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Josepha Sherman
Aug. 28th, 2012 06:58 pmDelia's gone to Josepha Sherman's memorial service in SoHo; I'm staying home to wait for my brother and his family to arrive from Cleveland.
No, they were no relation - far from it: Josepha was from an old NY immigrant Jewish family, while Delia's parents were southerners with some vague connection to the General (yes, awkward for them!). It therefore amused Josepha & Delia both hugely to claim that they were really sisters, at each convention where they met.
My acquaintance with Josepha goes back even further than my connection with publishing: My first real radio show was on Columbia University's WKCR, when I finished school as a student at Barnard. I auditioned, they gave me a show, and I called it The Truro Agricultural Show (after a Cyril Tawney song I'd picked up that summer in England): Traditional English & Celtic music from both sides of the Atlantic.
Josepha was one of the people who'd call me up during the show to compare notes about folklore - she even wrote me letters, which I'm sure I still have somewhere.
In the last years of her life, she slept on our couch when she needed to be in NYC for BEA, where she beat the booths for work, indefatigable and erudite to the last.
Her memory for a blessing.
No, they were no relation - far from it: Josepha was from an old NY immigrant Jewish family, while Delia's parents were southerners with some vague connection to the General (yes, awkward for them!). It therefore amused Josepha & Delia both hugely to claim that they were really sisters, at each convention where they met.
My acquaintance with Josepha goes back even further than my connection with publishing: My first real radio show was on Columbia University's WKCR, when I finished school as a student at Barnard. I auditioned, they gave me a show, and I called it The Truro Agricultural Show (after a Cyril Tawney song I'd picked up that summer in England): Traditional English & Celtic music from both sides of the Atlantic.
Josepha was one of the people who'd call me up during the show to compare notes about folklore - she even wrote me letters, which I'm sure I still have somewhere.
In the last years of her life, she slept on our couch when she needed to be in NYC for BEA, where she beat the booths for work, indefatigable and erudite to the last.
Her memory for a blessing.