Trade Regrets: Bernice Ash

(Written by Jerome Ash)

Bernice Ash died at 90. She leaves as her legacy three sons and five grandsons to run the Sam Ash Music Stores – 47 super mega stores from coast to coast.

I’m Jerry Ash, her husband of 72 years. We met when she was 16, became engaged at 17, and married in September of 1948, two months before she turned 18 upon her graduation from high school.

My parents, Sam and Rose Ash, fell in love with her, as did anyone who saw her. Aside from the fact that she was exceptionally beautiful, there was a sweetness and kindness about her that anyone could see.

She went to work at the Sheet Music counter, dispensing books to a wide range of music teachers. Although she did not read music, she caught on to what music teachers used and in what sequence. Soon she was giving advice to rookie music teachers.

She worked in our one little store in Brooklyn for three years until she had our first son, David – now 69 and the father of two brilliant girls. Three years later Richard was born, father of three boys – all of them in the business. Sam came three years after that, the father of four boys – two in the business and two still in school. Bernice was a full-time mom until Sam started school; then she came back to work part-time.

My father, Sam, died at the young age of 59, a year before Sam was born.  Sometime later, we moved from Brooklyn to Franklin Square on Long Island. One day we spotted a store in Hempstead, then the hub of Long Island. It was across the street from A&S Department Store, at the time the busiest store on Long Island. My brother Paul and I leased the store, which was twice the size of our Brooklyn location. Paul designed a beautiful layout. Bernice had her hands full at the time – three young boys, no friends nearby, and no car. She became seriously depressed but she carried on.

Bernice’s parents, Benjamin and Hinda Kibrick, came to America as adults from Russia, having lost children there. In the U.S., they had two children, Matthew and Bernice. Matthew was about three years older – a good, kind man who died about two years ago. Bernice’s birth certificate reads, “Mary Bella Kibrick born in Newark, N.J.”

Neither my parents nor Bernice’s knew about the world’s riches – music, art, or other civilizations. Together we opened up to all. From the immediate world we lived in – Cole Porter, Gershwin, Berlin, Kern, et cetera. We went to classical Music – Thank you WQXR. We knew and loved the Beethoven, Mozart, Hayon, Schubert, Tchaikovsky, Brahms, Chopin, Mendelsohn, symphonies, concertos, and overtures. A few notes in and we knew what was coming. We opened up to ballet and opera.

She was a fan of Balanchine and Robbins. We thrilled to La Traviata, La Boheme, Don Giovanni, and Marriage of Figaro. We had subscriptions to the Philharmonic, the Met Opera, and City Ballet. There was something so wonderful about exploring the world together. We love the Met Museum, walking around until our backs rebelled.

When the boys were older – Sam was about nine – she went back into the business. We had about six stores at the time. My brother Paul, who was the hardest working person I ever met in my life, turned over the Sheet Music part of the business to Bernice. She took over the purchasing, deciding what each store should stock and the reordering as it was sold. Under her supervision, the music volume quintupled.

We explored Europe, Japan, Taiwan, and Hong Kong. We spent a glorious week in Florence – the Uffizi, the Ghiberti doors, David, the old Jewish temple struck us hard.

We loved Paris, Rome, London, Barcelona, Athens, and spent time on a Baltic cruise sponsored by the Met Museum. We drove down the Amalfi coast with our music dealer friends, Goodrich and Levin – the same crew we went on a safari in Kenya, thanks to an incentive program from Gibson guitars.

Everywhere we went we held hands. It’s hard to write with tears in my eyes. I was the luckiest man on earth.