Nifty Fifty
By Hedy Bass
There’s a lot of Gold to celebrate in this issue of J Life. The Roth Family JCC is turning the big 5-0 in our community, and we found a number of local couples who’ve been married for 50 blissful years (or more!).
When deciding how best to commemorate all these golden anniversaries, we wanted to tie it all together with a local family that epitomizes both half-century achievements – a couple that has been married for at least 50 years and whose family has been an integral part of the JCC for most of its history, too. And wouldn’t you know it, the quintessential golden family we were searching for happened to be none other than... the GOLDS! Let’s kick off this big 50th-anniversary celebration by meeting Penny and Barry Gold. We’ll then introduce you to several other golden-anniversary couples. Enjoy!
Penny and Barry Gold
Married: 52 years I Children: 4 I Grandchildren: 7
How did you meet?
We met through a mutual friend when we were students at Baruch College in New York City,” says Barry.
“I’m the one who asked our friend to set it up!” says Penny. “Our first date was at a party hosted by our brother-sister fraternities.”
“I went to pick her up at her parents’ clothing store in Brooklyn, where she worked part-time,” Barry says. “Instead of heading out to the party, she asked me to drive her home first so she could drop off clothes from the store.”
“My parents liked what they saw,” remembers Penny, “and said, ‘This is it!’”
“For me,” adds Barry, “it was love at first sight.”
After 52 years, how do you continue to make your marriage work?
For a long, happy marriage, Penny and Barry agree it’s important to be involved with family and to keep them close. They stress tolerance and sharing responsibilities.
“It’s okay to argue once in a while, but when it’s over, it’s over,” says Penny. “We don’t hold grudges.”
Barry, who Penny says is easygoing and a “sweet mush,” kindly agrees.
The Roth Family JCC is celebrating its own golden anniversary. What role has it played in your lives?
“The first thing we did when we arrived in Florida was to go to the JCC in Maitland,” says Penny. “That began our love for this community. We enrolled as a family, and our boys – Hunter, Parker, Tayler, and Lander (then 18, 14, 11, and 5) – made so many longtime friends there. It was the place to come to be part of a Jewish community. Now, many of their friends are moving back here.
“For six years, Barry was the youth and camp director and I was the counselor in the theater camp for 10 years,” Penny continues. “All our boys were counselors at some point. Our older grandkids graduated from the JCC preschool, and now our younger ones are attending.”
Family is everything to the Golds. They credit the JCC for giving them a Jewish community that warmly embraced their family decades ago, and which still does to this very day.
Thirty-two years after moving to Florida, Penny and Barry can’t help but share the pride they feel for their sons, daughters-in-law, and grandchildren. Through them, the Gold legacy of love and commitment to the Jewish community continues on.
A Couple of Couples — Barb and Larry Steiner and Audrey and Brian Goldiez.
Married: Steiners, 52 years I Goldiezes, 51 years I Children: Steinners, 3 I Goldiezes, 3 I Grandchildren: Steiners, 5 I Goldiezes, 8
Barb Steiner and Audrey Goldiez, (née the Wasserman sisters), could not be closer – in almost every sense of the word. Over the years, their married lives have been woven together, much like a beautiful tapestry that grew bigger and better over time.
It was in their hometown of St. Louis, Missouri, that Barb and Audrey Wasserman met their prospective husbands, Larry Steiner and Brian Goldiez.
“We both began seriously dating while in high school,” explains Audrey. During that time, Larry and Brian quickly became good friends – “brothers from a different mother,” as they like to say.
“We all grew up together,” explains Barb, “so over time our personalities started to meld.”
When asked if their parents approved of the boys they were dating, Barb resoundingly replies, “Yes, they were Jewish! Our parents loved the boys.”
Above: Aubrey and Brian Goldiez.
Below: Barb and Larry Steiner.
Often, the girls’ parents would take the boys with them on family vacations. They each recall, with warmth and laughter, the time they all went to Miami.
“Howard Johnson, and all the chicken you could eat!” reminisces Brian, drawing laughter from the others.
As time went by, the couples often double-dated, and they loved staying up late playing cards together. The close-knit foursome only grew stronger over time.
“We married first,” says Barb, who tied the knot with Larry 52 years ago. Less than a year later, Audrey and Brian married.
Acknowledging that it may have been a little rough on their parents marrying off two daughters within one year, Barb laughs and says, “Maybe, but look at all the grandkids they got right away.”
“First I would have a baby,” says Barb, “then Audrey would have one. Then I would have one, and she would have one.”
“There was always one of us pregnant,” laughs Audrey.
In the early days of marriage, the couples and their growing families lived only a couple of houses away. Then, in 1975, Audrey and Brian moved to Florida with their one-year-old daughter for Brian’s job. A few months later, the Steiners moved to Florida, too, the very day that Larry finished law school.
“We moved into the same apartment complex as Audrey and Brian, just a few doors down,” says Barb. “And when Audrey and Brian bought a house, we bought a house. When they moved to Wekiva, we bought a house in Wekiva.”
“Our kids became one big family,” says Audrey.
Today, the Steiner and Goldiez families remain as close as ever.
With a combined 103 years of marriage between them, the foursome offers up some advice on what makes a marriage not only survive but thrive.
“Don’t worry about things you cannot control,” says Brian. “Not every day is going to be a good day but make the most of it and power through. It’s also important to have similar likes and dislikes. Marriage requires compromises.”
“The advice I gave the young men who married our daughters was, if you ever disagree, say, ‘Honey, you’re right, and go from there,’” says Larry. “Don’t argue for hours or days because the results will be the same.”
“When we were living in Missouri, and Audrey and Brian were living two hours away, Audrey asked if she could take our eight-week-old son back home for a few days,” Barb remembers. “She wanted to see if she was ready to be a mom.”
“I guess it worked!” Audrey grins.
“Larry and I have worked together in his law practice since 1979,” says Barb. “I had to understand that his work required long hours, but our kids always came first.”
Last, but not least, all remember the sage advice imparted by Barb’s and Audrey’s parents:
“Don’t get a motorcycle and don’t ever go to sleep angry.”
Janet and Phil Bloom
Married: 67 years I Children: 5 I Grandchildren: 13 I Great-grandchildren: 14
Much like the lyric from South Pacific’s “Some Enchanted Evening,” Phil Bloom saw a stranger across a crowded room. She was beautiful, and he was enchanted. They were at a party that evening when Phil’s friend told him to forget about the beautiful stranger. Her name was Janet, but she was seeing someone else.
Two years later, Janet, who was then single and had just finished exams at Rutgers University in New Jersey, was heading home. An avid dancer, she asked her sister to set her up with a date who could dance. She didn’t care if he didn’t have a brain, he just needed to know how to dance.
Her sister knew the perfect guy. Her boyfriend had a friend. His name was Phil.
“We double-dated that evening, but I had no idea who he was,” says Janet. “I just knew he was an excellent dancer.”
Phil told Janet he remembered her from the party two years earlier. He impressed Janet with a detailed description of what she wore that night. Janet was enchanted. The couple began dating, but their relationship took a couple of years before turning serious. Janet was still in college and was determined to become a math educator. Occasionally, Phil would sneak out of town to visit her, eventually winning her heart. And though Janet says there was no official “get-down-on-one-knee proposal,” she happily agreed to get engaged.
Phil, who served in the Navy on the USS Worcester during the Korean conflict, prepared himself for college. He returned to high school to get the qualifying credits needed for college before enrolling in the New Jersey Institute of Technology to study electrical engineering.
When asked what his mother thought about his bride-to-be, Phil quips that his mother liked Janet more than she liked him.
The couple married in 1956 and went to live in Newark with Janet’s parents (after the birth of their first child) until Phil completed college. Janet found a job teaching math at a public school in Union, New Jersey, until she got pregnant with their second child. She took a break from teaching until the last of their five children was born.
“The last one sent me right back,” laughs Janet. “By then, I was tired of having conversations only about children and what we’d have for dinner.”
In 1962, Janet and Phil moved their family to Altamonte Springs for Phil’s job with Martin Marietta. Janet taught math for 30 years at Evans High School in Orlando.
After 67 years of marriage, the Blooms may be retired from their careers, but they’re hardly retiring people. They remain active in their synagogue and put a lot of time and energy into volunteering. Janet is a hospital volunteer and still works some cases as a Guardian ad Litem. Phil, among other activities, is a proud Shriner who went to clown school and still performs in the Bahia Shrine Circus. “Making kids laugh makes me feel great,” he says.
Janet and Phil impart sage advice on marriage: Be friends, know when to be quiet, and don’t sweat the small stuff.
After 67 years, they’re still enchanted as ever.
Carole and Harold Lovitz
Married: 52 years I Children: 3 I Grandchildren: 4
Did you ever envision being married this long?
“Of course!” says Carole. “You get married and think you’re going to go on. It’s like you blinked and got to 52 years.”
How did you meet?
“Our family had five retail stores in Atlantic City, New Jersey,” says Harold. “At that time, we sold ladies’ clothing and later turned into T-shirt shops. One afternoon, Carole walked in with her family looking for a bathing suit. If I had been off that day, we wouldn’t have met.”
“We were walking on the boardwalk because I had just broken up with a guy, and my parents were afraid I was going to run into the ocean,” says Carole. “We walked into the store, and I thought Harold was so obnoxious. While I was looking at bathing suits, he was talking to my mother who instantly fell in love with him. He was asking my mother if I was married. Then he asked his mother to get my number, which she did. He called, and I didn’t want to know him from anything, but my mother was standing over me with a fist as if to say, ‘You better go out with him!’ I did, and three months later, we were engaged. It was meant to be!
Rhea and Dr. Rein
Married: 69 years I Children: 2 daughters I Grandchildren: 4 I Great-Grandchildren: 7
“Both our parents had summer homes in Hiawatha, New Jersey,” says Dr. Harry Rein. “That’s how we met. We were on a double date, only Rhea was in the front seat with another guy, and I was in the back seat with another girl.”
It didn’t take long for Harry to ask the girl in the front seat to go out with him.
“She agreed to go out with me because I was rich,” Harry jokes.
Rhea laughs, saying she still loves Harry’s sense of humor as much today as when they first met.
“I was going to school that summer,” says Rhea. “Harry was commuting to Long Island in New York for his job.”
“I was a bus driver and swim instructor for a day school, so they gave me a bus,” Harry remembers. “I’d drive Rhea to school, go to work, then pick her up, and we’d go back to New Jersey. We talked about ourselves for hours each day.”
Both their sets of parents, who had long been friends, approved of the match.
“His folks liked me right away,” says Rhea. “My parents liked that he was a Jewish boy who was going to have a good professional life.”
Both Reins enjoy retelling the first time Rhea went to dinner at Harry’s parents’ apartment in Williamsburg, Brooklyn.
“We got off the subway and headed toward my parents’ five-story walk-up apartment,” says Harry. “As we got closer to the apartment Rhea asked, ‘What’s that smell?’”
She would soon find out.
“It was garlic,” laughs Harry. “My mother cooked with more garlic than existed in all of Brooklyn. My mother wondered why Rhea didn’t talk much that night. It was the garlic! To this day, Rhea can’t stand the smell of garlic.”
Garlic notwithstanding, Rhea came to love the couple who would become her in-laws.
Both in their early 90s now, Rhea and Harry look back on a very full and accomplished life together. In addition to raising two daughters, Rhea ran Harry’s medical practice. When, 20 years later, he told her he wanted to go to law school, she vehemently said, “No!”
“Our daughter Debra was about to be married, and I had a wedding to plan,” says Rhea.
But having once said no to Harry years earlier, when he told her he wanted to be President of the United States, Rhea was won over when Harry said, “You know, you owe me one.”
That afternoon, they drove to Gainesville where they bought and furnished a condo so Harry could go to law school. Rhea helped plan her daughter’s wedding and soon thereafter enrolled in school to become a paralegal so she could work in her husband’s second practice.
Whether serving as a captain in the U.S. Army, opening a medical practice, establishing a law firm, becoming a judge, raising two extraordinary daughters, or traveling to 118 countries, Harry acknowledges it wouldn’t have been possible without Rhea at his side.
“Rhea made my life easy,” he says, “and I made her life exciting.”
They both smile and nod in agreement.
Gloria and Dr. Lester Levine
Married: 54 years I Children: 3 I Grandchildren: 3
It was the summer of 1967, and a four-piece rock band was playing the greatest hits of the day. The backyard was strung with lights making it the perfect night for Gloria’s Sweet 16 celebration when suddenly the bushes in the backyard parted and some boys crashed the party. It was the first time Gloria and Lester met. They began dating one month later, and it was the beginning of a beautiful life together.
They’ve since been married 54 years, they renewed their vows on their 50th anniversary, and they plan to do it again. Gloria and Lester love traveling the world together and say pure happiness is watching the other sleep and kissing them good morning and good night.
The couple adopted their two youngest children at birth.
“We received a phone call on the morning of our oldest daughter’s bat mitzvah saying that a baby was about to be born and asking if we would be interested in adopting,” says Gloria. “It was a no-brainer, we said YES!
Judie and Emery Rosenbluth
Married: 56 years I Children: 3 I Grandchildren: 7
How did you meet?
“We met in Philadelphia,” says Judie. “I was an undergrad, and Emery was in law school. A friend of mine set us up. We went on a coffee date, but it didn’t go so well. It was meh! The following year, my dorm counselor said her fiancé had a friend at law school I should meet.”
That date went very well.
“This guy was funny, articulate, and cute,” says Judie.
What neither realized in the moment was that they had already met before – on the first meh date. Both Emery and Judie believe, had they remembered the first date, there definitely wouldn’t have been another.
Judie and Emery dated for five months during Emery’s last year of law school before moving to Florida for his bar exam
Do you have any marriage advice for young couples?
“The first thing to consider is honesty – with yourselves and other people,” says Emery. “Will you make your decisions jointly and be known as honest people? Look at how your partner treats other people. Do you want a family? If so, when and how? Judie, for example, stayed home to raise our children, and that was a big sacrifice, which I didn’t realize as a young man. It’s important to look at each other and appreciate each other’s contributions.”
“Remember that marriage is not a noun, it’s a verb,” says Judie. “It’s constantly changing. You must be flexible.”
Both agree that marrying each other was the best decision of their lives.
Bette and Terry Hyman
Married: 50 years I Children: 2
How did you meet?
“I lived in Louisville and went to Chicago to visit a friend,” says Terry. “That’s where I met Bette.”
When Terry went home to Louisville, he kept thinking about Bette. By December, he sent her a card asking if she’d like to go on a date with him. She said yes, and as the saying goes, the rest was history. “I should have probably come to Chicago sooner than I did,” reflects Terry.
“We got engaged in March 1973 and were married by June – it was a quick deal,” laughs Bette.
After five years in Louisville, the couple relocated to Maitland for Terry’s job as CFO of a health management company.
Why did you choose Maitland?
“We were looking for a Jewish community,” says Bette. “That’s how we got involved with the JCC. Both our sons went to preschool there.”
The couple immersed their family in the Jewish community working to raise money for the capital campaign to build the JCC as it is today. Terry served on the board while Bette taught and was part of the pre-school administration at the nursery school.
What makes a marriage successful?
Bette and Terry agree having the same values is very important.
“That includes Jewish values,” says Terry. “We feel very strongly about family and education.”
They imparted those values to their sons Seth and Cory, both of whom make their parents extremely proud.
Roberta and Mark Cooper
Married: 56 years I Children: 2 I Grandchildren: 3
How did you meet?
Mark and Roberta met and fell in love while attending Indiana University.
“Five of my sorority sisters had dates to go to a drive-in movie and wanted me to be the sixth date for one of the fraternity guys named Mark,” says Roberta. “I made them show me a photo of him before I agreed to go. That’s how I met this tall, thin, handsome guy. We met in our sophomore year, got engaged in our junior year, and married in our senior year.”
“It’s a bit dehumanizing,” jokes Mark. “I don’t think she picked me out because I was handsome.”
Fifty-six years later, Roberta replies, “Mark is the most handsome guy I know. More importantly, he’s the kindest person I know.”
“My wife still keeps my attention,” says Mark. “She’s the cutest thing around.”
How do you keep a happy marriage going all these years?
“Mark told me early in our marriage, before we had children, that as a litigator he argues all day on behalf of his clients,” says Roberta. “He didn’t want to argue when he came home. That really set the tone, so we’ve never really had a lot of confrontation. We really like each other, and we compromise well.”
“I do what Roberta says,” laughs Mark.
This story was originally published in print in Fall 2023.