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Memoir recalls growing up Jewish in a small town

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By MICHELLE BEARDEN | The Tampa Tribune

Published: February 5, 2012

TAMPA - Growing up, Elaine Fantle Shimberg never knew she was different from the other kids.

Not until a teacher read the New Testament story of the crucifixion of Jesus aloud to her fourth-grade class. A girl sitting in the desk in front of the young Elaine turned around and asked her point blank: "Why did you kill Christ?"

"When I told her I didn't have anything to do with it, the teacher punished me for talking in class and I got sent to the corner," Shimberg recalls. "I was more upset with that than what she asked me. I didn't know what she was talking about."

All things considered, Shimberg had an idyllic childhood in Fort Dodge, Iowa — even though her family was one of only 32 Jewish families in the town of 27,000. That number seemed high compared to her birthplace in Yankton, S.D. When she was born on Feb. 26, 1937, she was the community's 16th Jew.

"And all but four of us were related," she says.

Shimberg decided it was time to dispel the assumption that the Eastern European Jews who immigrated to America at the turn of the 20th century all ended up in major northeast cities like New York and Philadelphia. Thousands of families like hers ended up settling in rural areas and small towns all over the country, many working in sales or merchandising. With few or no Jewish neighbors, and without the support of synagogues, a local rabbi or religious schools, they had to be diligent and creative in keeping their faith life intact.

"Growing Up Jewish In Small Town America: A Memoir" (Abernathy House Publishers) is Shimberg's personal and charming account of her experience in the 1940s and '50s in Fort Dodge. She was 3 when her father, Karl Fantle, moved the family there to open "Fantle Brothers, Famous for Fashion," the fifth and newest branch of the family-owned clothing store. For 13 of her most formative years, it was home.

Adjustments had to be made. For instance, she never fulfilled her dream of playing Queen Esther from the Old Testament, but she did get to fill the role of the Virgin Mary in her school Christmas pageant. For High Holy Days services, the loosely formed Jewish congregation had to hire an out-of-town student or retired rabbi to lead services. And there was no "December Dilemma" — the term for not letting the Hanukah observance get swallowed up by the crush of the Christmas holiday season — because back then, Hanukah was treated as the minor holiday it is.

"We didn't have all the commercialization surrounding Hanukah like we do today. So we took the Santa Claus approach with Christmas: a tree and decorations, with no star on the top," she recalls.

Of the 24 books she's written, Shimberg says "This was the hardest one of all." That says a lot, coming from a woman who has made a career of writing books on complex subjects such as health and family issues.

"It took me nine months to finish my last medical book," Shimberg says. "And this one? Three years."

It's not that she had trouble with her memory. Curiously enough, Shimberg says she can clearly remember stories from her youth as though they happened yesterday, "But don't ask me to recall what I did last week." Sadly, she didn't have the luxury of comparing notes with her siblings or parents. Her parents both died at the age of 86, older sister Kay died of a heart attack at 65, and younger brother Chuck died at 42 with colon cancer.

"Writing this memoir gave me a chance to reclaim them again," she says. "I enjoyed remembering them at such a vital, happy time of our lives. But it also made me a little sad, realizing how much I missed them."

Her other purpose for the undertaking was to "leave something of what my life had been behind" for future generations of their clan. She and her husband, Town 'N Country developer and arts supporter Hinks Shimberg, now married 50 years, have five grown children and 10 grandkids.

"Though I don't think any of them have read the book yet," Shimberg said laughing.

The lesson she took away from her experience as being part of an "extreme minority" is that everybody is different in some way, and that's OK. The Lord made all of us, she learned, and it doesn't matter what religious slot you are in. Her volunteer work demonstrates that interfaith zeal, from serving at her longtime synagogue, Congregation Schaarai Zedek, to being the first Jewish chairman of the board for St. Joseph's Hospital.

Available at amazon.com, the memoir is getting a response that every writer loves to hear: Readers want more.

"They're telling me the book is too short, and they want a follow-up," she says. "And I must say, living with a renaissance man like Hinks Shimberg has made a very interesting life. We'll have to see about that."

mbearden@tampatrib.com

(813) 259-7613

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