Never too old to live happily ever after

By Mayer Fertig

Issue of February 26, 2010/ 12 Adar 5770

When Harry met Gloria two years ago he was actually visiting her mother.

Harry Katz was the ombudsman at the Woodmere Rehabilitation and Health Care Center, visiting a resident who wasn’t feeling well that day, Kitty Weinberg, who passed away on December 19 at 105.

“He came to visit my mother and I was there and he met me, and my mother liked him,” said Gloria Schreiber. “During our courtship, my mother said to him, ‘I approve of you. Are you rich enough to afford my daughter?”

Whatever the answer to that question might be, Katz and Schreiber, both Cedarhurst residents, were married Tuesday night at ChoSen Island restaurant in Lawrence. Rabbi Zalman Wolowik of Chabad of the Five Towns performed the ceremony.

“He was so funny. He mentioned my mother. The whole thing was so beautiful,” said Schreiber the next morning during a brief telephone interview punctuated by laughter.

“I’m not telling you our age, but if you add them together we’re 167,” she said, adding with a laugh, “How about putting in, we’re both past 70?”

Katz is an attorney; Schreiber retired from the Hebrew Academy of the Five Towns and Rockaway (HAFTR) in 1981 after teaching English for many years, before going to work with her late husband selling surplus fabric.

She was widowed 13 years ago; Katz was widowed four years ago — she thinks.

“We don’t talk about that. We mostly talk about the present and the future. Which is confusing enough,” she laughed.

Both have children and grandchildren; Schreiber has also been blessed with her first great-grandchild.

Katz is a past president of Temple Sons of Israel and a member of the board.

Both like to laugh, Schreiber said, admitting that she’s enjoyed the shocked reactions she’s been getting over her pending marriage.

“I went in to get shoes — “I need them for a wedding,” “Oh, who’s getting married, your granddaughter?” “No, me!”

The couple plans to take a honeymoon cruise to celebrate their marriage.