Beatrice Fox Auerbach exhibit brings back fond memories for Hartford area seniors

By Alex Putterman

WEST HARTFORD – Until recently, Laura Crow knew nothing about Beatrice Fox Auerbach. She soon realized she had a lot to learn.

Crow, curator of the University of Connecticut Historical Costume and Textile Collection, first moved to Connecticut in 1994 and became vaguely aware of the G. Fox department store chain, which had closed not long before, but not of its matriarch, Beatrice Fox Auerbach. Then one day, a particular name, with 500 historical pieces in the collection attached to it, caught her eye. “I noticed that there were many, many dresses with the name, Auerbach,” she says. “It was the largest contributor to the historical collection.”

Crow learned that Auerbach had been owner and CEO of G. Fox for nearly 30 years until her death in 1968 and had been instrumental in growing the department store into the regional powerhouse it continued to be until its merger with Filene’s in the early 1990s.

Through her research, it became apparent to Auerbach’s relevance extended far beyond her contributions to a successful business. The Hartford native had been a pioneer of women’s rights in the workplace and a legendary philanthropist who had palled around with Eleanor Roosevelt, when not busy building the local community.

“I started realizing who she was,” Crow says. “So my real interest was in promoting a woman who was an incredibly forward-looking and early feminist.”

Thus was born the idea for what would become “Beatrice Fox Auerbach: The Woman, Her World and Her Wardrobe,” a new exhibit on display now through Sept. 27 in the Mandell Jewish Community Center’s Chase Family in West Hartford. The exhibit tells Auerbach’s life story through photographs, clothing and accessories.

A senior resident of Hebrew Health Care enjoys the Beatrice Fox Auerbach exhibit in West Hartford.

“It’s been fun putting it up because everybody has a story,” Crow says. “And everybody says pretty much the same thing. She was an elegant woman, a lady and a very, very generous person with very broad ideas, fighting for good causes.”

On Tuesday, Aug. 6, eight women from the nearby Hebrew Home Health Care, all with memories of G. Fox in the Beatrice Auerbach era, visited the exhibit to reminisce about a woman whose memory they openly and unabashedly cherish.

The women swap stories with Crow, sharing tales of Auerbach’s elegance and altruism. There was the time she paid for all refreshments for the funeral of her hairdresser’s brother. Or the time she hired an employee’s struggling husband to perform an accounting task for which she had no actual use. The tales range from extreme – one woman remembers Auerbach supplying down payments on houses for families that couldn’t afford them – to mundane – casually chatting with store clerks awed by her persona.

“I never heard anything critical about her,” says Mickey Lyman, who worked in the G. Fox hosiery department when “Mrs. A,” as Auerbach was often called, was CEO. “My stepmother worked there for years and was so proud of herself. [Auerbach] was just like royalty,” she recalls.

Paula Dunn had the Saturday morning G. Fox hair salon appointment immediately after Auerbach and is similarly reverential in her memories of the CEO.

“She was the most welcoming person,” Dunn says. “She was just a pleasant lady to meet. I didn’t realize what an honor it was to go to the same manicurist and hairdresser that Mrs. Auerbach went to.”

Then there was the attentiveness of the store to its customers, a Beatrice Fox Auerbach specialty. Auerbach established free delivery and a toll-free telephone order department, among other innovations. Day-to-day, she implored her employees to smile always and greet each customer by name.

Crow often hears raves from former G. Fox patrons.

“Several people have talked about the service at the store,” she relays. “You would go to the dress department, and they would fit you with a dress, and they would say ‘You know, there’s a really nice scarf down in the accessories department that might look great with this. Should I go get that?’ or ‘There’s a hat in the millinery shop that you just might really like. It would be great with your hair.’”

The G. Fox model of customer service, Crow says, has largely disappeared from the department store business. “When is the last time you went into a store when someone actually even acknowledged your existence, let alone made suggestions about something you might like?” she asks the women from the Hebrew Home. Everyone laughs. Apparently it’s been a while.

Through the Beatrice Fox Auerbach Foundation, Auerbach extended neighborliness beyond the walls of her stores, spreading her wealth to cultural organizations, hospitals and schools in the Hartford areas, as Crow. “Her generosity fed right back into the city. Rather than going into foreign investments or whatever else she might have done,” she notes.

In 1965, three years before her death, Auerbach sold her privately owned G. Fox stock to May Department Stores for $40 million.

“One thing you can be certain of,” she reportedly said at the time, “is that I won’t be spending it on yachts and horses but for the benefit of the people.”

Comments?  alexp@jewishledger.com.