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Anita Rhoda Sherman
December 4, 1919 - July 14, 2020
a thread of remembrance
December 4, 1919 - July 14, 2020
a thread of remembrance
Last night, Grandma ‘Nita passed away, peacefully, at her home in Manhattan. She is survived by a brother, two children, four grandchildren, and four great-grandchildren.
She had a good run—a century!—and she lived every year of it in New York City. I’ve often called her My Favorite New Yorker. She was on her fourth borough, we joked. She was undeniably central to my love of the city. She was and always will be New York to me.
Anita Rhoda Ress was born Dec 4, 1919 in her maternal grandparents’ apartment on the “Lower East Side” (E 7th St & Second Ave). She was the oldest of her generation. Here, she’s the baby in the middle.
Her family lived first in the Bronx, the Grand Concourse. When the older of her two younger brothers was born, she told her parents, “No want no buddy”—and thereafter Reuben was known by his nickname: Buddy. (He passed away a few years ago.)
The family moved to Flatbush, Brooklyn. As a young girl, she wore her hair in big banana curls, each one dipped in sugar water to hold its shape. Here she is in the old neighborhood, pictured with Buddy (left) and two boys unknown to me.
Her father, Samuel, was a diamond setter, later a wholesaler, with a business on Canal Street. Her maternal grandparents moved in with them, living for a time in an enclosed porch at the rear of the apartment, later in the upstairs half of their two-family home.
She graduated from Erasmus Hall High School in Brooklyn. (It’s quite likely she attended at the same time as Barbara Stanwyck and/or Arthur Laurents but neither made it into family lore.)
She wanted to be a doctor but her father felt he couldn’t afford to send her to medical school, not when she had two brothers with higher education plans of their own.
Instead, she became Medical Assistant/Lab Technician/Office Manager/Bookkeeper at a Park Avenue practice. Her tasks included the finger-pricking and blood-taking. I’ve always assumed the younger patients feared and reviled her.
She was 35 when she met my grandfather and, despite a consistently active social life, an old maid. She later recalled being picky. She didn’t like the look of one suitor’s lips; another’s stubby hands were a dealbreaker.
She was at her family’s summer home in Lake Hopatcong, NJ when she was introduced to the neighbor’s younger brother, a widower.
In 1956, Reader, she married him.
I happen to think this is the most beautiful wedding dress of all time.
They raised my mother, Lynn, and uncle, Jeff, in Elmhurst, Queens. The building was new construction when they moved in. They lived on the 6th floor. Grandma ‘Nita’s parents lived on the 4th.
Tangent: Grandma’s mother, Julia, born in Jerusalem, knew her birthday as the 5th candle of Hanukkah. In adulthood, Grandma ‘Nita encouraged her to determine the corresponding date on the Gregorian calendar in 1896, the year of her birth.
That date was Dec 4th. Turned out, Grandma ‘Nita and her mother shared a birthday.
Grandpa Ben was an optical physicist and an avid photographer (he had a column in Modern Photography). He took many photos of Grandma ‘Nita. I look at them and I think it’s clear he adored her. I suspect he enjoyed photographing her more than she enjoyed posing.
Theirs was by all reports a successful union. They shared a warm, evident affection for one another.
She was always fashion conscious, with a constantly changing look du jour. It was not uncommon for her hair to be one color when she dropped my mother off at school in the morning and another color when when she returned for the afternoon pickup.
She was the inventor and perpetrator of what my mother calls the “Grandma ‘Nita sip,” wherein a coy “May I try a sip of that?” resulted in her gulping down most of your drink.
She was bright, creative, and independent, and vain as can be.
(And that never went away. At 98, she was furious when an aide wore formfitting pants. “When we walk down the street, I expect people to be looking at ME,” she insisted.)
She took a creative writing course at LaGuardia Community College in Queens, producing a half dozen short stories. Pleasant, spare, unemotional. (Freshman year of high school, Mrs. Richardson was kind enough to let me write a paper on Grandma Nita’s unpublished oeuvre.)
She knitted and crocheted. She made afghans of various color schemes to match each of our childhood bedrooms. A new one for me to take to college. A new one for my first adult apartment. (Pictured: two afghans, including one currently in rotation, on which our sweet kitty purrs.)
Growing up, we saw our grandparents (both sets) almost every weekend. The familiar drive from CT to Queens. The Whitestone Bridge we called the Grandma ‘Nita Bridge; the Throgs Neck was the Grandma Charlotte.
Grandma ‘Nita used to tell me I was “delicious,” which I didn’t appreciate at the time.
She apparently thought the Connecticut bialys we grew up on were suburban nonsense. (She was right.)
She lost her husband (67) and mother (94) in fairly quick succession. 18 months apart.
A few years later, she moved to Manhattan (E 50s). Bronx 
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Formerly an infrequent theatergoer, she became a weekly attendee. She saved every Playbill for me, helping me amass (if I may say so myself) an enviable collection at a young age.
She continued this practice well into my adulthood—when I was seeing more theater than she was. I never discouraged her. I liked that she thought of me every time she took her seat at a play.
She started attending classes and lectures at the 92nd Street Y. She played canasta and mahjong. She cultivated a community. She always seemed to be moderating (stoking?) others’ dramas.
She began painting regularly. She filled her home—and each of ours—with her art. She wasn’t at all precious about her work. She was always re-priming a canvas and making an entirely new hat where she’d just finished one.
In the early 90s, she came with us on a family trip to Disney World. My mother told her to pack comfortable walking shoes. She wore heels. Because she always wore heels.
When I was a preteen, I started acting professionally and our relationship shifted. I was suddenly seeing her daily.
I’d hop on the Metro-North in CT and Grandma ‘Nita would meet me at Grand Central. She accompanied me to auditions, rehearsals, recording sessions. Knitting patiently throughout.
I loved sitting in those waiting rooms filled with Chips and Gavroches, listening to her merciless running commentary on the child actors and their stage mothers. (When she mocked a be-JNCOed young Brett Tabisel, I drew the line; Tony nominees were off limits!)
On Grandma’s arm, I got to explore New York City. I learned to navigate the grid. She taught me how to use bus transfers. She took me to the movies during a school day. She was my Auntie Mame. She even lived near Beekman Place!
She kept a small folding cot in the closet of her one-bedroom apartment. I spent the night often enough to warrant it. It was my cot and I was damned proud of it.
A few times I went to art class with her. Once, I spent the class sketching her. She saw the finished product and told me to get rid of it immediately. Not because it was awful—though it was—but because she didn’t like how old I’d made her look.
She always appeared younger than her age. She liked to tell the story of the police officer who pulled her over for speeding and, she claimed, suspected her ID was a phony because she couldn’t possibly be 72 years old...
She held herself to a strict standard and could be particular about other people’s behavior as well. “I like people to look how I like them to look,” she told me. Last year she relentlessly needled me about my timeworn baseball cap until I agreed to retire it.
She harbored a dislike of Woody Allen and, especially, Idina Menzel (“Indira Menchel”). She loved “The View” and the Jennifer Ehle “Pride and Prejudice.” https://twitter.com/pduchan/status/659781287260110848?s=21">https://twitter.com/pduchan/s...
Once, when I was home during a college break, she asked me about my love life. Did I have a girlfriend? I hesitated. Before I could respond, she said, “You’re too busy. I know you’re very busy.”
We loved going to the theater together. Sarah Ruhl’s “In the Next Room, or The Vibrator Play” was a particularly memorable experience. I’ll never forget the sound of her barely controlled giggling nor the feeling of her squeezing my arm as she struggled to maintain that control.
In 2010, we had plans to see a matinee of “Collected Stories.” The night before, I asked myself for the first time what I gained by hiding my sexuality from her. Why had I decided for her that she couldn’t handle it? Why was I depriving her of the opportunity to know me fully?
The next day, over lunch at Pigalle, I came out to her. She made it easy and joyful.
She was welcoming and wonderful to Jon when he appeared on the scene a year or so later.
I vividly remember this day (pictured). She and Jon both showed up to lunch wearing seersucker suits. She made him sit next to her and made him eat half her meal.
She remained vivacious and active well into her 90s. Here she is, dancing at my cousin’s wedding.
She crocheted more than a thousand hats, donating them to local hospitals. So many hats that NY1 did a segment about her.
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In recent years, age caught up with her. She struggled with mobility. She was often out of breath. Her prized independence gave way to the constant attention of aides. She struggled with the lack of control she felt. “I’m disgusted with myself,” she’d repeat.
Eventually her longevity no longer felt like good luck but rather a curse. She was ready for the end, at times angry it wasn’t coming fast enough. She was frequently bored and she hated feeling like a burden.
This past December, we celebrated her 100th birthday (also Hanukkah) with a big family party. I imagine many among the gathered assumed this was the last time they’d see her. We made sure she felt thoroughly feted.
She lived 100 years, most of it in good health, all of it surrounded by family.
As my aunt Claire said, yes, it’s a sad day—but it’s also a happy one. I’m so lucky I got 37 years with my grandmother. That’s something I don’t take for granted.
And, today, I celebrate it, as I celebrate her long, well-lived life and my indelible memories of the time we spent together.
Grandma ‘Nita will be missed and she will be remembered.
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