Today we’d like to introduce you to Miriam Center.
Hi Miriam, it’s an honor to have you on the platform. Thanks for taking the time to share your story with us – to start, maybe you can share some of your backstory with our readers.
I was born at 215 West Charlton Street, at the home of Eva and Zelig Richman, my mother’s parents. Mother said I was in such a hurry to see this world that I didn’t let her go to the hospital. Old Dr. Eisenberg had to rush to the house and catch me.
We moved to Jefferson Street, just one block north of Broughton, and stayed for enough time for me to go to kindergarten at Trinity Methodist Church, just across the street. I came home singing “Jesus Loves Me” and was scolded for singing a Christian tune. That was the first time I learned that even if I did something honest, my mother would disapprove, though she sent me there.
We moved repeatedly because my daddy lost his business on Broughton Street, and I began the first grade at 37th Street and went all through until it was time for Junior High. Richard Arnold Junior High, where I could flirt with the boys across the street, “The Benedictine Cadets.” Both of those buildings are now part of SCAD.
I went to Sunday School at B.B. Jacob Synagogue, got married there, had my son Henry’s Barmitvah there. That also is now SCAD property.
My longing was to live in New York when I was a teenager but when I came home for my sister’s wedding, I met Leo Center and immediately wed. I urged him into business for himself; he was traveling at the time. And was pushed out so his brother could enter the business. I was 20 when I married 21 when I gave birth to the first of three sons, Henry, who was the perfect baby and an amazing young man. He died at age 15 from a brain tumor cancer, and I have lived with pain and grief buried in my heart ever since.
My second son was Tony, now a practicing attorney and a granddad himself. His two children are my adult good friends this day, Jeff and Kristy.
And then six years after Tony, hoping for a daughter, I got Scott. An interesting, curious, and never dull for a second. He is a business executive and has given me a jewel beyond speech, Sofia. And a gorgeous boy, the second Leo.
I worked for Clerk of Superior Court in the old courthouse and then with Leo to start his flooring business. When I was pushed out of that, I started a real estate career, ultimately going into my own company. Miriam K. Center Real Estate. I started and sponsored the first all-girls Little League Team. The city named a ballpark after my son Henry. As soon as the girls beat the boys’ team, the city stopped the league. Oh the days of feminism and anti-feminists.
I ran for state senate and threw two men into a runoff. But the NAACP
endorsed me over a black minister. My how times have changed.
I restored a beautiful old house in downtown Savannah and was featured in House Beautiful for my daring to be able to mix modern and age. Which is what I’m kind of doing in my own body and head, come to think of it.
I was a pioneer in Civil Rights and worked closely with Mayor Malcolm McLean.
When none would show Gloria and Ben Tucker property in historic Savannah downtown, I, the Jewish, white, liberal woman to top it off, was thrilled to meet them and make them my lifelong friends. How we all miss Ben Tucker, his wit, and his music.
I was first woman chairman of the Savannah Metropolitan Planning Commission. They didn’t know whether to say Madam Chairman, Chairman Center, and I suggested just call me “darling.”
Feeling restless and curious and getting a divorce, I closed my firm, rented my house out, climbed into my Cadillac, and drove cross-country alone in my early 50s to live on the beach in Malibu, California.
There, I enrolled in University of Santa Monica and received a master’s degree in Spiritual Psychology. It changed my life, opened my heart, and freed me from old chains that bind.
From my studies at USM, I started a women’s spiritual group, Daughters of Destiny, which I took from Coast to Coast. Am working on a manuscript about it. Also working on two other books. Hope time doesn’t run out.
I began writing poetry and working for a local newspaper and started my book “Scarlett O” Hara Can Go To Hell.” It has been very well received and read.
I have written and produced a play Johnny Mercer & Me,” which has been seen around the state of Georgia and South Carolina. It will be produced and shown at The Lucas Theater in Savannah on Sept. 22, 2016. And we plan for it to make a run to New York after that. I want the women of this world to know that it is never too late to do anything you want to do.
In 2018 I was honored by the Savannah College of Art and Design as a “Woman of Vision. A large brass basrelief of my profile now hangs in the auditorium of SCAD’s Arnold Hall alongside the other honorees.
Looking back over my 97 years, I feel that I have led an interesting and fulfilling life. As Frank Sinatra sang, “Regrets I’ve had a few, but then again too few to mention. And I did it my way!”
I’m sure it wasn’t obstacle-free, but would you say the journey has been fairly smooth so far?
Being born during the depression, I heard my mother often crying about not having money needed for living expenses.
My father’s driving was a burden on my older sister and myself. He often tried suicide, and we could hear the older family members not wanting us to know.
Wanting to have pretty clothes like my girlfriends had, I would go from Aunt to Aunt during the week and gather clothes to have a rummage sale on the train tracks on Saturday. I was learning early on how to work for what I wanted. And in the long run it built a strong wave of working for whatever I wanted.
The hardest struggle of my entire life was watching my beautiful oldest son struggle through a brain surgery and his death at age 15. Hearing him ask, “Mom, am I doing” will haunt me forever.
Deciding to divorce after thirty years was extremely difficult. I made it and came out ever so much stronger and independent.
Thanks for sharing that. So, maybe next you can tell us a bit more about your work?
After many years of dawdling in politics and owning my own real estate business. I have written and published many poems. I have written for the Malibu News, Ojai News, and Savannah Newspapers. I have a published the novel “Scarlett O’Hara Can Go to Hell,” which has been said to be rather autobiographic.
I wrote and produced a very successful play about Johnny Mercer, who was a dear friend. It was performed in eleven venues in Georgia and South Carolina. I have been approached about taking it to Broadway.
Before we go, is there anything else you can share with us?
I am a good listener, perhaps due to my master’s degree in Spiritual Psychology from University of Santa Monica. No matter where I am or whom I am talking to it seems as if I get their life story mediately.
