Danzig Stories from Bernard Danzig b. 1937

A beautiful old cash register was in the store. Linda Amster wanted it but Bernard kept it and had it restored. It is brass and sits on an oak stand built as one piece. The cash register is a non-electric crank type.

Bernards's father sold his store in 1993 and left Rolling Fork and went Memphis to the home for the aged.

Abe'e wife Sophie was Mayor Sam Rosenthal's sister.

The football coach would ask ED Danzig when the Jewish holidays are so he could could schedule football games not to conflict with the holidays because several Jewish boys were on the football team.

Aunt Rochel and Solomon Levine's store (named Danzig's, probably because HD started it and then gave it to his sister Rochelle) was first a dry goods store selling clothing, shoes, skins (beaver and mink). Ed bought the business from Levine, but the actual building was never his. He rented it from an Italian family.

Then in about 1950 Ed bought a second store for furniture. He kept it locked and opened it on request. This way he could run both stores himself. Ed found that there was a bigger mark-up on furniture and he could make more money in furniture than dry goods. So he eventually closed the Danzig dry goods store (the one from Levine). The furniture included things like red velvet lamp shades and other items catering to local Blacks. Ed actaully became relatively wealthy from this business. He kept a cigar box with money in it behind the couch. If there was a big sale he took some of the money to his pocket and kept it off the books. He kept a credit book, so that people could buy on credit. The book was indexed according to item and not according to the client's name. Bernard corrects this to wit, the credit book was done according to the customers name.

When my father was a child he and his family lived in Midnight, Mississippi and he or his brother would take the chickens to Louise, Miss. to be slaughtered and would come back the same day on a later train. Later they moved to Rolling Fork.

Shirley Cohen called me the other day and wanted to talk to Elliott Danzig so I gave her his phone number. She said she met me. It must have been when Linda had me over to her apartment to meet a bunch of Danzigs. I was so overwhelmed I don't remember anyone.

Buried in the Greenville Jewish Cemetery: Lewis Danzig, Anna Cohen, Solly Cohen, Philip Cohen, Edwin Danzig, Sylvia Danzig.
Ida Danzig Epstein (Bernard's grandmother) is buried in Memphis.

"The Help": Interesting book about Black servants in the south, from the Black perspective.