Dana Shepard (Treister)

Totally unrelated to Ghoulardi, but still related to our collective Shaker Heights heritage, I'm sharing this NYT Magazine feature on the two last actual Shakers in the world today - in Sabbathday Lake Shaker Village in Maine. https://www.nytimes.com/2024/09/05/magazine/shakers-utopia.html?unlocked_article_code=1.K04.68cD.nTu6iMpcsBcu&smid=url-share - This link is "unlocked" so should open for anyone interested in reading...  or skimming... or looking at the pictures!  Described as "one of the longest-running utopian experiments in America".  Quite fascinating to me, anyhow~

Joseph G Blake

Thanks Dana. 
Good article.

I recall hearing about the last Shaker 30 plus years ago. Cynics thought he wanted the money. Apparently not. 

The other well known utopian community was the Oneida Communuty in New York. It's legacy is both Oneida, NY and the Oneida Silver Company. You may have older pieces from your grandmother which were produced under the name Community Plate. 

Lauren Brahms (Resnik)

Bonnie Pollack

Thank you for remembering me on my birthday!

Hope you like your new neighbor.

Best, Lauren

Stewart M Flate

Chuck Fuer was a good guy, so may he rest in peace.

Joseph G Blake

Dear All,

It is that time of the year when most of us start celebrating the various holidays at year end starting with Thanksgiving this week and then Chanukah or Christmas and then the New Year. This year Chanukah starts Decemberr 25. So let me be among the first to wish the best of the season and the holidays you observe. 

A few memories. Friday November 22 was the 61st anniversary of JFK's assasination. It too was a Friday. The year book photographer took my picture and used it in the year book that day a few minutes before we knew what happened.

Not long go I was thinkng about all the poles and signs at major intersections now. This is especially true if the intersection also is a RTA rapid stop. Sometime in the late 50s I recall they installed traffic lights on Van Aken. Until then we used stop signs. The stop signs were yellow then with a little Shaker person at the bottom.  Then they adopted red and the Shaker person disappeared. Traffic today would never allow that for long.

But the intersections now seem to have almost too many signs and arrows or am I just getting old and confused? Do not answerr that. I think I know the answer.  See you all for our group 80th in 2026.

Happy Holidays,

Joe Blake

Alaina Weisman (Zachary)

My very funny Aunt Nanny saved everything. Over Thanksgiving in Cleveland, her daughter, Andrea Bloch Vederman, gave me a pile of things. This was from 1961 Byron Jr. High. Henry Slater, the Latin teacher, directed us in Life with Father and we all had to dye our hair very red. What a thrill. I also got to faint onstage. Very sexy. I became a redhead for all of my career until going gray. Neil Glazer, Scott Fields and me from '64.

Betsy Dennis (Frank)

What a great memory!

Joseph G Blake

What a great photo. Thank you Alaina and Aunt Nanny. To date it is stil the longest running non musical production on Broadway with 3224 performances or over 400 weeks. 

Someplace years ago I think I read it opened in Cleveland before NYC but I could not find that link just now.  I recall laughing heartily because sometimes the dialog in the play between Mother and Father reminded me of some discussions between my parents when my father fully retired at 80. Suddenly they had expenses they shared and discussed. Before that they never discussed money unless it was a major project for the house like a kitchen. Mother had a very good allowance for decades and my father never questioned what she did. She paid all the household bills etc. His  business expenses were of more interest to the IRS than my mother, So I found the debate about who was to blame about a broken teapot in the play like my parents in retirement. The movie featured William Powell and Irene Dunn, an incomparable pair for the roles. 

Of course the play may be said to be why Father had to be baptized. The family firm on Wall Street eventually merged and became Tucker Day Anthony in 1942 and eventually disappeared into Royal Bank of Canada in 2001. 

I almost named my youngest child Whitney after the son in the play. But I did not want to have confusion with the actress and later the singer both named Whitney Blake. 

Alaina, I am sure you were better than Irene Dunn as Mother Day. 

Joe

Joseph G Blake

Dear All.

I just saw this on a FB link about Shaker. Rickard Wildau recently died,.'

Here is a link to his obituary.

https://www.thenaturalfuneral.com/richard-alyn-wildau/

Does anyone know the story about his parents who were German Jewish refusees?

His life had many different and interesting experiences.

Joe

Marc Chizek

Lauren Brahms passed away last week in San Diego, CA.

Alaina Weisman (Zachary)

Lauren Brahms was a lovely woman.

Alan L Farkas

Joe and Marc, thanks for sharing the sad news. We hope that for those grieving the loss of Rich and Lauren that their memory will be a blessing. Here is an obituary for Lauren: https://www.legacy.com/us/obituaries/name/lauren-resnik-obituary?id=57292388

Betsy Dennis (Frank)

Thanks for posting. I didn't know Rich, but did know Lauren. She lived a block away when we were at Lomond. Our classmates have had amazing lives. May their memories be a blessing. Betsy

Judi Bachman (Holtze)

I actually thought about lauren and wondering how,she was as i drove by solana beach, where she lived, 2 week,ago.

Cheryl Kushner (Lane)

May their memories be for a blessing.

Joseph G Blake

I just thought a way to remember Lauren Brahms Resnik might be to note also the passing of her father Malcolm Brahms in 2023 at 103. He was an orthopedic surgeon who performed surgery for several Browns players. This from the Cleveland Jewish News which included an interview with him in 2019.

Lesley Dormen

Wow. I'm still reeling to hear that Lauren Brahms has died. She had the longest eyelashes I've ever seen (they touched her glasses) and the most gorgeous hair. I used to stare at it longingly, enviously from the backseat whenever we were driven anywhere. Lauren was my best friend for a while in high school. We discovered cheek rouge together. Such a good friend that when Park Synagogue required me to read Hebrew to satisfy my confirmation requirements, I asked Lauren to pretend she was me and read instead of me. (My family had belonged to Temple Beth El previously. We didn't learn to read Hebrew.)  Yes, I was confirmed. (For what? I still don't know.)  Rest in peace, dear Lauren Brahms. You were much more than a Good Girl. I'm glad I found that out.

Jeffrey D Woolf

May their memory be for a blessing.

Joseph G Blake

Dear All,

A few tid bits.

I wanted to recommend a French TV series now on Amazon Prime. It is called the Art of Crime. It has English subtitles if you do not recall high school or college French. (Miss Politella forgive me.) 

The series features two main characters who are assigned to the OCBCm a French police agency that seeks to recover stolen art and cultural properties. There is a detective Captain Antoine Verlay who knows nothing about art and his partner Florence Chassagne who is an art historian from the Louvre. In each episode they solve a crime related to a specific artist like Monet or Van Gogh. Of course there is also their relationship. He is all professional and she is quietly in love with him. He is quirky as well. 

The fires in LA reminded me that Ferro Corporation in the 1930 experimented with steel and enamel building products to build cheaper houses. They built a house for the Chicago Century of Progress Exhibit in 1933. This house is now on the shores of Lake MIchigan.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Armco-Ferro_House 

Built for Chicago Century of Progress Exhibit in 1933

Joseph G Blake

A few days ago I saw this item about Paul Brown of our own Cleveland Browns. 

I pass along because he was a major Cleveland figure of our youth. Its very informative. Go Browns. 

https://www.dawgsbynature.com/2025/2/17/24367123/paul-brown-eagles-browns    

All the best, 

Joe Blake

Dana Shepard (Treister)

Responding to Joe's post about the Century of Progress houses in Beverly Shores, IN, we have a 2nd home quite nearby in Dune Acres, IN, and are quite familiar with those architectural wonders.  They are open for tours once a year in the early fall, and we've visited more than once. 

Apart from the famous Century of Progress houses, there is a Lustron house even closer to us https://arccadigest.org/the-lustron-home/ A previous owner had it open for visitors on a regular basis in return for tax concessions, but not currently - fascinating to see!  

We've also done this tour https://www.indianadunes.com/blog/post/logs-to-lustrons/ and toured all these amazing houses.  The last one photographed was literally taken apart, restored, and reassembled by ONE family within the last decade -- a couple and their young adult son - and none of them professional builders!  And the couple was on hand to explain the process - -truly a labor of love!

Yes, I am a modern architecture buff!

Thanks, Joe, for raising the topic~

Joseph G Blake

Dear All,

May I wish many of you a Happy Passover. Maybe someone will post  a picture of their Sder table. 

The other day on TV I learned about a book about the first Passover Seder celebrated in the White House.

Next Year in the White House: Barack Obama's First Presidential Seder

Great story about how it happened. I have sent it to my grandchildren in NY. Their father is Jewish.

Best wishes,

Joe Blake

Joseph G Blake

Dear Dana,

Tonight I saw your comments about the Lustron houses. As it happens there is one a block away from us. Its a different style for sure and never would make it in Shaker, Ironically the company was based in Wisconsin. In his first years in the Senate, Joe McCarthy was on the Senate Housing Committee and wrote a manual about how to get a mortgage that they used. Later he discovered Comminists under the bed to be a better way to get attention. More's the pity. 

But they could never get enough steel to sell houses as they had planned. Sears Roebuck sold house kits for many years. My wife's grandparents built one in Brunswick Maine not far from Bowdoin. 

I will try to send you a picture. The previous owner built a garage but it is modern materials not enameled. 

Joe

Betsy Dennis (Frank)

Here is our table. We did first night online with our congregation in Indiana. We did second night with our congregation here in Michigan.  Chag Pesach Sameach. Betsy

Evie Fertman (Braman)

Laurie Butler's funeral is at Berkowitz, tomorrow morning, May 9, at 11:00 if you would like to attend.  There will be a shiva at Sherri Park's Event Room, 2111 Acacia Park Drive, until 3:00.

I jsut found out that Laurie Brahams Resniick died a while ago, I'll put that in our In Membory Page.  She fell down the stairs, I'm hearing a lot of that lately, be as careful as you can!