Irving's entry in a University of Minnesota yearbook
Helene and Marvin
Irving and Nadine Peretz
Our grandparents, Irving and Nadine Peretz, were role models who had major impacts on each of our lives. Irving was the oldest child of Lazar and Fannie Peretz, and was the patriarch of both the larger Peretz family, and of our more immediate family – Marvin and his wife Helene (Linda and Stewart’s parents) and Honey and her husband Jerry (Ken, Alan and Elaine’s parents).
Looking back, we remember them together as the perfect couple from that time period – Irving as the breadwinner, and Nadine as the person who made sure everything at home was in order and working well. There are so many memories and experiences that would have been so different without them – the big family events like the Peretz family picnics and the Hanukkah parties, and the more intimate times our families were together, for birthdays, for Passover Seders, and often just for family dinners.
Linda remembers that Pop taught her to dance, took her on her first plane ride and gave her, her first college summer job at Tishman. Working alongside Aunt Evey and Aunt Blanche made it a family affair. Honoring his love of Judaism, Linda was thrilled when he gave up his own Aliyah on Yom Kippur to be called to the Torah at his synagogue, in order to worship at Linda’s family’s synagogue, so he could be there to experience his great granddaughter chanting the Haftorah.
Ken remembers picking Irving up on Sundays so the boys could sit out in the cold with him watching the Jets at Shea Stadium, and then coming back to their house in New Rochelle for dinner afterwards. Alan will never forget bussing into the city on a late Friday afternoon as a teenager with Ken, meeting them at Port Authority, heading to the Garden to see a Knicks game. When the game ended, rather than a bus back to Jersey, they asked "how about you guys stay at our house tonight and we’ll come back for the Rangers game tomorrow afternoon?" When the first thing you did every morning was read the NY Times sports page, it pretty much didn’t get any better than that.
Pop and Grandma’s house held lots of great memories. There were games of Bop the Beetle in the bedrooms, shootout hockey or ping pong in the basement, and hide and seek in their attic, bedroom closets and backyard. Stew remembers eating lunch in the backseat of their shiny Jaguar and ruining their lawn in New Rochelle playing mud football right after Pop had it put in. No one remembers exactly how the three boys’ goofing around in the basement managed to unplug the large basement freezer filled with a whole lot of what was soon to be ruined meat from the Kosher butcher, but we did it, and while not in cash, we paid for it too.
Elaine has great memories of helping Grandma prepare food for the holidays. Once Pop and Grandma moved to Longboat Key, it became the place to go over winter and spring breaks. They were kind enough to let us bring our friends too. Shortly after Pop passed away, Grandma moved to New Jersey to live with Honey and Jerry, and not too long after that, she had a heart attack. Like so many couples who’d been together for as long as they had, we feared that she couldn’t live without him.
Elaine and Alan drove to NJ to see Grandma, and she was sitting in her hospital bed in the cardiac care unit asking for a comb and lipstick because she didn’t like the way she looked! When Honey and Jerry moved to Maryland, Grandma moved to a group home nearby, and Elaine would take her to get her hair done and out to lunch every week, cherishing having her close by for the last five years of her life.
It was a different world then. Marvin and Helene’s family having Shabbat dinner every Friday night with Grandma and Pop. Passover with Pop and Marvin enjoying a scotch. Crowding into the den to watch the one TV in the house. Stew remembers selling his artwork to Grandma when he was 5, and sitting on the dock in Connecticut with Marvin and Pop relaxing.
We would be remiss in not mentioning their love of travel. We remember watching slide shows of their trips for hours. Maybe it’s where some of us got the itch to travel.
Stew remembers some of the best, and most endearing memories were when he was older, graduating college and going to talk to Pop about a job offer from IBM. His sage advice was “only an idiot turns down a job offer from IBM” and that was the beginning of Stew’s career. His proudest moment though was bringing Grandma and Pop to David Tishman’s office for their last reunion lunch – Stew was the proudest grandson in the world.
Ken remembers as a young adult important lessons about business and budgets from Pop, including being required by Pop to provide detailed financials in connection with a request for a loan to help close the gap needed to buy a home – and getting rejected! Pop thought the investment was beyond our means., and he was right.
They impressed upon each of us the value of a good education, and they played a major role in each of ours. They taught us about the importance of Israel in a post-WWII world, and made sure we each had a chance to visit there when we finished high school. They were both role models as volunteers, giving back to their communities, mostly through their involvement in Temple Beth El in New Rochelle. Together with our parents they instilled in us the importance and the value of hard work.
Irving started his career at Tishman Realty and Construction Company as a very young man working as a file and mail clerk, and he worked his way up to become the chief financial officer and the first non-Tishman family member to serve on the company’s board of directors. As kids, we thought it was pretty cool telling our friends that our grandfather’s company built Madison Square Garden, the World Trade Center and Penn Station. And while Nadine was always a strong, kind and loving mother and grandmother, after Irving died she surprised us by opening up and showing us a sense of humor and love for life that we somehow never recognized earlier in our lives.
Perhaps the greatest blessing we had with them was the fact that they both stayed healthy and lived long enough to develop relationships with all of our own children (except for Elaine’s youngest) – their great-grandchildren who were able to develop their own relationships and form their own great memories of Poppa Irving and Grandma Nadine.
On October 9, 1928, Irving M. Peretz signed as "Groom" to register his approaching marriage in Brooklyn.
Fannie, Irving and Mickey
Fannie and Lazar at Irving and Nadine's wedding 1928
Irving's entry
Humboldt High School 1923 yearbook
"Self-confidence is the first requisite to human greatness."
May 14, 1944
Back row: Nadine, Mary, Lazar, Fannie
Front row: Marvin, Honey, Julie Peretz, David, Susan, Barbara, Lou Peretz, Esta
Fannie holding Marvin
1930
Marvin, Nadine and Honey
1935
May 14, 1944
Back row: Marvin, Esta, Irving, Mary, Fannie, Lazar
Middle: Honey, Barbara
Front row: David, Lou Peretz, Susan, Nadine
Marvin
Honey
Honey and Jerry
Linda
Dorrie and Linda with Helene 1956
Helene
Grandma and Alan Pop and Elaine
Family Picnic 1962
Uncle Irving leading the songs at a family seder:
"Khaps 'em and Bins 'em"
Alan, Kenny and Dorrie
Marvin and Helene
Pop and Elaine (above) Three-legged race (below)
Family Picnic 1967
Nadine and Irving
Cape Cod July 4, 1968
Nadine and Irving
Clearwater, Florida Ap[ril 1969
Grandma Nadine, Poppa Irving and Great-Grandson Dan Fellman
Great-Grandson Dan Fellman and Poppa Irving
Nadine, Joe and Elaine Potosky, Deana Abramowitz, Honey, Sara Abramowitz-Hill, Lou Abramowitz
Great-Grandpa Jerry Fellman with Maddie and Alyssa Fellman and Charlie Skerpan, granddaughters of Ken and Jill Fellman
Dan Fellman and Sara Skerpan with
Alyssa Jenill Fellman (1/14/19) and
Charlotte ("Charlie") Adele Skerpan (2/19/19).
Jordan, Alan and Josh Fellman
Alan Fellman and Bonnie Schiller