“A legacy without kids. I love that that’s possible.”
Amy Shoenthal is referring to her Great-aunt May, one of her grandmother’s three sisters. Born in 1917, May was one of four girls born to Fannie and Barnett Cohen in New York City. One of those girls was Alice, Amy’s grandmother.
On her hand, Amy carries the lives and memories of three spectacular women. Here, we’re going to focus on two of them, sisters Alice (Cohen) Nash and May (Cohen) Ramey.
The cameo ring was from May (fashioned out an earring) and the silver ring belonged to Alice.
Both Alice and May pushed boundaries. Alice worked in a law office while other women in her generation did not. May did life her way and created a vibrant home full of culture, art, and advocacy.
While they never met, I think that Great-aunt May and Amy have lived weirdly parallel lives. Professionally, Amy is a keynote speaker, journalist, marketing consultant, leadership coach and most recently, the bestselling author of “The Setback Cycle: How Defining Moments Can Move Us Forward.”
It’s about, you guessed it, setbacks.
She talks to some pretty powerful people including lawyer-now-Peloton-exec and coach Robin Arzon who somehow manages to maintain a smile during backbreaking work-outs—even when she is nine months pregnant. Then there’s Stacy London, formerly of TLC’s What Not To Wear, who has created a new life post-television as a designer, writer, activist, and mid-life and menopause advocate. (btw, she just announced she’s launching a new show with her old co-host, Clinton Kelly)
And then, there’s May.
The Cohen family spent their early years on the Lower East Side. Alice and May’s mother Fannie was born in Russia and came to the United States as a young woman.
Eventually, the Cohens moved up to Washington Heights in northern Manhattan. Barnett Cohen died young and the five women were left to fend for themselves.
“I think they had a nice community there,” says Amy, “but they had to ration food …they definitely grew up in poverty, during the great depression.”
May later fell in love with a doctor and had her heart broken. “He couldn’t marry her because she was poor and Jewish.”
The ultimate setback you might say.
So May headed south to Texas. On her own. In the 1940s. It was there that she met Ben Ramey, a lawyer who ultimately practiced civil rights and personal injury law. He represented a wide range of individuals, from 23 year-olds on death row to a group of African American Houstonians who fought for the right to play golf on “white-only” municipal courses (they lost). May and Ben were married in 1946 and eventually moved to Houston. Amy’s mom used to spend her summers visiting her favorite Aunt May and her Uncle Ben and loved walking around the Houston Galleria (me too, Amy’s mom. Me, too).
Amy says she reminds her mom of Great-aunt May.
Which brings us back to the Setback Cycle. Amy’s made a career of talking about bumps in the road—challenges that in retrospect look like silver linings. She defines a setback as a “reversal or check in progress,” like when Robin Arzon learned she had type one diabetes two weeks before jumping into a new job in the fitness industry or when Stacy London, within the span of a few months, got spine surgery, ended a long-term relationship, and had to move back in with her parents.
Amy is pretty open about her own setbacks. For three years, she balanced a demanding career and writing her book. Forty-eight hours after turning in the manuscript, she was laid off from the job she truly loved. From writing about setbacks to living one—in record time.
Yet Amy may have learned the most from talking to others. As a journalist she has done hundreds of interviews and in each of these she saw a common theme: setbacks ultimately led to their most successful venture.
For May, a heartbreaking setback led her to a life across the country.
When looking into these stories, I study old records, newspapers, obits, anything I can find. The information about Ben is voluminous. In addition to his legal career, Ben wrote sci-fi novels under the pseudonym H.H. Hollis and loved to play music in the occasional hootenanny.
It’s amazing how little I could find about May. I even called in a favor from my friend who is a private investigator. Like me, he found article after article about….. Ben. As I was digging into what I could find, something wild happened. I realized that I have so much in common with Ben and May Ramey. Yes, me.
They lived less than three miles from where I grew up.
Then there’s the fact that they were Jews in the Meyerland section of Houston. Here’s an announcement about Ben speaking at my hometown synagogue.
And maybe the weirdest of all, the fact that May’s 1980 death certificate was signed by one of my dad’s closest friends and mentors, Dr. Daniel Jackson.
I mean, COME ON.
***
It’s true that Amy never met May, but she made up for it in years spent with her own grandmother Alice.
“My grandmother died a month short of her 102nd birthday and while I was so lucky to have her for so long, it made the loss harder. She got to know her great grandchildren.”
Amy says that her own daughter has memories of Alice. “My daughter found this picture of my grandparents’ wedding and asked if she could put that picture in her room.”
When Alice was dying, Amy was able to be by her side.
“She always wore this silver ring on her middle finger. I remember holding her hand and I was looking at her hand for so long when she was dying. A day or two before she died, I saw her rings on her night table.”
The nurse had removed Alice’s rings and when she died, Amy inherited a ring from one hand and her sister inherited a ring from the other.
“That is my most prized possession.”
***
I’m finding that my research of women’s daily lives during the first half of the 20th century remains very challenging. Most women simply weren’t written about unless it was in the context of a social gathering or maybe something they did with their husband. For example, “Mrs. Ben Ramey” shows up a few times. Amy points out the irony in all of this: her entire book is mainly about women leaders.
While my research may not have given me tons of documents to show you, the impact these two women had and continue to have on their family is indelible. Alice’s great granddaughter admires her photo in her bedroom and Amy tells me her mother’s stories about her legendary Great-aunt May. These legacies have been infused into Amy’s rings and will hopefully carry the stories on to future generations.
Sometimes it takes an object to wake up the memory.
Just a few days ago, Amy texted me one of her favorite quotes from Alice. “Love, trust and respect are the most important things. Everything else falls into place. Listen to your old lady.”
Many thanks to Amy for sharing her story with me. If you want to learn more about The Setback Cycle, click here. If you want to tell me your jewelry story, click here.
Take care of your hearts.