On August 21, 2013, Trudy Goldstein celebrated her 37th year as a staff member of the Connecticut Jewish Ledger.

Trudy is as close to an institution as it gets at the Ledger. She knows every aspect of business at the Ledger and has grown with it into the technological age.

“Trudy Goldstein in so many ways is the heart and soul of both the Connecticut and Massachusetts Jewish Ledgers,” says Ledger publisher N. Richard Greenfield. “She has dedicated herself to making the Ledger an important part of every home it goes into and, at the same time, she is the paper’s historic memory spanning close to 40 years.”

A native of Hartford’s North End and a 1944 graduate of Weaver High, Trudy is the daughter of the late Julius and Sadie Weiner – owner’s of Weiner’s Men’s Clothes, a Hartford business chronicled in the recently published book Revisiting Our Neighborhoods: Stories from Hartford’s Past (2013, Jewish Historical Society of Greater Hartford).

She and her husband Alex raised their three daughters – now all married and the mothers of a total of six children – in West Hartford. It was when her youngest daughter was entering high school, that she decided to find a job.

“I played Mah Jongg with three other women and they all worked,” she recalls.  “When I’d say, ‘Let’s play another hand,’ they would say, ‘You don’t have to work tomorrow.’”

When she began her career at the Ledger, the newspaper was housed above the Crown supermarket at West Hartford’s Bishop’s Corner, within walking distance from the Goldsteins’ home.

The job was clerical, and Trudy did everything, from ad design to label-printing to newspaper layout. “I even took out the garbage,” she says. She remembers when the old typewriters were replaced with electric ones. Today, she’s a whiz on the computer, and her remarkable memory – she’s got an uncanny ability to recite addresses and/or phone numbers within moments of being asked – is relied upon by staff, as well as family and friends.

Today, after 37 years, whether it’s answering phones, selling ads or managing subscriptions, Trudy still finds satisfaction from her work.

“This job is good for me,” she says. “I’m greatly appreciated by our publisher and our entire staff. I’m surrounded at the office by good company and close friends.”