Comfort, kindness, acceptance and grandpa’s store

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.

All of this is to say that my grandfather lived in a time when identities were registered idiosyncratically and tall tales grew round the very act of naming.

I adored my grandfather. I was the only girl among three brothers who were more than rough and tumble, and I often found sanctuary on Saturday mornings at his store, free from their taunts. The store had a range of forbidding, foundational undergarments on display at the front, an array of housedresses, as well as a number of taxidermy specimens mounted above the racks on the back wall: a couple of wolves, a beaver, a lynx.

Grandpa Ben was a jack of all trades: he dealt in furs, scrap metal and corsets. He was not the best businessman — more generous and eccentric than served his income — but loving, funny and, in my mind, completely adorable.

When my father, an accountant, would arrive on an end-of-the-month Saturday morning to “do the books,” he was often driven to distraction with the jumble that greeted him, recorded by my grandfather with a flourish but with little reference to what had actually transpired. I saw my father turn blue; I saw my grandfather, affable and buoyant, remain intact.

Two loving French-Canadian women assisted my grandfather: Louella and Rae. I want to say that I have remembered the names correctly, but admit I am not sure. One was large; one was not. The large one had a rich, black bun folded at the nape of her neck; the thin one had short, thick, grey-brown hair. Both were as kind to my grandfather as they were to me.

There was a huge cash register decorated with silver fittings on the back counter these two women commanded, working around my grandfather’s relaxed attentiveness to business, transforming the day with humour and treats. Ben carried butterscotch candies. They shared cookies and sandwiches.

I was transported. The centre of their attentions, I basked. As I grew, so too did their ministrations, and when it became clear my size could not be accommodated by the “chubby sections” in local department stores, both Rae and Lou came to my rescue.

My mother was large. I was too, so often humiliated by the attempt to find clothes that might fit, I had given up hope. It was a small town. The “chubby” sections were lean. My mother did not know what to do, but Lou and Rae did. Maybe they used mail-order catalogues. Maybe they had friends also involved with haberdasheries elsewhere in town. But they found women’s clothing that could be adapted.

One, a light blue taffeta, outfitted for a bar mitzvah, stands out in memory. I was poured into it. My grandfather, his famous suspenders looped over his sizable belly, twinkled with approval. Lou and Rae hemmed the skirt. They praised my appearance. I felt lovely.

Another was a white and green pois de soi I wore to a high school dance. I don’t think it was my prom. Memory tells me I did not have a date for that one. A fat girl in the ’60s didn’t have much hope of securing the attachments that might have become a boyfriend. My admirers were my grandfather, Rae and Lou. My mother too, but she worried constantly, loathing her own size, fearing mine.

Though bullied in schoolyards and home fronts, on Saturday mornings, in my grandfather’s store, I was welcomed and adored. On the inside, I saw myself as lovable because of their care. On the outside, I saw myself differently, but that discomfort and shame could never eradicate the inner sanctuary they created to nourish my soul.

How lucky I was to be able to sustain that space, even as the rest of the external world so often and vehemently named me an undesirable.

arts@winnipegfreepress.com