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How I Got My Mink Stole
In the '50s, in the world that I knew and read about,
the ultimate in fur was mink. Potentates of exotic foreign countries gave
them to their mistresses; Hollywood producers gave them to their favorite
starlets; and successful garment manufacturers bought them for their
wives. I didn't get my mink stole that way. My mother got it for me -- and
she didn't get it from a foreign potentate but from the man in our house
who was the source of all our possessions, my father. It took her ten
years.
After my parents bought our house in North Miami Beach,
Florida, in 1954, Mother began to talk about a mink stole. This was
unusual for her; I couldn't recall her ever before expressing an interest
in clothes for herself. Our picture album showed she had been an elegant,
fashionable woman in Berlin, Germany, but that had been years ago. In the
United States, her life was different. Her life here focused on her
husband, her children, and her home. Her mission was nurturing, a goal she
warmly embraced. Clothes were something she needed only to take care of
her real priorities.
But in the late '50s, Mother began to ask Father for a
mink stole. Perhaps it was only natural. Miami Beach was the second home
of the mink. No respectable garment manufacturer's wife or mistress would
think of setting foot in that oasis of affluence without some type of mink
draped about her shoulders. It just wasn't done. And my mother, unlike
these visitors, wasn't just down for two weeks or even for the whole
sizzen. She lived there. Furthermore, my father could well afford the
$500 or $l,000 that a mink stole cost in those days, so why not?
"Why not?" was that my father didn't embark upon a
course of action simply because all rational reasons pointed in that
direction. That wasn't his style. That didn't require any gumption. On the
contrary, it was going against the tide that showed a man's strength. If
everything pointed one way, dafke -- for spite -- Father went the
other. So when it came to buying Mother a mink stole, Father refused.
There followed a series of arguments and
rationalizations. Mother pointed out that she needed a stole to go to the
synagogue; so Father discontinued what was already his very limited
synagogue attendance. Mother invited Aunt Sarah from Philadelphia to visit
us. Since Sarah was related to us on Father's side of the family, her
arguments in favor of Mother's having a mink stole should have carried
considerable weight. Father negated that ploy, too, by pointing out that
Aunt Sarah herself didn't have a mink stole.
At times, Father took the initiative. "You'll get a mink
stole when Sonia gets married," he'd say. "You'll have a mink stole for
the wedding." (He was on pretty safe ground here since I was already in my
late twenties at this time, with no serious suitor in sight.) "After all,"
he continued, "what kind of mother would you be careering around Miami
Beach covered in furs when your only daughter is still single?" This was a
double whammy for Mother: not only was she told she wouldn't be getting a
fur stole in the near future; she was also reminded that her only daughter
was still unmarried. Nonetheless, Mother stood her ground. She pointed out
that with my law school education not even half-completed, with my
ambitions for a career in the future, and with my lack of current suitors,
my chances of an imminent marriage were dim -- and she needed a stole now.
Undaunted, my father then played the "Jewish homeland"
card. "Why should I spend money on a mink stole when we could put the
money to better use for a trip to Israel, see what's doing over there, and
visit my brother, Iser?" This approach was flawed because Mother, the
keeper of the family finances, knew that Father could easily afford both
the stole and the trip to Israel. Rather than getting into an argument
about finances, however, Mother was quick to agree that a trip to Israel
made sense, and said she'd be delighted to accompany Father on such a
voyage. To which Father replied, "Israel? What for do I need Israel? What,
am I crazy to go down there with those Araber shooting at Jews all
the time? A man has to be crazy to go down there. Takes his life in his
hands." And then, figuratively draping the American flag around himself,
he continued, "Why should I go to Israel when I haven't seen my own
country yet. First, we'll go to California. After Sonia's married.
Then, maybe later, when things have calmed down there, we'll go to
Israel." And so it went. He had succeeded in completely changing the
subject.
We entered the next phase when my brother Hermann bought
his wife Helen a mink stole and, being a loving son, bought my mother one,
too. When Dad came home that night and saw Mother cavorting in her slip
and mink stole, he was livid. Imagine the nerve of that son of his! Trying
to show up his own father. He could afford to buy a stole for his own wife
if she needed one. He didn't need his son to buy it for him. But the thing
was -- his wife didn't need a stole. Had no use for one. He advised Mother
once and for all to decide whether she wanted a stole or a husband. With
that, Father stormed out of the house, and Mother reluctantly returned the
stole to Hermann.
I learned about the next act of this drama when Mother
came to visit me several years later in Washington, DC, bearing in her
hands a horrible white piece of fake fur. It seemed that Father, on his
own volition, had bought it for her. It was made of some sort of cheap
synthetic material and was the sort of froufrou one associates with
streetwalkers. Father had seen it in the window of a storefront on the
Lower East Side. He thought he might make it up to Mother with this
offering after all their arguments about a mink stole. Mother wanted to
know if I had a cleaning woman to whom I could give this fur piece since
she wouldn't be caught dead wearing it in Miami Beach. I told her no
self-respecting cleaning woman would wear this item and suggested she
return it to Father with her compliments.
When Father got this fur piece back ("What's wrong with
it? Looks just like a mink stole to me."), he realized that the jig was
up. He had tried everything. He then quietly went to one of the finest
furriers in Miami Beach and bought Mother her stole -- a beautiful
gray-white fur. Let the neighbors see that his wife could look good, too.
When Mother saw this beautiful fur -- which she'd fought
for for so many years -- she exclaimed, "A stole? What do I need that for?
An old woman like me? Do I need it to do the dishes? To carry out the
garbitch? To go to the synagogue with those yentes? (They had
resumed their sporadic synagogue attendance.) What do I need a fur stole
for when my child is freezing in Washington?" Father was nonplussed at
this reaction, but, before too much time had passed, he was driving Mother
to the post office, where she could ship the stole to me "freezing in
Washington." She then accompanied him to the synagogue for Friday night
services, in her cloth coat, which was "more than good enough for those
yentes."
I never figured out whether this result had been in back
of Mother's mind all along, or whether she had simply embarked upon a
battle with my father that she was determined to win, only to find when
she did, that it was the battle and not the prize that was significant. At
any rate, that's how I got my mink stole -- not from a foreign potentate
or a lovesick swain -- but from a battle waged by my mother and won over
tremendous odds. I was proud to wear it.
©1996 by Sonia Pressman Fuentes
This excerpt appeared on May 25, 2001, in the
Story Lady e-newsletter and website.
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