Share
Let the family know you care by sharing this tribute.
Morris was and is, first and foremost, a survivor. He passed away on July 23, 2014.
Sole survivor of losing his entire immediate family (two sisters, one brother, Mother and Father), and experiencing multiple near-death experiences at multiple concentration camps during World War II. See the story of Morris surviving the holocaust in: http://www.spangdahlem.af.mil/news/story.asp?id=123408816
Survivor of nightmare after nightmare from the PTSD pain of remembering those horrific days.
Survivor of all the hard work in becoming a successful businessman and entrepreneur and rallying our family to pull together and work in the first self-service kosher meat market in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
Survivor of working hard to assure his wife and three children had a comfortable roof over their head. All would all become highly educated with an Associates, Bachelors, and Master’s Degree respectively – whereas circumstances in pre-WWII Poland prevented him from being schooled beyond the fifth grade. Born in 1928, his family were devout Orthodox Jews in their community before scampering for their very lives, hiding or fighting as partisans to survive and avoid capture and certain death. All would fail, except Morris – the sole survivor.
Morris was a warrior. When the war was over, he accepted a home in Israel and joined the Israeli Army to fight for its independence in 1948, as a 19 year old.
In Israel he met and was charmed and swept off his feet by the beautiful and loving Michelle Stein – also in the Army. She became his endlessly devoted wife of 65 years and the mother of their 3 children.
Through the years they faced many challenges and set multiple examples for their children – who with no exception, love them dearly, and Morris has unquestionably earned being called their hero – their surviving hero.
He survived a robbery attempt at gunpoint in one of his two grocery/meat-market businesses. Ill-advised, he grabbed the robber’s gun and beat him to a pulp – to the dismay of all of us – and to the cheers of justice long before in-store videos were invented.
He earned every dollar he made through hard-work, rallying his family to work together and help in every way, and through a business acumen made up of avoiding waste, offering customers quality meat and service and enjoying his relationship with customers and those whom he purchased goods from – be it grocery warehouses, meat-packers, chicken and egg farms. But most of all he enjoyed bantering and kidding around with his customers. And if you watched, you could see how they so enjoyed him as well.
What a sense of humor he had. We can recall his favorite jokes. A customer would ask for a special meat cut and specify “extra lean” to which he would reply “do you want it to lean to the right, or lean to the left?” Or if the customer shared one of their jokes, Morris would ask if they ate eggs for breakfast that morning – to which they replied “No, why?” and he would always answer: “Because you’re full of yolks (where “yolks” is spoken as sounding like “jokes”).
Today, his children – Jack, Betty and Harry – are a chip off that same block. How we so enjoy the gift of gab to anyone that will listen. All of us work in service oriented positions where we understand what Dad taught us: “the customer is your friend and is always right and make them happy”. He did.
Dad survived the painful death of two dogs we all loved dearly. One of us, recalls driving with compassionate Morris to take our beloved dog Venny to die in the veterinarian’s hands. And one of us recalls joining dad to take his and mom’s dear 17-yr old hand-fed and crippled dog named Sonny (under Michelle and Morris’s babying care in it’s last years) to the vet to be put down and out of it’s painful misery.
Dad survived the nuances and challenges of being married to his wife Michelle as he and she challenged each other with the ups and downs all married couples must endure. And still, he and Michelle set the example we would all need to learn – life is not a bed of roses, there will be disappointments and somewhere near the top of the list of who you could count on would be the person you married – for better or worse, until death do you part. To that end, he faced the last years of his life in pain and suffering from congestive heart failure and arthritis and the crippling pain it brought, half wishing it would end finally, but thankful his wife, his son Jack and Jack’s wife Rosey did everything in their power to keep him healthy, happy and treasuring the gift of life.
Dad also set an example for all of us – how to be resourceful. Retired by age 65, he spent the last 20 years scouring the neighborhood on trash-collection day — finding bicycles and lawn mowers thrown out, repairing them and selling them at a weekly flea market. The police knew him by name as did the upper-middle class neighborhood. By the time he was too old to do this, multiple people had learned to imitate Morris. This made all of us so proud whereas some would find it shameful. So Morris, lived and embodied resourcefulness — lived and embodied the sayings “one man’s trash is another man’s treasure” — or “to the victor Morris, go the spoils”. For those who are prideful, think about how being prideful is sinful and that one must never be too proud to beg, to respectfully abhor waste from an opulent lifestyle and to “make lemonade when handed lemons”. Morris lived his life this way and set a fine, fine example to all of his children and we are proud to call him Dad. Our hero. A survivor.
To that end, we all love our Father dearly and wish him well in his life with his Maker. We know he will have been rejoined with his long lost Mother and Father, sisters and brother in a far better place than this cruel world has to offer, as we all share and enjoy the gift of life in it nevertheless.
In lieu of flowers, donations may be made in Morris’s honor to a local Food Pantry of the donors’ choice to help prevent hunger.
Carolina Cremation of Salisbury and Charlotte is assisting the Stein family. Online condolences may be made to the Stein family at www.carolinacremation.com.
Harry Stein says
The saying goes, “youth is wasted on the young”. But my Dad never had a youth. He never had the wisdom of parents to socialize him, nurture him, stroke their hand through his hair gently, sing a lullaby — but still, by the grace of God my father survived an horrific Holocaust and certain death – literally dozens of times. His testimony can be found in the dictionary definition of “supernaturally-miraculous “ — those far less mindful of how God is always in control will call it “luck” or “coincidence”. That is utter nonsense and the reason I know that is because God has revealed such miracles in my own life or that of my children and spouse. Having a Father who experienced a lifetime of suffering was a part of a bigger plan to prick his flawed children’s conscience and teach us about forgiveness and empathy in our individually unique lives, and at different points in time – and as works-in-progress who admit we are flawed and try to dismiss sinful pride or judgment in our weak minds. My Father taught us, without prodding or solicitation, to appreciate the far more unbearably and unimaginably anguished pain he instead must have suffered for a lifetime – and that teaches some of us how even that is infinitesimally small compared to what God the Father above was thinking when he chose to redeem and justify the sins of all believers, past, present and future — by faith alone. Thank you for doing that Dad. Thank you for the comparison chart for suffering you brought clarity to with our own smaller sufferings versus the unimaginable suffering of our Savior flanking either side of yours.
I loved and cherished my Dad for showing me a part of the face of God through his love, his generosity, and his mental toughness. Thank you for blessing me my dear Father. I loved and continue to Love Always!
Your Son, Harry
Please mediate on Galatians 2:20 if you are led to do so. Can someone be so beaten down by such an horrific experience as the Holocaust and still, as a non-believer that my Dad claimed to be, still be justified *without* faith or being subject to John 14:6 (“I am the Way….. No one comes to the Father except through me”)? The answer, can, I think, be learned from Deuteronomy 29:29. That some of God’s purposeful and secret ways will not, cannot, and shall not be revealed. It can happen with children who pass on but are too young to discern the Good News. And if you reflect on my Father’s life, his public testimony, it can certainly happen to him. Like those little children God so often speaks of, Dad got a pass and deserved one. See you in Heaven Dad! Amen!
Sasha ( Betty's daughter) says
My heart broken & been crying am to pm for 5 weeks. for grampa. for grama. for my mom, for jack and harry, for the rest of family, for myself, for josh, for EVERYTHING ABOUT THIS……
I’ve called grampa almost daily & grama too throughout this.
I have a very special & close relationship with them.
Talked weekly!
I am deeply sad & hurting & and also at peace and know I have an angel to talk to daily.
I’m thankful we always said I love you to
Eachother and laughed every talk.
I have amazing memories of him, bbq ing
His meat market, him taking me to beach, talkin business, and just laugh in and telling stories and smiling.
I remember when I was little him and grama would scratch my back and sing
You are my sunshine and tell me funy stories & for some reason when he said the word spaghetti…I would laugh hysterically!
I know & believe he is pain-free and at peace and all of his family are loving and welcoming him and saying YOU ARE WITH US. WE ALL TOGETHER!!
he missed them his whole life. He GETS TO BE WITH THEM NOW AND CATCH UP!!!!
I have very deep awareness and connection to spiritual world & God and ANGELS are real and NOW I CAN TALK TO HIM ALL DAY 24-7.
our spirit are SO MUCH more than our bodies, our looks, our brain, or personalities……
we all carry his spirit in different ways. what a freaking gift!
I keep thinking of his smiling voice/ saying- u are looking good!
Smell the CHUNT? is sage ( his great gramdaughter) eating lots of hummus today?
A VERY Special bond my bro and I had with him. With my wise and funny grama too! Their marriage is a testimate!
way I am…I use pain for higher good….learn lessons, use the PAIN FOR GOOD….have to. others need that love & connection.
He Survived the concentration camp-,so that right there should tell you a lot ( warrior survivor thriver strong determined & amazing) but one of the beautiful things I have running in my blood from him—is to be truly- authentically -unapologetic who YOU are.
mind body and soul! All the time!
Keep it real! Be bold!
You would Never ever see or hear them him pretend or be “on”. he never did fake or keep anything in!
***never conform his values, beliefs, voice, way of life, decisions, how he dressed, talked, lived life-you name it—and his killer smile! Made you melt!
*****Celebrate you you you & inspire others to be that too******
DONT APOLOGIZE FOR WHO ARE YOU ARE AND BE YOURSELF. always.
He was a driven,strong, smart, extra anointed man who we all love and learned from! My tears mean that I have loved deeply and that is a good thing!
Turn to supernatural strength and faith and let God do for us what we can’t, at this time.
I talk to him everyday and see him smiling and watching over us all now…
Thank you God. I’m honored and blessed my grampa is MY GRAMPA 😉
Paul and Melissa LaCroix says
We are grateful to have known this wonderful man. We knew him as our neighbor. Daily he would sit in his garage and be fixing all kinds of small engines. He would wave and smile when we would see him. We would bring our two dogs over to say hi if we were going on a walk. Our son Jon mowed his grass. They had a special relationship. My son would sometimes have trouble with the weed eater or something, Mr. Stein would tell him, bring it over, I’ll show you how to fix it. This went on for years. After reading his story, we are in awe that we lived next yo such a special man. We will miss him. We are praying for his family during this difficult time.
Josh (Betty's son) says
I talked to Grandpa on the phone every week for the last few years – I made a point to call him, because he asked me to…I always wanted him to be proud of me and what I was doing with my life. Grandpa always made me smile and feel good about myself and my life. He always greeted me with “Josh, my boy…” and I will always be grateful for him, for what he had to endure so that I could live my life. I always remind myself how I would not exist if he hadn’t lived through the torture of the Holocaust and survived to have his children, and move them to the United States. My whole life is a result of his survival and decisions that set in motion what my mom was able to do, and now my free choice to live my life. I will always remember Grandpa and my life is a living tribute to him. I will miss my Friday calls to him, but I tell myself now that he will be with me always, my angel, always there to talk to and I still want to make him proud.
Anna and Jörg Andlauer says
Dear Mrs Stein,
Dear Jack, Harry, Erica and members of family Stein,
We are very sad and sorry to hear that Morris Stein has passed away. May our dear Morris rest in peace. We are praying for him and we are wishing you a lot of strength in this hard time of good bye.
Please, be sure that we will never forget Morris, what he went through in the Holocaust and what a strong and kind personality he was. We are keeping his memory in my book, our international travel exhibit and many of our our publications and we will tell the staff from the memorial site in Flossenbürg, so that all the participants of the next reunion of survivors (70th anniversary of Morris’ liberation) will all commemorate your and our dear Morris.
With our warmest regards,
Anna and Jörg Andlauer