My grandfather, Ben W. Kert, had a women’s dress shop along Queen Street in Sault Ste. Marie where a number of Jewish men, many of them “Greenies” from the old country, owned and operated women’s haberdasheries with variable success.

Ben had come from Quebec via Northern Manitoba and Fort Frances, a singular man whose French was as good as his English and whose great heart filled my childhood with glory.

Unlike the other Jewish store owners, Ben W. was born in Trois-Rivières, the only male child who survived with five or six sisters born ahead of him.

Legend has it that my grandfather’s arrival and survival were celebrated with the nickname Sonny. When he left home at 15 (rumour claims his stepmother threw him out) and arrived in Montreal, his first employer would not accept the nickname, so my grandfather invented Ben W. on the spot. The W. never stood for anything. When he died, my mother discovered that his first name was actually Harry.