The Federman's on their wedding day

WEST HARTFORD – Ruth and Murray (Moe) Federman marked their 70th wedding anniversary on Nov. 2. And the memories of that celebratory day in 1940 are still fresh.

The Federmans, each from families of six children, married on Bath Avenue in Brooklyn on Nov. 2, 1940. Ruth recalls that there were many aunts, uncles, cousins, and friends in attendance, and that the guests enjoyed a chicken dinner.

The couple moved to Hartford soon thereafter, and lived at the corner of Albany Avenue and Vine Street. Murray worked for a short time at Betty Hartford Dresses (Ralph Kolodney Mfg. Co.) before being hired by Beatrice Fox Auerbach as manager of accounts payable at G. Fox & Co. on Main Street. He left the job from 1943 to 1945 to serve in the U.S. Army Air Force as a radio operator, teaching Morse Code to fellow military personnel. Ruth took their son, David, born in 1943, to live with her family on 69th Street in Brooklyn, and traveled to several army bases around the country to be with Murray.

After the war, the Federmans returned to Hartford and lived in one of the army-surplus Quonset huts on Kane Drive (now Kane Street) near the Sealtest factory. Murray returned to G. Fox and held the position for some 40 years before retiring, together with Ruth, a 15-year veteran on the store’s first-floor sales force. After their daughter, Karen, was born in 1947, the family moved to Magnolia Street in Hartford. They lived on Mayfair Court in Bloomfield from 1955 to 1970; both children graduated from Bloomfield High School.

David graduated from Northeastern University in 1966 and received his JD from UConn School of Law in 1969. He is a founding partner of Federman, Lally & Remis, LLC, Certified Public Accountants, of Farmington. Karen graduated from the University of Hartford in 1967 and is principal of KayBee Marketing Resources of West Springfield, Mass.

When Murray was hired in 1981 as an accounts payable auditor for Howard Schultz & Associates, the Federmans moved to Tamarac, Fla. He retired again after 22 years with the company, at age 83, and moved with Ruth to Glenmeadow Retirement Community in Longmeadow, Mass. to be near Karen. “My parents were lovebirds as teenagers, especially my father,” says David. “He wrote love poems and songs to my mother, and later to my sister and me. He has always been quite the poet, and has continued to write all his life, even now.” During their five-year courtship, the couple would often go to Coney Island for dinner, consisting of five-cent Nathan’s Famous hotdogs, five-cent root beers, and one five-cent knish to share, which they would buy in lieu of a trolley-ride home.

In Hartford, the Federmans were active members of Congregation Agudas Achim on Greenfield Street. Moe served as president in the early 1960s and taught the Sunday school 9th grade for 18 years; Ruth was Sisterhood president and a youth group leader for eight years. She also volunteered for many years at Mt. Sinai Hospital in Hartford.

Ruth and Murray have three grandchildren and three great-grandchildren. “Importantly, they continue to be loving role models for me, my sister, and our families,” says David. “They have been loving friends and soul mates for 70-plus years, caring deeply for each other all this time.”

The family still sings one of Murray’s earliest love songs to Ruth, though David says that no one can remember the name of the original song:

When Ruthie looks into the eyes of Moe
She feels oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh you know
She puts all the other boys on the side
Just because she hopes someday she’ll become his bride
And they’ll live happy in their little cottage small
With trees all around them, so green and tall
Sixty-five for a living
To Ruth he’ll be giving
But things would be nifty
If they’d just reach fifty
And she’d marry swiftly … to MOE!

Murray, 92, was hospitalized on his and Ruth’s 70th anniversary, but will celebrate the milestone with family in January, the month Ruth turns 90.