[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 155 (2009), Part 16]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages 21435-21436]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                   BEATRICE ROSENBERG'S 90TH BIRTHDAY

                                 ______
                                 

                         HON. KENDRICK B. MEEK

                               of florida

                    in the house of representatives

                      Thursday, September 10, 2009

  Mr. MEEK of Florida. Madam Speaker, I'd like to take this opportunity 
to say a few words about one of my constituents, Beatrice Rosenberg, 
born ``Bernice Zam'' on her 90th birthday.
  Beatrice Rosenberg, born Bernice Zam, in the Bronx, New York, 
September 12, 1919,

[[Page 21436]]

has lived through a Great Depression, two World Wars, and the many 
other events that have marked the last 90 years in America and through 
it all has continued to laugh and to dance. Her family and friends have 
said that through all of this, through poverty, through wartime and 
through widowhood, she has been relied on and has ``been there'' for 
them.
  Bernice's father died when she was six months old. Her mother was a 
factory seamstress paid by the piece to sew lace onto ladies' 
undergarments. In 1935, when Bernice was 16, she had to quit high 
school to work in a laundry to support her pregnant mother and out-of-
work stepfather. She gave all her earnings to her mother, except for 
carfare to work and to dance clubs, where she jitterbugged her cares 
away.
  In 1943 she married a young pilot just before he shipped off to fight 
in World War II. (When her license application didn't match her birth 
certificate, she learned that her birth name actually was Beatrice, not 
Bernice). Her husband was overseas when she gave birth to their 
daughter in July 1944, and a few months later he was shot down and 
reported missing in action in France. A farmer found and sheltered him 
in a barn until the French Resistance could smuggle him out of danger.
  For two years after the war she lived on an airbase in Ashiya, Japan, 
as part of the post-war occupation, but the marriage was strained by 
the time they returned to the States. She and her daughter moved into a 
one-bedroom apartment in a 5th floor walk-up in the Bronx already 
occupied by her own mother and teenage half-sister.
  In 1949 she brought her daughter with her to Savannah, Georgia, where 
her husband was stationed on a Strategic Air Command Base, to obtain a 
divorce. She waitressed in a diner for $25 a week plus tips, on the 
3:00 to midnight shift, hiring a teenager for her daughter's after-
school care. She met and married another airman, and after two years he 
shipped out to an operation in the Azores. Unfortunately, he died at 
the age of 33 after spending years in the service operating refuelers.
  With an 11-year-old daughter to care for, Bernice could not indulge 
her grief. Instead, she moved back into that cramped Bronx apartment, 
and used some Air Force insurance money to take a course in 
switchboard. She became a receptionist and met Dan Rosenberg. They 
lived happily for many years, and when he passed on, Mrs. Rosenberg 
moved in with her daughter and her family while working full time and 
eventually moved to Florida and sold handbags at Macy's, finally 
retiring at age 70. Since then she has enjoyed a life of card games, 
friendships, and family. Although she uses a walker, she still dances 
every chance she gets.
  Her family: daughter Sydelle Pittas and her husband Phillipe Koenig; 
her granddaughter Pilar Alessandra and husband Pat Francis along with 
their daughters Sara and Rita; granddaughter Chris Pittas; and 
granddaughter Michele Koenig Augieri and her husband Gary Shafner (who 
have just given her a great-grandson named Felix), join with many other 
nieces and nephews in paying tribute to Beatrice Rosenberg on her 90th 
birthday.
  At 90, Mrs. Rosenberg still laughs heartily and will, no doubt, dance 
at her party.

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