
Travelers Rest Plantation & Museum in
Nashville. He is also experienced in doing
appraisals. He says he especially enjoys the
research on history of the family connections
that they find in the estates of prominent
Atlantans. These collections often contain
antique books, pictures, crystal, porcelains,
and family silver, as well as furniture.
The schedule goes like this: The weekend
date is advertised in the newspaper’s
seasonal value sales section and loyal customers
are notified via e-mail. The Monday
before the sale, Shirley and Litch price
Dining room on sale day displaying
furniture, china, silver and crystal
Carolyn
Gold
everything with tags. They may need to
bring in help for moving big furniture
pieces and for setting up tables and sometimes
clothes racks for special designer
items.
Sale days are Saturday and Sunday,
10:00 a.m.-4:00 p.m. Prices are firm the
first day, but buyers can leave offers for
items that are not sold. Shirley’s daughter,
Sally Berry, often helps with sales. The
company averages about one sale a month
or at least 10 a year. Customers include collectors,
dealers, young couples seeking
their first furnishings, and grandparents
helping offspring furnish.
Silver teapot with warmer
When asked about some memorable
items, Litch recalled a beautiful 1810 silk
needlework picture of a memorial to
George Washington. Then the two mentioned
the Princess Diana crystal they sold.
You are what you eat
By Susan Robinson
The Publix cashier stopped ringing up
my groceries to ask me a question about
one of my items. “Have you ever eaten this
before?” No, I had actually never tried such
a fruit in my life. It was yellow, oblong and
had spikes, hence it’s name, “horned
melon.”
“So, you’re buying it just to try it?” she
asked. It was an understandable question.
The item had rung up at $5.98, a very hefty
sum for one lone fruit, let alone one I didn’t
know if I would enjoy. But Yom Tov was
right around the corner. I needed a new fruit
so that I could say the bracha,
Shehecheyanu, the blessing said upon
reaching a special occasion. I had purchased
a star fruit as well.
The cashier, her hair in an elegant
head-wrap, then held up my star fruit. In her
lilting Caribbean accent she said, “In my
country, we call this Five Fingers.” A few
seconds later, she scanned my package of
egg kichels, crispy bowtie cookies.
BY
“Mmmm,” she wondered aloud, “are
these hard or soft?” She held the package
closer for inspection.
“Hard,” I told her. “You eat them with
coffee.”
——-
Food is fun. Food is also serious, representing
our cultures, backgrounds, and
histories. Many years ago, I was completing
a practicum in a small preschool in downtown
Atlanta. A major negotiating point to
my teaching there was the food issue. The
director pointed out that everyone must eat
lunch together: the same food, at the same
table, at the same time. This, she said, was
so that the teachers could model appropriate
dining etiquette. I countered with my, “I
only eat kosher food” argument. I would
not be able to eat the center’s lunch.
“Multiculturalism” was the newest
buzzword at the time, and so the director
agreed to make an exception in my case. All
the teachers, staff, and children ate food
Needlework picture
Their funniest story was of the lady
who spent thousands on a set of Royal
Crown Derby porcelain with hand-painted
pictures of palaces and royal estates, then
wheeled them home in a grocery cart. They
also found among other treasures a photograph
of the surrender of the Japanese after
World War II, autographed to Admiral
Nimitz.
One of Shirley and Litch’s biggest
events was the October 23-24 sale of items
from the downtown Commerce Club. Many
of the pieces were Atlanta history-related:
paintings, china, Waterford chandeliers, old
silver, Regency furniture, sideboards, and
serving carts.
Over the years, their sales have included
pianos, antique secretaries, stained glass
windows, cars, Oriental rugs, Steuben
glass, oil paintings, and a collection of contemporary
art. Shirley is still enthusiastic
about the work. She even jokes about a
recent call from someone who wanted them
to sell a tool collection.
Perhaps that is not as elegant as some
of the beautiful homes she has cleared, but
there’s always the excitement regarding
from the communal kitchen; I ate with the
group, but brought my own sandwiches and
yogurt.
I had, in essence, officially outed
myself as an observant Jew.
Weeks later, during the children’s naptime,
we got to talking. The lights were off.
Soft lullaby music played in the background.
Some children slept, others quietly
“read” books while resting on their mats.
We, the adults, were drinking coffee, finishing
up the last of our lunch, and quietly
sharing little bits of casual conversation.
The lead teacher was an African-American
male. The co-teacher’s family was from the
Philippines. The conversation covered politics
and personal finances—two major nono’s
in polite company. Somehow, after
spending all that time together, everyone
felt comfortable with the discussion.
Eventually, we got around to religion.
“So, Susan, tell us about your traditions,”
the other teachers asked me after
sharing their respective beliefs and customs.
Well, where would you begin? First,
there’s Shabbat, then the holidays, then
Kashrut. What about shul? Day schools?
Shirley Romm Wender prices an
item for the Commerce Club sale.
Litchfield Carpenter shows
Commerce Clubʼs beautiful antique
chest.
what will happen next. There’s the breakfront
that sold for $20,000 and the $50,000
Oriental rug that didn’t sell. These treasures
and many more are why customers wait for
hours on sale days to see what they’ll find
this time.
What about life cycle events—brit milah,
bar/bat mitzvah, weddings? What, exactly,
is a mikvah? And an eruv? And why on
earth would I ever feel compelled to buy a
new fruit? What exactly is the basis for all
of this? With only seven more minutes left
to naptime, I kept my talk to my food situation.
It was, after all, a simple beginning.
And here I am, thinking about food yet
again. With Chanukah just around the corner,
my thoughts are drifting towards potato
latkes and sufganiot, Chanukah doughnuts.
Neither one would ever make the list
of healthy foods, yet somehow both are
necessary. We could talk about the relationship
of the Maccabees to the Chanukah
olive oil. We could also talk about the significance
of the oil in both the latkes and
the sufganiot. But there’s something else
going on here as well. Eating foods that we
share in common is a social, bonding activity.
It’s part of our shared history. The next
time someone asks about my traditions, I
may just begin with the “shared history”
part, and add the food component later.
Either way, it’s a simple beginning to a
grand story.
Happy Chanukah, Y’all!