Helen Ruth Shulman

05/20/2005

Helen Ruth Shulman, 84, of Menorah Manor in St. Petersburg, Fla., died there Friday. She was co-founder of the former Jim's Department Store and former co-owner of Jim's House of Shoes. Born in Boston on Nov. 1, 1920, daughter of Max and Sally Miller Lenhoff, she graduated from Jeremiah E. Burke High School in Boston in 1937 and from Hickox Secretarial School of Boston. She moved to Pittsfield in 1947 and lived in both Pittsfield and Gulfport, Fla. She and her husband, Irving Shulman, established Jim's Working Man's Store on Woodlawn Avenue in 1947. Their brother-in-law, Murray Levine, became a partner in 1952, when the store moved to Tyler Street, and the name was changed to Jim's Department Store. In 1967, they sold the property on Tyler to the International Union of Electrical Workers and moved to North Street, where they opened Jim's House of Shoes. They owned the business, now operated by a niece and nephew, until recently. Mrs. Shulman was a former member of Knesset Israel Synagogue and Temple Anshe Amunim, and a member of Shalom Synagogue of Gulfport. She was active in the Sisterhood and Hadassah of Knesset Israel and former editor of its Hadassah bulletin. She was a former member of the Women's Club and a former Girl Scout Brownie leader, both in Pittsfield. She enjoyed music, dancing, animals and her home team, the Boston Red Sox. She and her husband were married in Boston on March 1, 1942. Besides her husband, she leaves a son, James Shulman of Galena, Ohio; two daughters, Marjorie E. Shulman and Nancy L. Shulman, both of Pittsfield; a sister, Cecily Levine of Pittsfield and Gulfport, and seven grandchildren. FUNERAL NOTICE -- The funeral and burial of Helen Ruth Shulman will be today at 11 in Largo, Fla. A memorial service will be conducted Wednesday, May 25, at 7 p.m. by spiritual leader Barbara Cohen of Temple Anshe Amunim, 26 Broad St., Pittsfield. The family will receive friends at the home of Irving Shulman, 167 Holmes Road, Pittsfield, on Thursday, May 26, from 4 to 8 and Sunday, May 29, from 1 to 5. Donations may be made to Hospice of the Florida Suncoast, 300 East Bay Drive, Largo, FL 33770, or to Menorah Manor, 255 59th St. N, St. Petersburg, FL 33710. She also leaves two sisters-in-law, Ruth Levine and Jean Rudin, and a brother-in-law, Bernard Rudin, all of California; six nieces, including Joyce Abecassis of Pittsfield and Amy Levine, formerly of Pittsfield, and several grandnieces and grandnephews, including Ron and Avi Abecassis; a daughter-in-law, Jacqueline Shulman; a son-in-law, Frank Bonnevie; seven grandchildren, David and Jamie Finkelstein, both of Boston; and Scott and Michael Bloomberg, Jesse Shulman, Erica Bonnevie and Frank Bonnevie III, all of Pittsfield. Her greatest love was spending time with her grandchildren. Helen was known as a loving and sweet woman and was a very attentive and involved mother and grandmother.

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