•Part 2
Backing up a bit, in time, from the founding of Goldman's, Berenson's opened in Bogalusa in 1908.
While I am short on memories of the famous store, I remember Dr. Gerald Berenson (1922-2018), the son of the founders Meyer Berenson (1889-1967) and wife Eva Singerman Berenson (1898-1997), very well. With my father at the helm of the Bogalusa Community Medical Center (now Our Lady of Angels Hospital), I had heard of Dr. Berenson, his prominent family, and his significant contributions to cardiology all my life.
Active in the BCMC Auxiliary, his mother Mrs. M. A. Berenson had generously donated equipment to the hospital. And Dr. Berenson had, of course, founded the renowned Bogalusa Heart Study which was launched in Washington Parish from 1972-1973 when I was in grade school.
But it was in more recent years that I had the wonderful opportunity to meet with Dr. Berenson and to correspond with him. We first connected in the condominium building on St. Charles Avenue, best known as the Carol, where my better half and I were fortunate to find a condominium for our daughter Betsy who lived there, from 2013-2017, while at Tulane School of Medicine. As luck would have it, Dr. and Mrs. Gerald Berenson also lived at the Carol.
Taking advantage of a golden opportunity, I beat a path to Dr. Berenson's office door at the Tulane University School of Public Health where the venerable gentleman was surrounded by accolades galore. But his humility ruled the day. Dr. Berenson constantly credited others and praised the people, of Washington Parish. I distinctly remember him --- a world-renowned cardiologist, scientist, and author --- as a man who never forgot where he came from.
While I featured Dr. Berenson in both an article and my column in early October of 2014 in "The Era-Leader" with primary focus on his professional work, my real interest --- and our connection --- was in his upbringing in Bogalusa. Combining our conversation that day with documentation in my good friend the late John Gallaspy's book "'The City That Refused To Die' Bogalusa's First Hundred Years," a vivid picture was painted of the early years in The Magic City.
Meyer Berenson came as a youth with his parents from Poland to the United States where he first worked in New York in a cap factory. This must have been his introduction to apparel and merchandising, and as Mr. John noted, he must have been a quick study. Landing in Bogalusa, by way of New Orleans, in 1906 Mr. Meyer went to work for Mr. Marx who already had a mercantile here. More on the Marxes next time.
Back to the Berensons, the story goes that Meyer saved a hundred dollars and used it to purchase general merchandise which he peddled all over Washington Parish, from Bogalusa to Angie to Varnado. Mr. John described him "walking the route carrying his goods in a backpack and at night finding board with kindly families, usually, they say, for fifty cents a night."
Mrs. Gerald Berenson (Joan Seidenbach Berenson) shared with Mr. John how her father-in-law was able to expand his business by purchasing a cart, increasing his inventory, buying a horse, getting a bigger cart, and so on and so forth.
Mr. Meyer opened Berenson's in 1908, and he married Eva Singerman. The couple had three children: Byrde Berenson Haspel (1917-2013), Dr. Gerald Sanders Berenson (1922-2018), and Sara Berenson Stone (1915-2018). Their store - Berenson's - was a fixture on Columbia Street for most of the twentieth century. Dr. Berenson, who was born in 1922, had vivid memories of tough times during the Great Depression. He reported that Berenson's sold shirts for twenty-five cents and customers bartered for them with eggs. But despite these hardships, Dr. Berenson told me that it was "wonderful to grow up in Bogalusa."
Mr. Meyer hired Frank Montalbano, at age eighteen, to work for him --- an association that lasted over twenty years until he and Julian Berenson bought the business, one which dressed most of the men and women in Washington Parish. Toward the end, it was geared toward gentleman's attire. I know my father had a suit or so, his daily work attire, that came from Berenson's. But the store sadly closed in 1989, much to the dismay of its faithful customers.
The Berenson home on the Varnado Highway was well known to locals and quite grand for Bogalusa. It is where Eva Berenson, a most gracious hostess, enjoyed entertaining which she continued in the years after her husband passed away. But to hear Mr. John tell it, she kept her liquor under tight lock and key, removing it a bottle at a time as needed. And it further tickled me to no end to learn that not only did my friend Dr. Whit Gallaspy bartend for Ms. Eva, starting at about fifteen or sixteen years or age, but that Dr. Berenson continued to refer to Whit as "my bartender." And this was after Whit had practiced medicine for almost three decades. I suppose old habits die hard.
And speaking of Dr. Berenson, his handwritten missive to me in October of 2014 read, as follows: "I am enclosing a picture that might be of interest to you. Also I met your daughter going up in the elevator in the apartment building I live in….Your article in The Era-Leader was as good as it can get for me. A bit flattering since I was trained to do all of this at big Charity. I am grateful you took the time to write about me. Thank you. Gerald Berenson"
The pleasure was all mine. It was a real honor to get to know Dr. Berenson. Notwithstanding his lifetime honors, his focus remained on the people, you and me and his patients. And I'm willing to bet dollars to donuts that his father's focus was also on the people, his customers at the store. That is how Berenson's in Bogalusa came to be.
