1674-9 Jake Schreiber •
•
A Million Friends
• --And 27 . Mourners
By CHARLES WHITED - r•; 94''''''"' "Jake had a heart as big as
Herald Stitt Writer ''''` his mouth."
.) Silver Dollar Jake, a flam- He was credited with sell-
, ''' ing millions of dollars worth
hoyant 'Showman who rel- of war bonds, and button-
ished crowds, shucked silver holing legions of blood donors. •.
coins in a glittering stream, Among his mementos were
doted on the underdog and citations from U.S. presi-
had a million friends, went dents.
out quietly Friday. ' . Rabbi Mayer Abramowitz,
Twenty-seven peop ca
...(9i; ' of Temple Menorah, put on
his skullcap and mounted the
to his funeral. i— pulpit to deliver the eulogy.
•ppearance "Man is as a breath of
of Jacob Schrelbe wealthy ;„s;; .,rax ..: .. 4 air,” he said, "his days as a
ret feu-min-ft t eater owner shadow that passeth away
who died Wednesday at 72, Silver Dollar . • . It is.a sad moment for
had little resemblance to the the community in which
display which marked his • ••above his casket Silver Dollar Jake lived . . .
brassy, high-pressure life. . "I was s very young rabbi
of Jake's heyday as a cham- when I first met Silver Dol-
Instead of a Mexican ser- pion of war bonds, blood
ape and sombrero, he wore a drives and servicemen in lar Jake, In a little eynw-
white linen shroud and the World War II Miami. He gogue that was walkedpracinto y
drove, an outlandishly-deco- shed • . .n He into my
skullcap of his Jewish faith. carted Cadillac, a study and said, 'Hello chap-
In the big main chapel of pet macaw lain, I want your blood.'
perched on his shoulder.
Riverside Memorial Funeral : "It was a little temple, but
Ho e, 213•'thairs stood.emp- Sporting an eight-inch an awful lot of blood poured
`.// cigar, sacks of cash jingling forth."
Four sprays of flowers from his belt, oft-t Imes The rabbi spoke of Jacob
trailed by a retinue Or Schreiber the benefactor,
we.e banked around the blondes, Jake also waged who would turn his home
c a s k e t. Among the roses one-man warfare against into a shelter for strangers
nested Jake's favorite photo- slack morale in military hos- ' in need.
graph of himself, grinning Fltals. And then, as quietly as
out from under his sombrero. they came, Silver Dollar
The silver dollars, which he Jake's mourners walked out i
Pinned under the lid of the shelled out by the thousands, of the chapel, while the big
casket, on a red, white and won him his nickname.
blue pendant, was one silver grinning photograph among
t •dollar. It will be buried with As one old friend put it: the roses stood watch.
him in:L�etroit. --
His "Wife Madge,-a silent,.f
frail woman in black with
whom he spent his last years,
in theirmuseum-like home
on Palm Island, sat on the
front row of seats.
Beside her w a a Jake's
nephew, Edward Jacobson, of
Houston,Tex.
The others included law-
yers, businessmen, three
women who were old friends
from Detroit, two officials of
. the Jewish War Veterans, a
publicist, a politician.
Lawyer Fred Botts, 78, a
friend of 20 years, didn't
seem surprised at the lack of
a crowd.
"Jake was a peculiar sort,"
he said. "A most generous
man. But it was the lonely
/
and downtrodden that he
befriended. Jake went into
the byways and hedges to do
his-works."
As they gathered before
the brief service, th talked
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