Henry Stern

Our father, known variously as Hank, Henry, and Sir Henry Pop, was listed as Hans Stern on the joint passport he shared with our grandparents Willy and Else that was issued in Germany on Feb 1, 1938. He once said his birth name was Johann. In any event, he was Pop to us. He was born in Sterbfritz (~50 miles from Frankfort) on February 20, 1927 and was 98.5 years when he passed on September 2, 2025.

The family received their Immigration visa's around his 11th birthday and three months later (May 4th), their boat left Hamburg for the US. Since the passport does not show an arrival stamp in the US, we must assume that Hank is here illegally and would be subject to deportation if the authorities could find him.

He grew up in the Bronx near Yankee Stadium, sharing a room with his grandfather - for whom he bought cigars with money he made shining shoes (among other pursuits). Our grandparents were poor but grandpa Willy was lucky enough to find a job, and grandma Else scrubbed floors. Dad said that after his Bar Mitzvah, his parents never bought him any clothing and he was self-sufficient from then on. We believe he finished high school, and he referred to his advanced education as the school of hard knocks.

His repeated mention of going to the Polo Grounds leads us to the conclusion that he was originally a NY Giants baseball fan, but we only knew him as the long suffering Mets fan he was for the rest of his life.

When Pearl Harbor was bombed, he heard the news while he was playing baseball in a public park next to Yankee Stadium. He got his parents permission to volunteer for the Navy at age 17 and promptly discovered he gets seasick. ( He wanted to be a Marine, but they wouldn’t take him due to flat feet. Their loss. )

He was stationed on an LST troop carrier and saw only a little enemy action, but he did see plenty of action playing craps aboard the ship. While at sea, he once won $500, a huge amount at that time, and promptly wired the funds home to his parents for safe keeping. While he was still in the navy shortly after the war had ended, his boat was transporting Chinese soldiers from Shanghai to Manchuria. The Chinese soldiers may have had Plague. He said that the most pain he ever had was the inoculation shot he was given to prevent the disease.

In his travels, he somehow "found" a genuine Japanese officer’s samurai sword. This must have been when he was outside of Nagasaki, just three weeks after the bomb which ended the war. Somehow, he smuggled this home after the war. As kids, my brothers and I played with the sword. Amazing how we all kept our heads. The other thing we know he got from his time in the navy was a lifetime aversion to citrus fruit - something to do with a crate of oranges which never made it into ship’s stores - but that's another story. He was honorably discharged on June 19, 1946.

After the war, Dad met Mom at Jewish gathering. When they first started dating, mom’s family did not think pop was religious enough, so mom had a ‘beard’. Pop had a friend pretend to be the suiter, pick up our mother, Rena, then take her to the malt shop where Pop would take over the real date. Mom kept extensive diaries while growing up and one of the last entries is a year before they married that says that she thinks she loves him and that he said he loves her. Mom and Pop were married on December 24, 1950. At the time of Mom's passing on November 18, 2020, they had been married almost 70 years.

Dad had a few different jobs in the 1940's and 1950's. At one time he was selling chain used for making jewellery necklaces. He was having a good meeting until the buyer suddenly threw him out. Confused, he later found out that one of the chains he showed had a pattern similar to the nazi symbol , and the buyer had been a camp survivor. He eventually went to work for another Jewelry company called H & S originals. Starting off sweeping the floors, he eventually rose to run the place.

One of his intermediate roles was as a traveling salesman, later internal sales. He was mentored by an older salesman named Henry Falkenstein, known as "F". In the 1960's, ‘F’ got a hot stock tip, invested heavily himself, and convinced Pop to also invest. They even went to visit the company factory - on a Sunday. (ok, that one wasn’t well thought out.) Pop made a $50k profit, which was serious money back then - the family took our first vacation involving flying - 3 weeks in the American west. F made enough to retire.

Pop used most of the money, plus more borrowed from his parents, to buy an existing costume jewelry company when its owner retired, eventually renaming it RenClif (after his wife and son). It was at 6th Avenue and 36th street,. Rena also worked in the business, and for a while, his father Willy would do the books for him. Eventually, two of his sons also joined him in the business. RenClif was successful enough for Mom and Pop to travel the world, pay for their kids college educations, and lead a comfortable life, first in New York and then Rhode Island and finally to retire in Boca Raton.

Pop was always active. He played baseball growing up, was in a softball league in his thirties, learned tennis in his 40's, and took up golf when he was 65. Never one to turn down an opportunity to be active, at 84 he played two rounds of golf and an hour of singles tennis in 48 hours - and blew out a disk, ending his playing days. Although his physical health declined over the past ten years, his mind was sharp and he spent much of that time managing Mom’s care as she declined. He remained sharp until the end.

I will conclude with Pops favorite poem, which he recited nearly every time we spoke during the past few years:

All this has come to pass.

The golden years can kiss my ass.

If there was room on his monument, we would have etched this there. He would have approved!

Mom and Pop are survived by their three sons Cliff, Ken, and Gordon, their spouses Karen, Michele and Barbara, Grandchildren Jonathan, Laura, William, and Sofia and Great-Grandchildren Cecilia and Nicholas

We will miss you , Sir Henry Pop. Say hi to Mom!

A graveside burial will be held Friday, September 12, 2025 at 1:00 pm in Lincoln Park Cemetery, 1469 Post Road, Warwick.