Abe J Stein

Abe was born on Oct. 14, 1922, the son of Nathan Stein and the former Florence Garber. Both parents were Jewish immigrants from Russia and Poland.

Abe’s father ran a used shoe store in Birmingham. Abe would eventually follow his father’s footsteps, selling new shoes at Mr. Shoe, which he operated on Birmingham’s Fourth Avenue North. For years after he retired, folks would still holler at him, “Hey, Mr. Shoe!”

Abe, his brother Benjamin and sister Sarah grew up on Birmingham’s Southside, attending Temple Beth El, where Abe was a lifelong member. In his later years, Abe recalled climbing out the window of the Temple’s Hebrew School to “go play ball” with friends. He told stories of fishing in Edgewood Lake, current site of Homewood High School; hanging dead snakes in the trees to scare the neighbors; and greasing the rails of the Southside streetcar to watch it slip backward down Red Mountain. He spent his life in Vulcan’s shadow and claimed to have carved his initials in the statue’s arm when it was being installed on the mountain in 1936.

Abe attended Ramsay High School, where he played tackle on the football team. He left school before graduating and was employed as a sales clerk before enlisting in the Army in January 1943. Before Abe could be sent overseas, word arrived that his older brother had been killed in action in Italy. As a sole surviving son, Abe was not sent overseas. Instead, he trained as an airplane power turret and gunsight mechanic. He served in Colorado, Indiana and California and achieved the rank of corporal. He was awarded an American Campaign Medal, Good Conduct Medal and World War II Victory Medal before his honorable discharge in 1946. Working on gun turrets, most likely without ear protection, may have contributed to Abe becoming profoundly deaf in his later years. That disability did not impair his gregariousness or humor; he read lips and entertained visitors with racy jokes until his last days.

After the war, Abe returned to Birmingham, where he maintained lifelong friendships with childhood friends including John Kabase and Vaughn Mancha, the latter of whom went on to a storied football career at the University of Alabama and later was athletic director at Florida State University. Abe outlived them and many other friends.

Abe never married, caring for his widowed mother in her Southside home until she died. A dog lover, Abe raised German shepherds as a young man. He recalled fondly that his mother spoke Yiddish to a dog he called Caesar, and he swore the dog understood every word.

Abe remained fiercely independent and insisted on living alone in a Glen Iris apartment until just a few months before his death.

In his later years, some of Abe’s closest friends were on Louise Jones’ twice-monthly bus trips to casinos in Alabama and Mississippi. On the bus and elsewhere, Abe always carried a sack of candy bars to share. One of his best friends on the bus was Charles Ferrell, who visited Abe often during his final days. Abe also was a regular at the Publix on Green Springs Highway in Homewood, where he took his early morning walks. The hardships of old age were especially softened by the care and kindness he received from Dr. Gorman Jones and the staff at UAB’s Camellia Clinic. After retiring from the clinic, nurse Linda Frawley continued to check on Abe and visited him faithfully in his final months.

Abe is survived by nephew Burt Haskins (Dorothy) of Tampa, who looked after Abe’s well-being for decades; cousin Elaine Witt of Birmingham, who, along with her husband, Michael Sznajderman, and their terrier, Chessie, grew close to Abe in his later years.

Abe’s remains have been interred in a place of honor at the Alabama National Cemetery in Montevallo. An informal gathering to celebrate Abe Stein's life will be at 2 pm on Sunday, May 6 at Temple Beth-El, 2179 Highland Ave., Birmingham, AL 35205.