Article voiceover
My mother like many
of the woman at the Beth Israel
Synagogue Center
in Derby Connecticut
my mother had a mink coat.
Full length. Dark brown.
Some women had stoles.
She wore it on special occasions,
initials embroidered on the inside.
The mink coat lived
in a mink coat container.
When she died I asked Joanie
her longtime helper and friend
what she wanted as a souvenir
and she said the mink coat
to wear to the Baptist church.
She was ok about my mother’s initials.
I have sometimes wondered if
when Joanie died she gave it to her
friend Salina and if Sara Cohen’s mink coat
is now a regular at the mosque.
Maybe my grandfather made that coat. He was a "fine needlehand" (and a proud union man) at furriers Zimmerman and Scher.
Mink stoles were the down vests of their generation...